San Francisco Mayor Lee isn't having an especially good week, with nearly simultaneous news of the imploding America's Cup real estate deal and the canceled new headquarters of Salesforce.com in Mission Bay.
In a feel-good photo-op on the Mayor's City Hall balcony Wednesday morning, Lee joined City Treasurer Jose Cisneros (above at the podium) to announce a new nanny state initiative sponsored by the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment, a group housed in the Treasurer's office that helps lower-income citizens with financial literacy. The initiative is called CurrenC SF (click here for the website) and its goal is to make 100% of San Francisco's employers pay their employees with direct deposits to banks rather than with checks.
The stated benefits are, "It cuts waste and pollution. It lowers your business costs. It empowers your workers financially, leading to more stability at home and in the community. Add it all up, and we get a stronger City." This might be so, but it's also unintentionally cruel towards older people, particularly women, who are being dragged into the digital world holding their beloved checkbooks tightly in their hands.
"...a new nanny state initiative..."
ReplyDeleteNanny state? You sound like Fox News or Newt Gingrich w/that phrase.
hi mike - that 1st comment was from me, chrisinsf, your old roommate. I don't know why it said, 'Unknown.'
ReplyDeleteDear Chris: Well, it is a "nanny state" initiative when the government officially dictates what's good for you and how you should behave. So let us reclaim the phrase from the right-wing demagogues, because it's useful and has a very specific meaning. Plus, the hypocrisy of the deeply dysfunctional and corrupt San Francisco municipal government officially lecturing its citizens on how they should run their businesses is simply grotesque.
ReplyDeleteNice to hear from you, by the way. FotoTales only has five more episodes to broadcast on Channel 29, and then I'll get a set of 52 DVDs to you.
Every government dictates how you should behave and what's good for you (e.g., traffic regulations; whether a certain food or product is safe or not; etc.)
ReplyDeleteI don't know about trying to reclaim it from right-wing demagogues, tho. I think it might be too late for that.
Hope to watch Fototales tonite and will look forward to getting a full 52 week set. (Congrats, btw, for the successful completion of the Fototales series.)
Dear Chris: Thanks.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the two examples you cite are public safety issues rather than personal behavior issues, a realm I wish the government would avoid completely, because it leads to such idiocies as former laws against homosexuals and current laws against smoking marijuana, for instance.