Paul Haahr’s Blog

I first moved to San Francisco twenty years ago. It was a different city then, and I was a different person, but it’s been a great place to live. It’s felt like home since just after I got here.

It was my sophomore year of college and I had been told to take some time away, grow up, and figure out if I really wanted to be in school. I had never been west of the Mississippi. On April 22, 1986, I took a People Express flight from Newark to San Francisco, paying $99 on the plane. I stayed at the Embarcadero YMCA, where I paid $20 per night. The desk clerk told me I had a room on the fifth floor and asked if I minded something facing the street; I thought it was fine, not realizing until I got to the room that there was an elevated freeway about a car’s length from my window.

That, of course, encapsulates a few of the changes to San Francisco. The Embarcadero Freeway is blessedly no more, a casualty of the Loma Prieta earthquake and San Francisco doing some sensible urban planning. The YMCA hotel is now the Harbor Court, which runs $220 per night, according to Trip Advisor.

I’ve had a bunch of different lives here: single, part of a couple with Susan, and as a parent; working for CalPirg or in Silicon Valley or as a consultant; renting and as a homeowner. Every life change has made me see new parts of San Franciso. In my early time here, AIDS and homelessness drove the tone of the city, which had a “we’re in this together” feel in those days. During the boom, geeks like me were (almost) the cool kids, though I never made it to cool kid. Now, as a parent, the awful state of the public schools, the frothy housing market, and the consequent flight of the middle class leave me depressed; at the same time, the physical plant of the city is better than ever: the new De Young Museum, the ballpark (which I voted against, but now approve of), Octavia Boulevard, the Ferry Building, and the soon-to-open Third Street Muni Line are all good things.

San Francisco feels more divided to me than it has before. There used to be some cohesion to being the most liberal big city in America, but now it feels like the infighting in local politics is dominating all the big issues. It almost feels like the city, after a long time as a forward-thinking place, has just fallen off the map.

I’ve lived and traveled elsewhere since I first arrived — back to finish school, some time in the UK — but I’ve been here for a total of about fifteen years of the last twenty and expect to call it home for as long as I can see.

Appropriately for tax season, I recently finished reading David Cay Johnston’s Perfectly Legal. The book describes the current state of the U.S. tax system; the description is of a no-longer progressive, mostly flat system which systematically offers loopholes to the richest while hunting for cheaters among the poorest.

Johnston covers taxes for The New York Times. I’ve read Johnston’s articles for years and I had expected the book to have the Times’s grand, objective style. It doesn’t; it’s an angry, muckraking book about what he rightly sees as an injust transformation. The message of the book, ultimately, is that the tax code is promoting income inequality.

Johnston blames the current situation on the power of the “political donor class,” the rich few who make the bulk of political donations in this country. That’s undoubtedly true, but I think it’s only part of the story. I think that the rise of an anti-tax ideology as the key pillar of the dominant political party in this country — and the attribution of Republican success to the party’s opposition to taxes — has meant that, regardless of how it happened, taxation doesn’t need explicit opposition from the political donor class anymore.

His chapters on the lack of enforcement of the tax code among the rich and the tax-deniers were, I thought, the most interesting and informative. He also goes into great and informative detail Alternative Minimum Tax; the AMT has been discussed a lot, but Johnston makes clear how far from its original purposes it is today.

The book does has flaws. The biggest is probably that it’s very repetitive. On the other hand, for a book on taxes, it’s not in the least dry — this is a book which should make you angry.

The question, of course, is how to do anything about it. As a political donor, it makes me want to give money to candidates who’ll fix the system, even if that runs counter to a narrowly-constructed version of my self-interest. But nobody’s even running on a “collect the taxes we’re owed” or “make the tax system more progressive” ticket — as Johnston points out, people run away from those ideas today. I don’t think the American political mainstream includes the notion that taxes can be done well; ultimately, I don’t think the country can survive that for very long.

About five years ago, I bought life insurance for the first time. We’d bought our house in the previous year and our son was about to be born, so it seemed like a prudent thing to do. I shopped around and got a good deal from Western Southern Life on a five-year term policy. For the next five years, they debited $19.50 a month from my checking account and, in case I died, a significant portion of our mortgage would be paid off; I thought we were both happy with this arrangement.

For reasons not related to my satisfaction with the company, I was planning on letting the policy expire. Then, earlier this week, I got a letter from Western Southern saying “The recent change in your Pre-Authorized Check payments will become effective with the next withdrawal from (my bank account).” Hmm, what’s this about? No “Would you like to renew?” note. No “Here are some policy options for you” call. Just “We’re changing your billing.” (Admittedly, we recently moved, and perhaps some mail was lost in the forwarding process? I don’t think that’s been happening, but how do I know for sure?)

But the stupid part is how much they changed: the monthly premium went up to $244.50. (More than twelve-and-a-half times more.) When I called to not-so-politely decline this coverage, I was told that, as I hadn’t called to change my policy, they just put me on one of their “standard rate” policies.

So, this company, which I’d had a good feeling about before, just became a swamp of leaches and con-artists in my mind, luring customers in with good deals and waiting for them not to notice the increased debits. How many people fall for this trick? For how long?

Why would a company that’s trying to build long-time relationships with customers do this? Don’t they see that this gives them a sleazy, fly-by-night reputation? Don’t they see that anyone they do this to will never work with them again?

We just saw Inside Man and I’m pleased to say, it’s a great, entertaining, and exciting movie. I’m reminded how much I like Spike Lee’s movies, from the early, funny ones (She’s Gotta Have It) and the overtly political ones (Do The Right Thing or Jungle Fever) to his later, harder-to-categorize ones (Malcom X or the truly terrific Summer of Sam). I haven’t seen everything of his, and some of what I have seen hasn’t been as good as I had hoped it would be, but there’s no question that he’s both a genius and an incredible movie-maker.

Inside Man is, first and foremost, a caper movie. And like the best caper movies, it combines suspense, great tradecraft, and a stylized look. On top of that, it captures the look and feel — and attitude — of New York (and real New Yorkers) in a way that only Spike Lee movies do; this movie was not filmed in Toronto.

Just go see it.