False Profit Records and Flowtoys invite you to join us in celebrating the release of Ganucheau’s beautiful new album, Elements.

• Ganucheau
• Dr. Toast
• Evolutionista
• Palindrome

$5 cover, or $10 including a code for digital download.

False Profit Records, a subsidiary of False Profit, LLC, announced today a new partnership with the country of Poland.

Poland’s latest progressive success in Parlimentary elections — with an unprecedented 10% of the vote going to a new party supporting gay rights, abortion rights and soft drug legalization — has opened the door to new world of diplomatic relationships.

Forward-looking corporations in both Europe and the US are looking to forge ties with these new political leaders. Ahead of the curve as usual, False Profit Records already reached an agreement with The Polish Ambassador. While the two have worked together in the past — most recently at the 2011 Priceless  summit in Beldentown, CA — the new deal caries historical import.

Investors are encouraged to download the goods — for free, of course:
Tama (Mali) – Snimbe (The Polish Ambassador Remix)

The first product of the partnership is today’s release of a Polish interpretation of a vital musical communication from the continent of Africa. Early reviewers are calling the release “worldly”, “richly melodic” and, “damn that bass sounds good.”

In response to last week’s Burning Man ticket lottery fiasco, False Profit, LCC has created a new currency called BurnerBucks. The launch party will take place at the Company’s monthly happy hour. Each BurnerBuck is backed by one authentic 2012 Burning Man ticket, just as each US dollar is backed by a deposit of gold in the US Treasury’s vault. Which is to say, not at all.

“Internal research indicates that current demand for Burning Man tickets exceeds supply by approximately 5000%, creating a perfectly spherical speculative bubble,” said staff econometrician Brendan Burnspan Colloran, speaking from behind a veil of smoke. He went on to explain that each BurnerBuck is actually a contract for delivery of a ticket. The Company plans to drive up the price of ticket contracts in the short term and then profit on the inevitable crash in the long run, as thousands of veteran burners and theme camps are unable to get tickets and decide not to attend. What could go wrong?

To launch this new currency product and attract counterparties for the Ticket Default Swap (TDS) insurance the Company hopes to purchase and securitize, False Profit, LLC has invited two of the Bay Area’s top musical selectors to their monthly happy hour:

• Genji (Pineapple, Jalapeño, Onion)
• KAP10 (Eggplant, Tomato, Ricotta)

As usual, the $2 fixed price of Red Stripe beers provides a solid anchor in these uncertain times.

No Bank Guarantee: BurnerBucks Accounts are not FDIC insured and may lose value.

The False Profit Happy Hour

• DJ Chrysalis (Pineapple and Jalepenos)
• Chlorophil (Pesto, Mushrooms, Extra Cheese and Sauce, Bell Peppers, and Olives)

With the new year upon us, many are wondering what wonders 2012 will bring. A fire-breathing, tequila-pounding winged serpent here to lift us from our humdrum lives to an elevated existence? A more subtle shift in the energetic flows that guide all human behavior, ushering in a more peaceful era? Straight up fire and brimstone apocolypse as the 13th b’ak’tun ends?

False Profit may not have all the answers but we do have a dynamite Equity coming your way to start the new year off right. As always, no cover, $2 Red Stripes, donation pizza, a bunch of your friends, and lively serpent-oriented conversation.

The False Profit Happy Hour

In olden times, people celebrated midwinter by cutting down the the largest possible tree and burning it: the Yule log. To our modern sensibilities this sounds like an unsustainable eco-tragedy, but back when trees were far more plentiful than warm places it probably made a ton of sense.

These holidays, we gather around the largest possible stacks of speakers to find some friendly warmth and escape the prevailing cold consumerist climate. No stressful travel plans needed. False Profit, LLC brings you a simple gathering and promises not to make you eat any fruitcake.

To help get you in the spirit, we’ll have some red and green themed pizzas. And as always, $2 Red Stripes served in their traditionally festive bottles will be available.

DF Tram (green bell pepper and mushroom)
DJ Unagi (jalapeno and artichoke hearts)

False Profit, LLC is honored to support MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) in their 25th anniversary celebration. We will be curating an Interactive Playground at The Medicine Ball on Saturday, December 10. Beats for the event include Mochipet, SugarPill, Ill-Esha, MiKHAL, VNDMG, and Michael Garfield. Details and tickets here.

You can also see the Interactive Playground the day before on Friday, December 9. This is MAPS’ prelude to the Medicine Ball, called The Kaleidoscope Vault. Details and tickets here.

Are you like us and still getting your head around picking three candidates for a given office? As people get used to ranked-choice voting (also known as instant runoff voting), its’ some interesting results.

