Blue Skies Over Union Square

Just twelve months ago JPMorgan Chase CEO and Democratic Party supporter Jamie Dimon was highly critical of San Francisco and its future: [bold added]

“San Francisco is in far worse shape than New York,” Dimon said in an interview Thursday on Fox Business.

“I think every city, like every country, should be thinking about what is it that makes an attractive city, you know, its parks, its art, but it’s definitely safety. It’s jobs, it’s job creation, it’s the ability to have affordable housing,” Dimon said. “Any city who doesn’t do a good job, it will lose its population — just tax more and more, it doesn’t work.”

560 Mission (Chron photo)

What a difference a year makes: JPMorgan to sign new lease expanding its presence in downtown S.F. office tower

JP Morgan will renew its lease for its longtime offices at 560 Mission St., committing to 280,000 square feet of office space.

The new term of the lease will be for five years in the 31-story office tower known as the JPMorgan Building. Real estate firm JLL represented JPMorgan in the deal. JPMorgan declined to comment on Thursday.

Previous reports show that JPMorgan occupied about 220,000 square feet in the tower previously, and its lease renewal represents a significant expansion in the building. Real estate market insiders say that JP Morgan has been working to consolidate some of First Republic Bank’s former employees into its 560 Mission office.

JP Morgan's new leases are just a fraction of the floorspace that First Republic Bank cancelled in 2024 when the latter was absorbed by JPM. Nevertheless, with the installation of billionaire businessman Daniel Lurie as its Mayor San Francisco feels like it has turned the corner. Restaurant and bar owners are optimistic.

Like Union Square used to be(Instagram)

“[The JPMorgan Healthcare Conference is] one of the best conventions of the year, and it affects us from the bottom up,” said John Konstin Jr., co-owner of John’s Grill at 63 Ellis St., which on Wednesday saw a crowd of conference badge-wearing patrons line up outside its doors ahead of its 11:45 a.m. opening. Konstin said that he brought former staff members back to work at the restaurant in preparation of the big week, which he expects will bring as many as 1,000 patrons to John’s Grill over the next three days.

“We are busy, lunch to dinner, nonstop during the conference,” he said, adding that the last six months of 2024 were “out of this world for us.”

“Business has been booming, and going into January with JPMorgan, I hope that continues,” he said...

“First and foremost, we have blue skies, that puts everyone in a good mood. But what I think is the important thing about today and this conference is what you see here (in Union Square): People sitting down and collaborating outside of the pressures that we normally deal with from our offices and behind our computers,” said Ali Tehrani, a partner at Amplitude VC, a venture firm in Canada. “This conference is really about breaking down silos, and what happens outside of the conference or in between sessions is critically important. You get to stress-test your ideas and concepts with another collaborator, versus doing it yourself.”

Lockdown Mode

After reading about it, I gave Lockdown Mode a try:

Lockdown Mode disables or restricts such commonly used tools and activities as photo sharing, payment applications and use of unsecured local networks—all features that attackers often exploit to install spyware through phishing attempts and malicious downloads.

Unsolicited FaceTime calls and messages from unknown contacts are blocked. Standard features of modern messaging, like preview links and automatic media downloads, also are disabled. Links to images or files appear as plain text URLs without previews or direct opening options. Popular features like Apple Pay become limited, too. When someone sends money through Apple Cash, recipients see only a generic notification rather than specific payment details. Payment integrations also become more limited in third-party apps.

Users can still approve access to trusted websites and applications for more flexibility. But in return for beefed up security, Lockdown Mode essentially transforms iPhones, iPads and Macs into stripped-down versions of themselves.

Accessing the feature on the iPhone is easy. Go to Settings>Privacy and Security>Lockdown Mode, then press a series of buttons to restart the phone.

The only drawbacks seem to be that there now are constant reminders to set Lockdown mode on my other Apple devices (iPad, Mac) and that the phone works more slowly.

Trading speed for more security is worthwhile for this non-power user, and I will be using Lockdown Mode when I go out of town.

Mange: the Last Straw

In California citizens with a license can hunt coyotes. However, the general rule is limited because firearms, including archery equipment, cannot be discharged within 150 yards of occupied structures. An exception to the exception is that an owner or his agent may hunt coyotes on the owner's property.

