product, facing, rates, and timing. with that, i like to have them make a presentation to you of the findings from our survey. >> think you, members of the commission. i am a partner at the community research firm. i will walk through a series of highlights from a customer survey that we recently completed and talk about some of their implications. i would be happy to answer any questions you have on it. of like to start with a brief methodology of the survey. we began with three interviews with randomly selected customers. and we stratified the sample based on the rates that each of the individual customers somewhat in. so we over sampled customers in four and five, the highest amount of electricity usage and the highest electricity bills. he's make a relatively small share of the customer base. the impact on the rate is potentially higher, he wanted to make sure that we would be able to speak definitively about some of their opinions. the overall margin of era -- a margin of error is about 5 1/7%. i would like to begi

the ratings agencies have been busy over the last year so. it cut the sovereign rating is aa to a. credit from dree funds make up about 1/3 of bank assets. the agency fears it could have negative consequences. the country itself is struggling with growth. we'll be taking a closer look later in the program. >> a swedish woman has died from the e coli bacteria that contaminated the food supply. it brings the number of deaths as mainly affected germany. they were contaminated with spanish cucumbers imported to germany. the vegetable did not carry the bacteria. the german media and is usually restrained when it comes to the private lives of celebrities. the trial of a prominent swiss whether forecaster was accused of rape by an ex-girlfriend. he was acquitted today, but the case has raised serious questions about the role of the media. >> tuesday's verdict marked the end of the trial had the end of a feeding frenzy in germany. his private life has been laid bare. observers questioned with the judges would be able to act independently. been quite un scrupulous. i think it is sometimes o

, you don't pay the base rate. you have to go into the rate calculator and determine what percentage comes off your percentage rate based on what your diversion capacity is. we were informed that the average commercial business in san francisco has approximately 50% capacity. that was the reason we used the 50%. >> and then in terms of verifying that information from business groups, had that been done, or was that gathered from the department of the environment? >> that was gathered from the department and talking with ricology. it was based on their indication to us for how much capacity for diversion the average commercial business has. >> and did you look at the medology for how that diversion rate figure was established? was that an assumption you got from the department of environment as well? >> the 50% comes right off your rate calculator that is on your website that a commercial business uses to determine what their actually rate is going to be. supervisor avalos: so the business will kl collate what their

but the tax rate, that is why i said that tax rates raising would be a terrible mistake at this time. >> mr. mulvaney is recognized. >> i will continue on what the congresswoman was talking about. it seems it cannot find some malaria -- similarity of opinion. this is a graph that shows two of a disparate you will see a redline that shows the federal revenue as a percentage of gdp and a blue line that shows the top tax rate. as you can say, several of you may be familiar with this graph, over the course of the last 60-odd years, the federal government has taken between 50% and 20% of gdp -- 15% and 20% of gdp. but while the revenue was fairly stable, tax rates were all over the map. as we talked about the importance of having a mix between spending reductions and tax increases, i did not hear anybody clamoring for dramatic increases in the income tax. i heard dr. stone mentioned tax expenditures, dr. hassett, i think you've done work on other fiscal consolidation is the focus on tax increases on consumption as opposed to productivity. i am looking for some consensus that as we look at

why not lower rates for everybody? give everybody the same shot at the rate. this comes in in criminally.

>> those rates, which i did, the higher rates really reflect the parking. we have a side business in truck parking. very few places in the city you can park 16 wheeler's. it is really more of a correction in pier 80. the average tenants are about $1.25 per square foot. that is a matter of controlling the lot. we believe if you are paying $1.25 per square foot, $185 for a parking space may be part of it is to keep that business in the city. we think $40 is more in line with the market. whereas, by way of example, pier 9 we have a high occupancy rate and we charge $360. >> so pier 80, the use requires you to arrive in your vehicle? >> no public trash -- no public transportation. >> pier 9 is covered office space, right at your front door, premium parking. >> i think the rate should go higher. >> next year. did that answer your question, commissioner? >> is there any public comment on this item? ok, thank you. >> item 10 a., request authorization for award of a contract for professional services for master planning and preliminary design of the proposed pier 7

