The San Francisco Experience

DNA genealogical testing is dominated by Ancestry.com and 23 and Me. MIT's Technology Review estimates that 26 million such test kits have been sold by these two companies. While their growth has been explosive, privacy concerns are growing. The sale of genetic data to 3rd parties is especially sensitive. And the open source genealogy website GEDMatch has even fewer privacy safeguards than the Direct To Customer testers.  Is your genetic data safe ? Where is the industry headed ?

In 2019 87,00 Californians relocated to Texas. And in 2020 we lost several iconic Bay Area tech companies to the Lone Star state such as Oracle, Hewlett Packard and Palantir. Podcast celebrity Joe Rogan moved to Austin and Tesla founder Elon Musk did likewise. The cost of living in Houston is 65% lower than San Francisco while salaries are 17% less.  Can California stem the flow of this exodus ?

When Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States on January 20, 2021 he will become the 23rd President in history to have Irish roots. 50% of our Presidents have an ancestral link to Ireland - that's quite a high concentration and the story behind it is even more fascinating.  Since 1945, 9 of the 13 Presidents have Irish roots along with 35 million fellow Americans. Talk about punching above your weight for the Fighting Irish !

Governor Gavin Newsom, California's 40th Governor could be facing a recall election in the Spring of 2021 in the midst of the Pandemic. Recall signature gatherers have 850,000 of the 1,500,000 qualified signatures they need to trigger a statewide election. They have 90 days to collect the remaining 650,000 signatures.  If he loses, Newsom would be terminated as Governor and a fresh election would be held simultaneous to the recall. Interest in the race has now gone national with Republican leaders like Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich voicing their support. 

Chesa Boudin, the 40 year old District Attorney of San Francisco was elected November 2019. He has spent his first 11 months in office radically transforming the criminal justice prosecution priorities for our City. But none of the changes is more controversial than his criminal prosecution of three current and former SF police officers on charges as varied as manslaughter, felony battery and assault. The Police Union has locked horns with the DA whom they opposed when he ran for election. Meanwhile as quality of life crimes are  not prosecuted more serious crimes like murder, car burglary and assault are on the rise. And the streets of San Francisco are a sordid mess.

As the 49 year old's net worth surged to $152 billion last week based on the success of his California companies, Tesla and SpaceEx, he announced he was decamping for Texas.  Seriously ?  Texas ?  California has its' fair share of problems, no doubt,  but isn't  Musk being an ingrate ?  Looks like he is biting the hand that has fed him for the last 25 years becoming the second richest man in America, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.  But like they say, it's complicated !

With two new vaccines and their 94% effective rates against Covid 19 pending FDA approval, light is at the end of the tunnel for the Pandemic. But will Americans accept them enthusiastically ? Or will they protest like rejecting the mask mandates and social distancing rules ? The Anti Vaxxer Movement and Vaccine Hesitant Groups are gearing up for a fight. They have shrewdly allied themselves with Church Groups, civil liberties organizations and civil rights associations to fight mandatory vaccination, while sowing doubts about the safety of a genetically modified vaccine. And Hollywood celebrities are leveraging social media - Facebook, Instagram, YouTube - to build opposition to the vaccines.

Not even a once in a century global pandemic seems to be able to slow down the rise in California's robust residential real estate market. The median price for a home hit $712,000  and shows little sign of slowing down. Low interest rates and limited supply of new homes seems to be fueling the price rise. At the same time over 650,000 Californians left the state in 2019 because of unaffordable housing and a heavy tax burden. Yet San Francisco for example, struggles to keep city streets clean and safe while its' budget doubled in the last five years.

Governor Gavin Newsom will get to name a new US Senator to fill the vacancy left when Kamala Harris becomes Vice President. The Governor appears to be in no rush to name a successor. While he wants to make an historic appointment, he knows that it is fraught with risk. In the last 56 years, two California Governors appointed successors to fill vacant US Senate seats in 1964 and 1990 and in both cases the appointees went down to historic defeats. There are five frontrunners for the post with one favorite. We will weigh his choices in today's episode.