Coyote hunting may be further restricted by local ordinances. San Francisco, not surprisingly, bans coyote hunting and their trapping and relocating. Coyotes have been steadily encroaching on humans, and it would not be surprising if people who are worried about attacks on pets and children start pushing back.

Coyote with mange (Presidio Trust/Chronicle)

There's another reason to stay away from canis latrans:

Wildlife officials in San Francisco are warning that a rise in sarcoptic mange among local coyotes could pose a threat to domestic pets.

The highly contagious skin condition, caused by microscopic mites, can easily spread from coyotes to dogs, the Presidio Trust said in an advisory to residents. While rare, the disease could also affect humans.

Wildlife experts are advising pet owners to leash dogs and keep them away from wild animals and to report any sick or injured coyotes to authorities.

Your humble blogger senses that the pro-wildlife anti-urban branch of wokeness has peaked. The Santa Cruz wharf collapsed because repairs were not permitted during the nesting season of unendangered seagulls. Protection of the endangered delta smelt has been blamed by President-elect Trump for Los Angeles not having the water needed to fight fires. With their human advocates soon to be in retreat, wild coyotes' days appear to be numbered.

After the Fall

House rich, cash poor: the 3 cities with the longest
tenured home ownership have astronomic house prices.

We are in that fortunate group of Bay Area homeowners who bought their homes in the late 20th century. We stretched to make the purchase in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in 2025 our houses could well have a market value of $2 million or more. As I've heard many middle-class homeowners marvel, "I couldn't afford to buy my house today."

Some Pacific Palisades homeowners had similar good fortune but have seen it all disappear this past week:

The fires also wiped out the homes of Californians in the middle class who bought into affluent neighborhoods decades ago, when the properties were still within reach for teachers, plumbers, and nurses. After years of rising home values, many of them have the bulk of their wealth tied up in homes that are now ash...

Now, those middle-class homeowners face a crushing housing crunch. Los Angeles was already experiencing an acute shortage of homes. Its real-estate prices are more than double the national level. In the wake of the fire, thousands of people desperate for temporary housing are flooding a cutthroat rental market, where bidding wars are breaking out for leases. Some are considering leaving for good.

Then there is perhaps the most daunting prospect of all for those who have lost their homes: battling with their insurance companies to rebuild...

For those who lost their homes, much of the value of their properties is in the land they still own, but rebuilding on it will be a long and expensive process. It’s unclear how many homeowners in these areas lack insurance or are underinsured. A number of leading insurers have stopped selling new home-insurance policies in the state. State Farm said last year it would not renew 69% of its property policies in the Pacific Palisades.

From an objective standpoint these fire victims are not worse off than the poorest members of our society. However, their precipitous fall is frightening to those of us who identify with them. There but for the grace of God go I.

Judge Not

(Peanuts from Dominican Friars)

There is a disturbing trend of judging whether victims of natural disasters are worthy of receiving aid depending on their political leanings. There was documented evidence of discrimination against Hurricane Helene sufferers who were Trump supporters, and the internet is rife with worry that the incoming Trump Administration will withhold aid to fire zones that are Democratic strongholds.

Apart from the immorality of dispensing aid based on an individual's politics, it bears reminding that disaster victims, like the vast majority of Americans, pay the taxes that fund these government services. They are entitled to receive these services regardless of their political speech.

Finally, we should always remember that not everyone in an area leans in the same political direction. By broadly discriminating against the people who live in a locale because of their politics, you will inevitably hurt the minority who are on "your" side.

that ye may be the children of your Father who is in Heaven. For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.-----Matthew 5:45

Up in Smoke

LA Mayor Bass and Gov. Newsom tour the ruins of the
Palisades business district (Photo by Thayer/TNS/Chron)

Chronicle "reporter" Kurtis Alexander says we should go easy on criticisms of politicians for their responsibility for the LA fires:

If you were to scan social media for what was behind this week’s deadly Southern California wildfires, you might think leaders in Los Angeles and Sacramento went out of their way to push policies to invite disaster.

The mayor of Los Angeles cut the city’s fire department budget, one pervasive criticism goes. The fire department hired the wrong people, others say. The city didn’t fill the reservoirs that feed the fire hydrants, another asserts. The state didn’t send enough water from Northern California for the firefight, yet another criticism goes.