In recognition of this new twist, we thought we’d state the obvious: Ranked-choice voting lets you pick a first, second, and third choice candidate for a single office. If no one wins a majority based on first-place votes, the last-place candidates are eliminated. Voters who picked those losers are switched to supporting their second choice, like they would in a runoff. This makes it possible to get a majority winner without the delay and expense of actually holding a separate runoff election. But it requires more work from you — it’s important to select a second or third place candidate you could support if your top choice were eliminated. To learn more about ranked choice voting, check out this neat tutorial.

If you need to know where to vote, look up your polling place.

Read on for the cheat sheet and our explanations for each recommendation.

Mayor
1) John Avalos, 2) Dennis Herrera

District Attorney
1) David Onek, 2) Sharmin Bok, 3) Bill Fazio

Sherrif
1) Ross Mirkarimi

City Measures
Prop A, Schools Bond – YES
Prop B, Roads Bond – YES
Prop C, City Pension and Retiree Health Care Reform – YES
Prop D, City Pension Reform – NO
Prop E, Initiative Amendment Reform – YES
Prop F, Campaign Consultant Disclosure – YES
Prop G, 0.5% Sales Tax Increase – YES
Prop H, School Assignment Policy – NO

Mayor

This election cycle has been difficult to navigate because there are many candidates who seem like they would do “fine”. In trying to put our finger what is actually happening, we stumbled upon Alix Rosenthal’s insightful identification of the zeitgeist: “It’s confusing… what do you do when there isn’t a polarizing character in the San Francisco Mayor’s race? Incumbent Mayor Ed Lee is widely considered to be the front-runner. He’s a competent manager with a disarming mustache and many years of experience in city government. He has also brought openness and a sense of humor to the office. However, he has a serious problem keeping his promises, some of his supporters have been accused of election fraud, and most agree that he takes direction from Willie Brown and Chinatown powerbroker Rose Pak. But he’s no wine mogul who sleeps with his employees, marries B-list actresses and hates the little people. Ahem. That said, there are several better candidates for Mayor in this race, so why settle for “Mr. Not-a-Douche”? Here are three we like! And remember: ranked choice voting will likely significantly shape this race. In order for a candidate to win they have to secure 50% of the votes. With so many reasonable candidates, that could be difficult for anyone to win simply from the first choice results. We predict that the next mayor will have a broad base of support so be sure to pay attention to your 2nd and 3rd place votes!

(1) John Avalos
Avalos is not your typical politician. His leadership style stems from his life as a family man, a public servant, and a community organizer. He and his amazing wife Karen Zapata, a long-time teacher and activist, have brought their story to the forefront of his campaign and we agree: working families should have a place in San Francisco! And he can get things done. As Budget Chair of the Board of Supervisors he has closed a combined $1 billion deficit over two years, saved hundreds of jobs and protected our City’s safety-net. His platform to revitalize our local economy is pretty awesome. He proposes creating our own local bank. Apparently, San Francisco has a budget of over $6.5 billion, which is currently held at Wells Fargo and Bank of America. He challenges the status quo and asks SF residents to consider the upside: we can choose where our tax dollars go and whom they benefit. Avalos will lead us in creating our own local bank, one that serves our local economy. His vision to leverage our tax dollars to provide loans for our small businesses, generate new revenue, and keep families in their homes is impressive to us. It stands on the shoulders of his lifetime giant effort to represent the 99%.

(2) Dennis Herrera
Herrera is best known for his court action in favor of gay marriage, including against Proposition 8. He was re-elected as City Attorney in 2009 with 96 percent of the vote. He is so good at his job that most folks wish he would keep doing it! Leading an award-winning law office for almost ten years has given him an opportunity unique in this race to prove his mettle for executive leadership. He has taken on powerful interests to protect San Franciscans. From negotiating the shutdown of the dirty Potrero power plant to creating hundreds of units of affordable housing in a groundbreaking deal with Trinity Place, he’s demonstrated an ability to take on the toughest adversaries and still work cooperatively to solve problems.

[UPDATE: We had David Chiu as our #2, but this post from JWZ convinced us to remove him.]

District Attorney

(1) David Onek
Onek is the only candidate unequivocally opposed to the death penalty. As a leader in efforts to reform the criminal justice system with experience in both policy and practice, if elected, Onek will be one of the most progressive DA’s in the nation. He opposes “3 strikes” laws for non-violent offenders and recognizes the connections between these laws and CA’s current prison crisis. While supporting long prison terms for violent offenders, he advocates for providing low-level criminals with rehabilitation services, such as job training and drug treatment, to get them back on track and prevent crime. Other policy positions include supporting foot patrols by police and opposing ban of sitting on the sidewalk. Onek has the broadest and most diverse coalition of support, including the Green Party, the Democratic Party, the Sierra Club, the California Policy Chiefs Association, and six of the seven school board members, who recognize him as the one DA candidate with a plan to keep kids in school and out of the juvenile justice system.