rate those funds. we are people on the way jumping up and down in morning. so there are some heroes in the book. i'm glad you said that. >> you make a very strong case for the central role of housing policy as factors in the crisis, but i haven't been able to understand how a housing policy, the private investment banks could go bankrupt. it seems to me that when there and laymen what bankrupt, that it seemed the there is a lot of mere incompetence possibly malfeasance and behavior of those institutions and many others that contributed to the failure of those institutions. i see no obvious causal connection from the housing policies. i wondered what your theory of those mistakes is. >> certainly bear stearns was a huge player in the mortgage market to overseas firms were allowed to take on, which was something henry paulson importuned the fcc to allow, was to increase leverage these firms could take on their books. and that really let them down the path because only a small loss really was magnified by

so we avoid rate shock by inadvertently raising rates too much in any given year, and those are for the current year water enterprise. if you look at the side view of that, you will see that over the next five years, our budget is going to grow to a projected $543 million, about $200 million. 85 percent of that is debt load. that is the story of the water department, issuing debt and paying it off. other than the debt service, you're talking a 50% increase in the other items related to the water department. one of the things you should be aware of and somewhat concerned about is that we are able to issue debt because we have a decent fund balance. it assures people that when the debt is due, we will be paying off. notice in your 2011 -- year 2011 test well, the -- notice in year 2015-2016, the budget is about $50 billion. we need to continue to raise rates and have everything -- a flat budget for everything other than debt to make sure we cover debt and continue to issue it and keep a double a rating. i 2015-2016, $23 million is barely enough to do it, but we do not want to raise rates

it adjusts tiers and changing care rates, low income rates and the like. the main big change that will have the most significant effect on cca's is the implementation of a conservation incentive charge that would be applied to a different part of the bill than it currently is approached. currently as customers increase their usage, the per kill watt hour residential rate increases as they move up in blocks and tiers of usage. that is appearing on the customer's generation side of the ball. the decision from the 26th would say as of july 1st, 2012, the generation rate would remain flat. so no the maer how many kill watt hours you use, you will pay the same kill watt charge. but it would be captured in a different part of the bill. between the end of june and beginning of july, a residential customer, their bill wouldn't necessarily change, but where the charges would be appearing on their bills would change. the reason i am mentioning that is it is very rely vent for -- very well rant for our program. the one part of the program that we would be affecting i

they slowed down the growth rate. but we still added more than a million jobs in the private sector in the last six months. we've added more than 2 million jobs over the last 15 months. and that's been relatively broad-based. so i think that the trends are what matters. there is always going to be bumps in the road but, you know, we've got to just keep the economy growing. >> the market's pricing in or seems to be signaling that there might be a risk of a dip back into recession. how real is that? >> this is not a double dip recession. i don't think the market is pricing that in. i think the fact that we've added a million jobs in the last six months looks nothing like a double dip recession. most of the private forecasters are seeing a fairly strong rebound in the second half of the year. >> but are the tools to do more about job growth, are they off the table. the standard tools seem to be more from the fed or more fiscal spending or more kind of tax cuts. are those all off the table right now? >> well, look, the go

they want to maintain the historic rate -- below historic rates of housing production in the area. we would encourage your support for the fact that it is good policy, but also in general. you can lock the whole neighborhood down and create no change, which is what most neighborhoods do. the other option in the neighborhood is "we are not going to allow you to control any aspects of the process." i think the balance being struck here is a reasonable one. i urge support. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is angelica. i am here to ask for your support for this resolution to pass. from the payroll tax ordinance, i recall a presentation about the displacement issue and that western soma will take care of that. as you know, that plan has not passed yet. this resolution will provide that leverage to ensure the community will not be displaced and there will be balanced growth in our neighborhood. sorry. i was running and i am out of breath. we feel this resolution and the plan itself is well thought out, well balanced, and has community input and different interests. ther