While the series of wind-driven fires that has blasted Los Angeles County certainly exposed government shortcomings, media experts are quick to note that many of the accusations circulating online are less about real problems and more about pushing an agenda. And some are flat-out wrong.

Should you care to read the rest of the editorialist's (not "reporter"'s) defense against accusations of poor water management (both LA and statewide), emphasizing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion over merit, misplacing budget priorities, and why we shouldn't dismiss climate change so quickly, click on the link above.

Your humble blogger understands that people have been overly quick to seize onto these criticisms but also understands that the Progressive ideologues who have run California for a quarter-century are responsible for that portion of the disaster that cannot be laid at the feet of Mother Nature.

And that portion will be significant, no matter how hard the people in charge will try to deflect the blame.

[Note: the Mayor and Governor's tight-lipped expressions aren't typical of sadness or concern. Could it be because they both realize their political futures have gone up in smoke?]

SF Public Toilets: Reason for Optimism

April, 2024: The $200,000 toilet in Noe Valley (Chron)

San Francisco was understandably mocked when a public toilet was estimated to cost $1.7 million. After contractors donated time and materials and specifications were scaled back, the toilet was completed for $200,000.

Based on that experience, San Francisco has streamlined future toilets and "small" public works projects:

Now officials say they’re able to build one toilet in Bernal Heights’ Precita Park for $262,000 — a huge savings. Officials said the project timeline will also be significantly reduced, shrinking from roughly 17 months to just nine...

The savings at Precita Park stem from the use of a prefabricated design and legislation around new cooperative purchasing rules introduced by then-Mayor London Breed in April that allow the city to purchase goods directly from suppliers. [Rec and Park spokesperson Tamara] Aparton told the Chronicle those rules changes mean the department can make several projects currently in the works cheaper to build, such as the new outdoor gym at Kelloch and Velasco Mini Park in Visitacion Valley and a turf field replacement at Raymond Kimbell Playground in the Western Addition.

Aparton said the cost savings for Precita Park’s bathroom should be “very” replicable across other projects.

Normally I'd be highly skeptical of their cost projections, but San Francisco officials should get the benefit of the doubt from the favorable outcome of last year's Noe Valley toilet project.

The Fire This Time

Palisades neighborhood (Swope/AP/WSJ)

Measured on the basis of lives lost (85) and acreage burned (153,000) the 2018 Camp Fire that devastated Paradise, CA is still the most destructive wildfire in California history. However, the ruination of Pacific Palisades, home to the rich and famous, is far more likely to change the future of California.

Pacific Palisades is known for its scenery, with views of the ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains. It is a quiet, secluded atmosphere. The neighborhood sits between state parks and the ocean, offering residents easy access to hiking and the beach.

While it is populated with high-end homes and gated communities, there is also a small, walkable downtown with boutiques and cafes. Celebrities who have bought homes in the area include Reese Witherspoon, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garnerand Steven Spielberg...

The typical home value in Pacific Palisades is $3.4 million. Sixteen homes on the market are priced at $10 million or more in Pacific Palisades, according to Zillow. In neighboring Brentwood, 18 properties meet that threshold.

When the rich and famous encounter the California government's multi-year delays in granting rebuilding permits, that may well be the proverbial straw that breaks the back of Progressive dominance in government. Add to that the difficulties in finding homeowners' insurance and the incompetence in water management and wildfire prevention, the conflagration that engulfed Pacific Palisades may well start a metaphorical fire in the halls of Sacramento.

U.S. Master Tax Guide

I have ordered a copy of the U.S. Master Tax Guide nearly every year. It's a handy one-volume guide to tax law; on the back cover publisher Wolters Kluwer calls the 944-page tome "the tax professional's quick reference."

Real tax professionals disdain the MTG. Their libraries contain the Internal Revenue Code, the Regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, and court cases. Combined with a research service or two, a full set of publications would cover an entire wall. All the information is available through online subscriptions, so an extra wall is no longer required.

As for me, I like riffling through pages to look up stuff, so I will continue to get a hard copy of the U.S. Master Tax Guide. It reminds me of how it used to be in the old days, and yes, I am no longer a "real" tax professional.

