Not only are the rich not taxed fairly, they don't even get parking tickets.....

[marmar]

from the San Francisco Chronicle:



Oakland parking ticket policy called 'not fair'
Matthai Kuruvila, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, February 25, 2010

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Oakland parking officers were ordered to avoid enforcing neighborhood parking violations in two of the city's wealthier neighborhoods but told to continue enforcing the same violations in the rest of the city, according to a city memo obtained by The Chronicle.

The July order is corroborated by interviews with three parking officers, who said they and their colleagues had complained about what they deemed a discriminatory practice since it began last summer - to no avail.

"It's not fair," said Shirnell Smith, 44, a parking officer for 22 years who has lived in Oakland for 24 years. Smith and the union representing parking officers said the policy has resulted in tickets being issued disproportionately to poor, black and Latino people.

The accusations cast a new light on one of Oakland's most contentious issues during the past year. Desperate for new revenue in a faltering economy, the City Council in June increased parking fines, meter rates, hours of enforcement and enforcement in neighborhoods. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/25/MNGF1C6PT1.DTL&tsp=1

[Oregone]

1. Not to mention, they get killer interest rates on mortgages and lines of credit

I know a guy who had millions with a big firm Im not mentioning. He wanted to take it out after the first big market crash, so they just secured him a 2% interest line of credit as incentive to keep it in. He lost more money in the short-term, but he is eating at the end of the day and has a killer loan that costs less in interest than what his money is making him in the market.

[handmade34]

3. perks of all kinds

[sui generis]

4. that's not because he's rich

you can be "rich" and have a terrible credit rating and you'll get the 30% LOC.

The interest rate is relative to your proven risk and ability to repay - and some of those most basic "metrics" come from the ratio of your income to debt, income to payment, etc.

Yes, wealthy people are more likely to pay their bills on time or to pay their debts even if they don't have or need a job, thus they are more likely to pay cash anyway. The flip side is a lender knows that given the chance of earning 0 percent on someone who uses cash, and 2% for someone who is on the fence, 2% makes more money and 4% means that "rich" person will use cash.

It's not about a "perk" to "the rich". It's targeted business, pure and simple. The less money one has or makes, the fewer choices one has, because choices ARE usually someone's business.

[Oregone]

6. I understand the business part

But at the end of the day, if a rich person has enough assets to leverage to lower the risk, their cost of borrowing is significantly lower than a poor persons.

So if a rich person borrows the same amount (to buy some house), its likely the cost of borrowing will be half that than what a poor person pays (as a bonus, the rich person has the ability to buy a home that they can rent out). Thats simply how the system works. If their investment appreciates faster than the cost of borrowing (which is likely at low rates), they win by doing pretty much nothing (while a poor person may pay more in interest than their investment/house appreciates). Now the rich person gets to pass that wealth straight down to their child, and the cycle repeats.

Whether it makes sense or not in an isolated context, it creates a system of wealth disparity from one generation to the next. The longer this cycle continues, the bigger mess you eventually wake up to

[sui generis]

9. a ha see you're implying that everyone has a right to borrow

if someone has the right risk score they get to use money at some premium on the cost of money to the bank. Nobody is trying to manage social engineering from the vantage point of a business. When a bank builds a loan pool they're doing it based on project underwriting within certain bands of credit and risk scores, and each pool has a different cost of money for the bank to borrow, depending on its risk characteristics.

The bank doesn't care how much it costs the borrower to borrow (the "cost of borrowing"). All they care about is that they make some acceptable margin on the business transactions they conduct, and without INCREASING the interest rate the only thing they can do is reduce risk, by identifying it. When they've qualified it, the borrower ends up in one of those risk bands, subject that cost of money in the funding pool associated with it.

If a "rich person" goes to a subprime lender who borrows their entire fund money at a high risk grade cost of money, that rich person could be a billionaire and still get a minimum interest rate of 15%!

It's not a perk, but it does go back to having choices, which wealthy have more of, and exercising the right choices when choice is available.

About disparity of wealth. If you became a millionaire on your death bed, tell me you'd be happy passing that money on to the collective noble poor instead of your own spouse, children or loved ones? Tell me you'd be happy not having any choice at all.

[Oregone]

11. Im implying that the system is structured to perpetuate wealth disparity

Right, wrong, or otherwise, that will be the result. And the poverty that is the result can be socially and economically devastating.

[sui generis]

12. it's evolved

by people on their deathbeds or visualizing themselves on their deathbeds making seemingly irrational decisions for the good of their family and loved ones.

It's not malice or greed or sentient - it's an emergent property of the way our market works.

[Oregone]

13. And as I said, "Right, wrong, or otherwise"...Im just more concerned about the effects

[sui generis]

2. "the nameless faceless evil rich"

Were ordered by whom?

Bad reporting, bad posting, wrong conclusion.

[progressoid]

7. "Ronald Abernathy, a senior parking enforcement supervisor"

"...the parking department had deemed certain tony neighborhoods - Montclair and Broadway Terrace - off-limits from those two parking infractions. Parking violators in those neighborhoods were to receive "courtesy notices," according to a July 24 memo by Ronald Abernathy, a senior parking enforcement supervisor, sent to four parking supervisors and copied to parking Director Noel Pinto. The letter did not explain why the two neighborhoods were being spared from the tickets, which carry fines ranging from $40 to $100.

Reached on his personal cell phone Wednesday, Abernathy would only say, "I don't answer any media questions."

Numerous calls and e-mails to Pinto and City Administrator Dan Lindheim on Wednesday were not returned."

[sui generis]

8. so an individual made the decision? not all of society?

and all the rich people agreed that they too should have courtesy notices first?

Note, I think all cars should have courtesy notices first, not just "the rich", or their maids, gardeners, pet therapists, trainers, nutritionists and interior decorators. :P

[Bobbie Jo]

5. Pfffft...I've seen this practice first hand. nt

[Cirque du So-What]

10. I sadly report

that city government is comprised entirely of Democrats. Even when the supposedly egalitarian party dominates local politics, they kowtow to the wealthy. Mr. Guillotine is observing and awaiting.