fertility rates have dropped throughout europe, but in southern europe, the rates are lowest, with italy averaging 1.3 children per woman. low birth rates are brought about by a combination of factors. some are common to many countries, and this program will look at how italy in particular has been affected by these. we'll also look at some factors that are specific to the very low fertility rates in italy. probably the most significant factor that has influenced fertility rates in europe has been industrialization. industrialization has brought more people into urban areas and encouraged more materialistic life styles. in northern european countries, this process took place over a long period. the important difference for italy was that industrialization came later and much faster. [man] in some countries, the urbanization process had been following the first stages of industrialization during even the 18th century. in italy, the industrialization started at the beginning of the present century, but real intensive industrialization, real diffused industrialization was only possible afte

not rate those loans. so we had people along the way who were jumping up and down and warning, so there are some heros in the book, i'm glad to say. >> thank you. >> you make a very strong case for the central role of housing policy and the behavior of the gses as factors in the build-up to the crisis, but i have never been able to understand how a housing policy leads private investment banks to go bankrupt. it seems to me that when bear and lehman went bankrupt, that it seemed like there was a lot of mere incompetence or possibly malfeasance in the behavior of those institutions and many others that contributed to the failure of those institutions. i see no obvious causal connection from the housing policies to mistakes in investment banks. i wondered what your theory of those mistakes is. >> well, certainly, bear stearnss was a huge player in the mortgage market, and the fact that the leverage that these firms were allowed to take on which was something that henry paulson, um, inpor tuned the sec to all

among the 100 companies with satisfactory safety ratings, only to have ratings in categories. h.r. 873 would require that every motor coach company receives a safety rating within three years. driver fatigue and violation of federahours of service rules are common. is time that we revise the hours

that says yes to a flat generation rate but does not implement it for some time. it looks most likely to be one year from now. if we want our program and began an hour off out notifications -- began an in our opt out program, the understanding among customers of what the pg&e rate changes will be should be clearer. we will not get caught up in the changes the customers are seeing from the pg&e changes when we're trying to market our program. that is my general presentation on the three program areas. i would like to give miss miller an opportunity to give the lafco commissioners and our commissioners her thoughts on the program changes as well. supervisor campos: can you say anything about low income customers? >> we are targeting our program geographically. we want to offer our program to areas of the city -- to all of san francisco, starting with areas of the city the most likely to say yes to the program and stay with it. the fact that san francisco is the verse -- diverse. the low tier customer is the average customer. we're seeing lower price premiums with th

you just heard our report about interest rate caps. will it really make a difference to help the economy if the fed goes that way. >> i think ultimately it would, susie. it's importance in quantitative easing programs to help asset prices that's been ben bernanke's main objective and the least controversial way is to keep interest rates at current level and that's what the call an extended period of time but historians and others like you just spoke to have also noted that over the past century more formal caps or ceilings have accomplished the same purpose. i think ultimately if the economy deteriorates we might just see a new form of quantitative easing three in the form of cap but not tomorrow. >> susie: you talk about the economy possibly d possibly det. are we in for another recession? >> i don't think so. much depends on the continued successful resolution of the greek and portuguese and irish crisis in terms of debt burdens. absent that i think the developing world china, asia, other strongly developing coutries in terms of grow

of all of our tax rates. nonetheless, it is an impressive figure to demonstrate that at least you don't want to be raising tax rates even if you're not willing to reduce them. after both ordinary income and capital gains tax rates were cut in 2003, individual income tax revenues were 8.1% of g.d.p., which was higher than the period when the ordinary income tax rate was 39.6% and capital gains rate was 28%. so, almost no matter how you look at it, you can see this relationship. and it's almost an inverse relationship. again, i'm not claiming that all tax cuts pay for themselves or that in all cases this is exactly the way it works out. but to assume that we can solve part of our problem by raising tax rates and especially raising them on the people who are most able to move income around to avoid paying taxes or minimize their tax rates, i should say, and who are the most susceptible to the capital gains rates and who are the people most able to invest in business and, therefore, help to create jobs, to sugges