High Electricity Rates: the Policies Californians Voted For

(Photo from CalMatters)

California's push toward clean energy has resulted in the second highest electricity rates (behind Hawaii) in the nation: [bold added]

“California’s electricity rates are among the highest in the country,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported. “On average, residential electricity rates in California are close to double those in the rest of the nation.”

The increase in electricity bills has been nothing short of shocking, especially when compared with the overall inflation rate.

“Average residential electricity rates in California have grown faster than inflation in recent years, rising by about 47% over the four-year period from 2019 through 2023 compared to overall growth in prices of about 18%,” according to the report from the Legislative Analyst, a nonpartisan group that provides the state Legislature with advice and information.

The report blames:

— significant and increasing wildfire-related costs.

— the state’s ambitious greenhouse gas reduction programs and policies.

— differences in utility operational structures and services territories.

These causes are the result of man-made policies, which means that California is getting in the way of its own green ambitions. High electricity prices discourage drivers from turning in their gas-powered cars, and homeowners from switching out their natural-gas furnaces, stoves, and water heaters. (For the record I'm not getting rid of my fossil-fueled cars and appliances unless they can't be fixed.)

They shouldn't be too upset because Californians are getting the policies they voted for.

The 12th Day of Christmas (Reprise)

Now that Congress has certified the election of Donald Trump, normalcy has begun to return to January 6th. Perhaps in a decade or so, the events of four years ago will have receded to history's dustbin, where they belong. Knowing that the events of that day will pass, I wrote this on January 6, 2021.

Da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi (unfinished)

Brittanica: [bold added]

Epiphany, also called Feast of the Epiphany, Theophany, or Three Kings’ Day, (from Greek epiphaneia, “manifestation”), Christian holiday commemorating the first manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, represented by the Magi, and the manifestation of his divinity, as it occurred at his baptism in the Jordan River and at his first miracle, at Cana in Galilee.

Epiphany is one of the three principal and oldest festival days of the Christian church (the other two are Easter and Christmas). Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and other Western churches observe the feast on January 6, while some Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Epiphany on January 19, since their Christmas Eve falls on January 6.

A half-century ago churches held services on January 6th no matter what day of the week it was. It was on the Feast of the Epiphany, not Christmas, that the pageant was held when the kids dressed up as angels, kings, shepherds and, of course, Joseph and Mary.

I've played most of the parts, but never Joseph. Joseph was not a desirable role to us kids--everyone else had better costumes or appurtenances like a shepherd's crook. As we got older we began to understand Joseph's honorable decisions when he found that his virgin bride was pregnant.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. ---Matthew 1:18-19

An angel told Joseph in a dream that Mary was bearing the Son of God, Joseph went ahead with his marriage to Mary, and the rest is history.

On a day when too many people have acted ignobly, give a thought to Joseph, without whom there probably wouldn't be any Christmas--or Epiphany--to celebrate.

Objects of Worship

(Lehman/SFGate)

Privately owned Mt. Shasta Ski Park has installed a 20-ft. statue of the Virgin Mary at its base:

Standing at about 6,600 feet on Shasta’s slope, the statue has become a focal point for discussions on the intersection of faith, culture and the natural landscape. While some view it as a meaningful tribute, others see it as an unwelcome addition to one of the region’s most revered mountains.

Opposition arose from the usual suspects: those with a beef against Christianity and those who view the culture as oppressive colonizers of Indian lands.

Ann from Chico, California, declared, “Keep religion out of skiing!!!! We ski to enjoy the beauty of nature — not to be preached at by religious NUTS.” Donny from Redding called the statue “an annoyance and waste of resources.”

Shawnee Kasanke, a critic of the statue who was raised near the mountain, told SFGATE the statue symbolizes a painful history. “These types of statues erected on sacred land represent the devastation caused by missionary colonizers and their disrespect for and attempted erasure of Native traditions, sacred spaces, and ways of life to many of us,” she said.

The statue could have been ugly and harder to defend, but by conventional standards it's beautiful. Pitted against the mountain, a statue is easy to ignore; to the critics I say go in peace to look at the thousands of trees, of which there are dozens of species.

(pinterest image)

Your humble blogger sees Mt. Shasta occasionally when driving to Oregon along Interstate 5. Yes, the mountain is an outstanding example of the magnificence of God's creation.

But it's hard to feel religious when one's first memory of the mountain's image was a drawing on a soda can.