(2) Sharmin Bock
Bock has spent decades working on crimes against women and children, and has 22 years of experience prosecuting crimes and managing other prosecutors through the Alameda County District Attorney’s office. She has led the way in focusing public attention on and prosecuting the purchase of children for sex. Though she has good working relationships with police officers, she believes it is vital that the DA and the police be entirely independent of one another so that the public can be assured of police transparency and accountability. Bock may actually secure the preference position for some of us for District Attorney because of her amazing record in the court room. She just has so much more experience than Onek or Fazio. We would like to think that Onek’s idealism and platform of change could translate into structural reform, but if that goal seems like too big of a stretch for the constrained political climate, Bock would serve San Francisco with excellence and aplomb.

(3) Bill Fazio
Bill Fazio has a rare combination of experience. He was an Assistant District Attorney for 20 years before becoming a defense attorney. That said, we are curious if his style will fall prey to a pitfall we’ve observed wherein a defense attorney can sometimes be harsher in a prosecutorial position. That was speculative but perhaps interesting. Fazio hit the nail on the head trying to distiguish his candidacy from that of Onek or Gascón: it is “absolutely incredible” they have never tried a case. For those who are inclined to go with an defense attorney who has tried a case in San Francisco, Fazio is your man.

Sheriff

(1) Ross Mirkarimi
A graduate of San Francisco’s Police Academy, Mirkarimi has extensive law enforcement experience, serving nine years as an armed San Francisco District Attorney Investigator. Elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2004, Ross served twice as Chair of the Public Safety Committee and passed landmark community policing, police reform and re-entry legislation. And he is endorsed by just about everybody: Sierra Club, San Francisco Democratic Party, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, SF Tenants Union, San Francisco Women’s Political Committee, San Francisco Arts Democratic Club, San Francisco for Democracy, African American Democratic Club, Latino Democratic Club, San Francisco Young Democrats, League of Pissed Off Voters, San Francisco Labor Council, Senator Mark Leno, Assemblymembers Fiona Ma and Tom Ammiano, Supervisors Mar, Kim, Campos, Avalos.

City Measures

PROP. A Schools Bond – YES
If passed, this allows the school district (SFUSD) to sell $531M in bonds to repair and update school facilities. There have been two previous bond measures and this is the third and final in an overall 10-year plan that started in 2001. Things seem to be happening on time and under budget with the previous bonds. I believe the children are our future, etc. This measure requires a 55% majority to pass.

PROP. B Roads Bond – YES
Proposition B would allow the city to sell general obligation bonds to fund the repaving of deteriorated city streets; make seismic improvements to bridges, overpasses and stairs; and improve safety for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists. Since the 1987 street improvements bond, the city has made two unsuccessful attempts to pass general obligation bonds for street repairs (in 1993 and 2005). Now the Mayor and Board of Supes have placed this on the ballot as part of the city’s 10-year Capital Plan. If you can believe it, there is actually a Pavement Condition Index (PCI). Right now we are at 64; the bond proceeds would elevate this score to 66 by 2015. Though this improvement appears slight, it bridges a crucial point in PCI scoring: Repair of streets with a score of 63 or less can cost as much as ten times more than repairing streets with a score of 64 or above. The measure is needed to address significant deferred maintenance of streets and comes at a time when further delaying will simply cost us more in the coming years.

PROP. C City Pension and Retiree Health Care Reform – YES
Prop. C addresses many of the city’s unfunded post-employment benefits: pension obligations, unfunded retirement health care obligations and health care costs. Without changes, retiree pension and health benefits will take an increasing share of the city’s discretionary budget, squeezing out important city services in favor of paying past obligations to retirees. This measure will help close the gap by achieving $1.29 billion in savings over 10 years. Also, we feel compelled to give a shout out to the Mayor and Board of Supes. Congress’s failure to cooperate for the benefit of our country is despicable. This is a great example of representatives from all districts (very unusual) deciding to take a consensus-based approach chip away at a huge beast of a problem. Go good government!

PROP. D City Pension Reform – NO
We dislike this prop for the reasons we like Prop. C. These two must be considered together because which ever one has the most votes will win. Prop. D generates more, much more, savings than the competing measure on the ballot (Prop. C). It is an aggressive approach that is well-balanced in spreading the financial burden of city pension benefits between employees and taxpayers. So why are we opposed to it? The measure was privately drafted without any input from city staff, unions or other stakeholders. We’re not sure why Public Defender Jeff Adachi failed to ask a City Manager or obtain direct feedback through some other channel, but we would like to see a solution that makes this big of an impact happen alongside feedback from empowered workers.