the rate structure mirrors that of pg&e. in their initial phase, they have focused on customers -- they zero. -- their only offering it to customers that typically in the tiers 4 anad 5 ranges. they offer dark green service that customers can opt into. it is a 100% green product. supervisor mirkarimi: how much more expensive is that? >> mike campbell of sfpuc. the with a grain product is offered for marin is 1.5 cents more per kilowatt hour. it is one paying more per hour. it is the same structure. it is targeting the hired usgher usage customers. supervisor mirkarimi: are we talking about the same structure? >> pricing wise, yes. we are looking at bringing you further information about the other 100% green programs offered in california. we know that palo alto and others have the programs. compared to the other prices, marin and san francisco look comparable period supervisor mirkari. i believe the first capture was 9000. it may have eroded down to 8000. they have been operational -- tomorrow will be the one-year anniversar

it says five rate tiers you call them. you get a baseline rate at a cheap amount. you get another 30% amount at a cheap rate. this is your baseline rates, these two. but when you use more, you pay more. and what it looks like graphically is, boy, there is a lot up here. so these rates are where your big expenses come. if you're in these rates, solar can make a lot of sense. they go up very dramatically, 222 cents, 32. let's say we have a case study. you have a $100 electric only. that's $1,200 a year. after 10 years, it's $12,000 if rates don't rise. let's assume that rates rise at the historical average which has been 6% over the past 30 years. so let's assume -- i think that might be conservative, let's assume that. so that means that after 10 years, you'll probably have paid out $16,000 and your bill by then will be $169, $170 amonth. you would be out that much money and you would have a higher bill and look forward to, hopefully not, but probably increasing rent payments for ever and ever paying it off. can solar beat that? that's where you want to start. if it

-- >> the ratings agencies + 1 or t w zero notches depending on the rating agency. what we see before 2008, we had access to insurance, and there was not much of a rating differential. but now we see this and we see on average, 40 or 65 basis points. the next slide, this talks about the debt policy. the web site was done in 2004, for the board of supervisors and the treasurer. this needs updating, but basically, what we see is that this is used to acquire the facilities that result in savings to the general fund, and they can also be used when the general fund matches the money available, and it does not hold the transactions i mentioned earlier. this also applies to juvenile hall, and the courthouse. those of the circumstances we have used about this. the next slide, it talks about the processes and issuing debt. we have the delicate process with the consultants to give our opinions about the taxes in the project and the capital. we would not use these for operating expenses, we do go to the capital planning committee for approval, the board of supervisors, and the

that's going to go up as interest rates start to rise. right now rates are very low. lock those in by converting from an adjustable to a fixed rate mortgage. in terms of your portfolio the lessons are fairly simple. one, minimize your bond exposure, and second of all, think about those segments of the equity market that do well in a rising rate environment. historically, that's meant energy stocks, health care stocks, and technology stocks. >> what about housing? it has not participated in the economic recovery. prices keep coming down. do you think prices keep going down and how does that play into all of this? >> unfortunately, i think we're looking at a long period where housing's going to sort of bounce along the bottom. so in nominal terms i think housing prices are probably flattening out. if you think about them in inflation-adjusted terms housing can go down a bit more. and this is very typical of what you see when a credit bubble bursts. this is a very different type of recession. it wasn't caused by the fed hiking rates, it was caused by a burst in the credi