No Congratulations are in Order

For decades boys' performance in school has lagged that of girls. Recent studies show that boys are catching up, but there's no joy in why that's so:

Girls have lost ground in reading, math and science at a troubling rate, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of student test scores across the country.

Since 2019, girls’ test scores have dropped sharply, often to the lowest point in decades. Boys’ scores have also fallen during that time, but the decline among girls has been more severe. Boys now consistently outperform girls in math, after being roughly even or slightly ahead in the years before 2020. Girls still tend to perform better in reading, but their scores have dropped closer to boys.

The findings suggest that pandemic learning loss hit girls particularly hard in ways that haven’t been addressed by schools. The most recent test scores show that girls haven’t yet recovered. This comes following longstanding gains for girls and women in educational attainment.

Theories abound why girls seemed to suffer more during the COVID lockdown:

Shutting down schools might have hurt girls more because they tend to do better in school generally, said David Figlio, a professor of economics and education at the University of Rochester who has studied gender gaps in education. “Girls have a comparative advantage in school and you take schools away, they’ll suffer more,” he added.

Another hypothesis is that girls took on more household duties during the pandemic—including taking care of younger siblings—so were less able to focus on school.

Boys can catch up to girls by bettering themselves or because girls have gotten worse. When the reason is the latter, no congratulations are in order,

It Concentrates his Mind Wonderfully

Billionaire Ron Shaich founded Panera
Bread (Abramsom/Getty/WSJ)

If New Year's resolutions haven't been effective, try thinking of yourself on your deathbed. Ron Shaich refers to these envisionings as "premortems." [bold added]

It’s a habit that began as a response to the death of his parents in the 1990s. His mother was at peace with herself when she died, he says. But his father was “racked with regret and remorse” about decisions he made and the opportunities he missed. What he took away from their experiences was the last lesson that his parents would teach him—and the most profound of them all.

Don’t wait until the end to decide if you are proud of your life. Do it before it’s too late. Do it while you can still do something about it.

“I realized that the time to be having that review was not in the ninth inning with two outs,” he told me. “It was in the seventh inning, the fifth inning and third inning.”

Ron Shaich did not invent the term:

In business, the concept of the premortem was coined by cognitive psychologist Gary Klein, and the late Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman called it “a brilliant idea.” The goal is to identify all the potential sources of failure on a project to improve the chances of success—to imagine how and why things might go wrong instead of explaining after they have gone wrong. “So that the project can be improved,” as Klein once put it, “rather than autopsied.

A premortem can focus the mind better than composing yet another list of resolutions.

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.--Samuel Johnson

California's High Home Prices in the 1970's

California home prices achieved separation
from the rest of the U.S. in the 1970's (psmag)

One aspect of Jimmy Carter's Presidency of which I was unaware:

Carter’s presidency was No. 1 for California home-price gains

During Carter’s four years in the Oval Office, California home prices jumped 90%, as measured by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. No presidential term since Carter’s has produced a larger California home-price surge.

High housing prices are not unequivocally good; they benefit sellers but hurt buyers, and with sizable numbers on both sides politicians should try to cater to both (e.g., lower taxes on capital gains, faster permitting).

In California during Jimmy Carter's term, the State government was a huge beneficiary of the runup in home prices. Property taxes were ad valorem, i.e. based on the market value of homes, and had increased dramatically. There were numerous widely accepted anecdotes (though extrapolation would be unreliable because sellers did not have to disclose their motivation) of fixed-income seniors who were forced to sell their homes due to property tax increases. State legislators made no move either to lower taxes or rebate surpluses. The stage was set for Proposition 13.

From the State Board of Equalization's 2018 California Property Tax - An Overview:

On June 6, 1978, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13, a property tax limitation initiative. This amendment to California’s Constitution was the taxpayers’ collective response to dramatic increases in property taxes and a growing state revenue surplus of nearly $5 billion. Proposition 13 rolled back most local real property, or real estate, assessments to 1975 market value levels, limited the property tax rate to 1 percent plus the rate necessary to fund local voter-approved bonded indebtedness, and limited future property tax increases.

The home-price increases during the term of President Carter are an interesting phenomenon but are historically important because they spawned a nationwide taxpayer revolt that still echoes in the politics of today.