PROP. E Initiative Amendment Reform – YES
There is a lot of progressive resistance to Prop E, which gives us pause, but on the balance it seems to us like a good idea. Prop E unfreezes voter-approved laws, which unlike other laws can only be modified by going back to the voters. This is a big reason why there are so many nitpicky propositions every election — many are tiny corrections to previous measures that are needed to keep the law up to date. Prop E gives elected officials more flexibility under terms that seem pretty reasonable to us: After three years, a voter-approved law can be modified by 2/3 of the Board of Supervisors plus the Mayor. After seven years, a simple majority can send an amendment for the mayor’s approval. If you’ve ever wished that some propositions just get taken care of by our elected officials, Prop E will help them do that.

PROP. F Campaign Consultant Disclosure – YES
Prop F is precisely the kind of tiny procedural adjustment that Prop E is meant to avoid in the future. Back in 1997, a great ballot measure was passed to help increase transparency around lobbyist activity. This proposition makes small adjustments, increasing the amount of money lobbyists must earn before they have to register (from $1k to $5k — small either way), while increasing the frequency of reports. It also allows the Ethics Commission to make more tweaks on its own, which is the main point of contention. We think these changes are minor, and they were requested by the commission itself, so why not? If they misbehave we can just pass another ballot measure to rein things in. In the meantime, as with Prop E, we believe our elected officials should have more freedom to do their jobs.

PROP. G 0.5% Sales Tax Increase – YES
This tax increase will sustain or improve public services like public safety, children’s services and programs for seniors. The math is pretty simple. Earlier this year, the sales tax in SF was 9.5%. It is now 8.5%. Letting that 1% expire means less money coming from Sacramento for cities and counties. So the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors put Prop G on the ballot to increase the local sales tax rate by 0.5% to make up some of that revenue loss. This comes at a time when the Governor has, in efforts to balance California’s crushing debt, eliminated or reduced most ways that Cities and Counties usually fund this kind of thing.

PROP. H School Assignment Policy – NO
While this measure is “advisory” in nature, meaning non-binding, it’s wrong for all the same reasons that the system of neighborhood-based school assignments caused the NAACP to sue SFUSD in 1978: neighborhood schools will be segregated schools in a city where housing tends to be segregated. There’s no point in putting policy statements on the ballot if they don’t compel action. In this case, my vote is the same as if this measure was binding. The current system, while not perfect, is fair and balances between the needs of families (to have siblings attend the same school, for example) and the desire of the community to have quality schooling available to students regardless of where in San Francisco they live.

Other resources

If you want to quickly compare our recommendations with other voter guides, see our “slate” on Democracy Dashboard:

Image by Occupy Design »

Massive account closures could send a powerful message, but if you close your account, where should you put your money? Under the mattress is not our recommendation. In extended discussion, we found that some members of False Profit, LLC have already divested from large corporate banks and are now handling their finances at:

• New Resource Bank, a local, B-Corp, FDIC-insured bank with a focus on the environment.
• SF Fire Credit Union, open to all residents of San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties.

If you’re wondering about the differences between banks and credit unions, this blog post from Mint is a helpful place to start.

If you’re ready to go, take a look at the Move Your Money Checklist for a clear, step-by-step guide to be sure you don’t miss any important parts of the process.

Will this really make a difference? That depends in large part on how many people participate. What we do know is what the banks themselves say about how consumer banking relates to their overall business.

“Bank of America’s Deposits segment includes the results of consumer deposit activities, which consist of a comprehensive range of products provided to consumers and small businesses. Deposit products continue to be a key driver of funding and liquidity for the bank.” (Bank of America, 2nd Quarter 2011 Investor Fact Book. Emphasis ours.)

A key driver. That’s you. If you’re unhappy, vote with your dollars!

Faced with increasing unemployment rates, groups are gathering in increased numbers at “happy hour events” across the nation. Contrary to the long-held notion that these events were solely attended by people with full time jobs, new research shows that attendees include equal parts employed, underemployed, and unemployed people.

“I definitely thought happy hours were just for people with, like, jobs to, you know, kick back after a really taxing day at the office,” said one self-described “funemployed” attendee who wished to remain anonymous. “But these events are a way for me to network with likeminded people and, perhaps more importantly, keep my morale high with discounted drinks,” he said while sipping a $2 Red Stripe.

“Plus, these beats are slammin.”

== EQUITY ==
The False Profit Happy Hour
Wednesday, October 12, 5:30p to 9:00p
Il Pirata (2007 16th at Potrero)

*Alxndr (Mushrooms)
*Karim So (Veggie Deluxe)