video games have ratings, of course, and we asked daniel sieberg to find out who does that rating and how they decide. >> reporter: tom sobolik is 14 but playing a video game intended for people intended 17 and over. "call of duty" is rated "m" for mature. >> i'm not looking far game that's obscene or vulgar. if it's a good game, i want to play it. most good games i find are rated "m." >> reporter: every video game is rated based on content, just like movies. but unlike movies that last just a few hours, video games often run 30 to 40 hours of playing time. games rated "t" for teen may contain violence but minimal blood. games rated "m" for mature may contain intense violence, blood, and decapitation. and games rated "ao" that's adults only, too graphic to show you here, have prolonged scenes of intense violence and sexual content. to rank video games, the gaming industry created an independent panel of about six people-- not unlike the movies. but it only rates scenes selected by the game maker. although the game maker faces fines for failing to disclose graphic content. and when we

if the housing rate drops below 6%, that would -- if the jobs- to-housing rate drops below 6%, that would trigger a conditional use. i cannot change this in one meeting. we are going to be having an interesting conversation over the next year. this is the first neighborhood plan coming before you. i know you have had some big one-of developments, but this is an entire community. the western soma task force is your creation, a creation of the board of supervisors. a few years back, when the planning department was trying to resound almost a fourth of the city in -- rezone almost a fourth of the city in a process called eastern neighborhoods, south of market pushed back. we were not a post-industrial abandoned area. instead, we were a vibrant mixed use neighborhood. we werere- zoned as recently as 1990 -- we were re-zoned as recently as 1990. that was the first real mixed- use zoning the city had seen. it worked very well in many ways. in other ways, live-work and business services, it was a failure. the eastern neighborhood process was top down and tried to impose a one-size-fits-all set o

and the top tax rate. and as you can see, i think several of you may be familiar with this graph, over the course of the last 60-odd years the federal government has generally taken out between 15% and 20% of g.d.p. in tax revenues. i think the average of the course of the last 50 years is roughly 18.5%. but during that period of time where the government's share of the economy was relatively stable, tax rates were all over the map. this is the top marginal tax rate. what i heard just a moment ago from this panel, as we went down and talked about the importance of having a mix between spending reduction and tax increases, i did not hear anybody clamoring for dramatic increases in the income tax. what i heard dr. stone was tax expenditures. dr. hassett, i read some of your work. i think you did some work on other physical consolidations which focused on tax increases on consumption as opposed to productivity. what i'm looking for, gentlemen, as we look our hand over and as we look at different options that

the owners are taxed under individual tax rates, not the corporate tax rates. the tax reform must include individual reform as well. small-business owners and hard working americans need a better deal. small businesses should have the option of paying at the corporate rate. we need a sampler and flat fare system. by campos -- proposed two rates , 20% and 5%. those that pay no income tax was day zero. after that, the first $50,000 of income for individual or 100,000 for married couples would be taxed at 10%. everything above that would be taxed at 25%. that is the whole structure. this would represent a 1/3 cut at the bottom rate and what it would allow people to say that build wealth and represent a 28% cut in the top rate and spur investment and job creation. in addition, we should eliminate altogether the capital gains tax, the interest income tax, the dividend's tax, and the death tax. there is no moral basis to claim a second share the same income. every penny should be yours and your children's, not the federal government. once we unleashed the american bu

the meter rates. i strongly urge you to pass this meter rate. it has been eight years and these were supposed be adjusted to the cpi and they were not done. this alludes to a greater problem within the taxi industry. any time i speak with anyone at city hall, no one wanted to deal with taxis. it's one of the most difficult industries to work with. however, i have been a strong critic of different issues on this agency, including contract in. but what comes to taxi matters, i must say there has been enormous leadership the ways i have not seen before. it means hours and hours of taxi town hall meetings for people to give their opinions. you will never get this industry to agree on anything, but you have allowed the industry to speak at these meetings and give their opinions. >there is a strong opinion that a meter research rate is due. i believe there are fundamental flaws in the industry that must be addressed in terms of service and i believe public service is not the high priority it should be in th