
Borderlands Books is Closing - protomyth
http://www.borderlands-books.com/
======
munificent
I understand lots of people will want to paint this as a sweeping indictment
of minimum wage hikes overall but all of us here should know better than to
generalize from one sample, especially one as skewed as this.

Here, we have a business that:

1\. Is in a market that's been declining for _decades_.

2\. Is in one of the most expensive cities in the United States.

3\. Has a product with an essentially fixed price.

4\. Sells a "commodity" product: the book you get from there is
indistiguishable from the same book bought elsewhere. (Of course, the overall
book buying _experience_ is unique.)

5\. Sells a product that has a digital alternative rapidly rising in
popularity.

6\. Is in the number #1 city in the entire world for people predisposed to
prefer digital alternatives to things.

They may as well have been a cash-only store for horse-drawn carriage
accessories. I'm sad they're closing, but it's amazing they lasted as long as
they did and says next to nothing about large-scale economic policy.

~~~
ChuckMcM
And trapped between the commodity supplier fixing the price, and the state
bringing up the costs, its a solid recipe for killing off a business. Which it
has done in this case.

So the more interesting question from an economics perspective is whether or
not capturing the marginal GDP of this business is a better or worse for the
people. Sure the bookstore goes poof, and folks can't get cheap used books any
more. The business will be replaced by something that can afford both the
higher labor rate, like an upscale coffee shop or maybe a designer boutique.

But the number of bookstores goes down by one, and the volumes available are
not available in the library. So the community has lost something too.

Nominally the markets are there to express what is a good application of
capital by meeting demand. Should it go to running a bookstore or running a
coffee roaster or a blog aggregator Etc. But the artificial floor of minimum
wage creates artificial barriers to applying capital. You can see in this post
that the floor of $10 allows the bookstore to exist, the floor of $15 does
not. So here is a fiscal policy which is going limit choices.

And a really interesting effect is that everyone is going to raise prices to
cover that expense, they have too, and so all of those folks who were
complaining that they can't afford to eat at the 'upscale' bars and bistros in
California its just going to get worse for them, and it won't be the Googlers
or Twitterers or Pinsters causing that upswing, it will be the very government
they elected to serve them doing it to them.

I find the economics of such things very interesting in the side effects as
much as the intended effects.

~~~
discardorama
Bookstores in SF have been closing for a while; blaming this closure on the
minimum wage hike is specious, to say the least. Yeah, I read the blog; but
closing the bookstore today, because wages will go up in 2018 (3 years from
today), is ridiculous.

Let me offer an alternate explanation, based on speculation (but grounded in
the realities of the booming SF realestate market): someone offered to buy out
Borderlands lease for a ridiculous amount, and it was an offer they just
couldn't refuse. So basically it was a choice between (a) struggling along
paycheck-to-paycheck for the next 3 years, or (b) getting a nice fat check to
close the doors and do something else. They chose (b). The Valencia corridor
between 16th and 24th has exploded, with a large number of hipster restaurants
and boutiques, and money is flowing in like crazy. Might as well tap into that
while the going's good.

Expect to see some hipster cafe, restaurant or boutique opening in their place
in the next few months.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I note that the author of the blog post says:

 _" The change in minimum wage will mean our payroll will increase roughly
39%. That increase will in turn bring up our total operating expenses by 18%.
To make up for that expense, we would need to increase our sales by a minimum
of 20%. We do not believe that is a realistic possibility for a bookstore in
San Francisco at this time."_

~~~
Animats
They weren't paying their people much, were they?

~~~
nilkn
No, they weren't paying their very limited staff much; it's a marginal
business that's been on the decline for years, and even one of the managers is
stated as having a salary of only $28k. All of this is in the article.

~~~
pixl97
>managers is stated as having a salary of only $28k.

Which isn't a livable wage in SF, right? At some point businesses that can't
survive cost inflation, either due to worker costs, government regulation, or
energy cost must give up their space for those that can.

------
Agustus
Minimum wage increases directly affect the purchasing power of all through
price inflation. Here we have a real world example of this laid out by a
business owner. The company recognizes that the minimum wage employment costs
will be equal for all cafes in the area, as they will pass costs onto
customers; the customers see their existing wages worth less through this
increase and drives them to seek salary increases from their employer. The
minimum wage increase does not make more things attainable as the entire
system has raised the cost of goods throughout it to compensate for the
employee cost increase.

The employees who are most hurt by this minimum wage increase are small
businesses, borderlands books, and those trying to make a start in a business

~~~
wwweston
> Minimum wage increases directly affect the purchasing power of all through
> price inflation

You're economically savvy enough to realize that increased purchasing power
causes inflated costs with more money chasing goods/services, and you're
zeroing in on a _minimum wage increase from $11 = > $15/hr_ instead of, I
don't know, tech worker salaries?

Maybe you know something I don't, because I'd guess the effect from the former
isn't even close to keeping the class of people it benefits at purchasing
parity.

~~~
Agustus
It is always an incremental straw until the camel's back breaks. If you
increase the minimum wage for the worker, all prices across a system will
increase as the business must remain a going concern to compensate the
increase. The price increase affects end-users purchasing power.

The median household income in the United States is $51,000, tech worker
salaries are are not the norm, they are 6% of the population ($100,000 for a
single individual). Their effect on society is negligent in the purchase of
everyday goods as they are only 6% of the population and purchase affluent
goods and upward.

Assuming direct elasticity, if a place increases costs by 30%, 30% less will
shop.

If a median income family has a 10% increase in food prices, they have to
absorb it. Try getting a 10% wage increase across an entire operating company,
let alone a single employee.

~~~
wwweston
> The median household income in the United States is $51,000, tech worker
> salaries are are not the norm, they are 6% of the population ($100,000 for a
> single individual). Their effect on society is negligent in the purchase of
> everyday goods as they are only 6% of the population and purchase affluent
> goods and upward.

I think it's fairly safe to say the the effects are considerably more
pronounced in San Francisco than they are nationally:

[http://www.spur.org/blog/2014-02-27/forecasting-san-
francisc...](http://www.spur.org/blog/2014-02-27/forecasting-san-francisco-s-
economic-fortunes)

But since you brought up the median income, let's use that to talk about my
point: $51k is about $25/hr. The hike under discussion moves minimum wage up
to... well, from just under $10 a few years ago to $11 as of this year (so,
less than half that). But wait, that's national median. San Francisco median
is closer to $70k ($35+/hr), so we're really talking about a motion that's all
below _1 /3_ median.

Again... this is a primary driver of inflation? We're talking about a roughly
$2000 _year_ ly boost in the bottom quartile that almost doesn't even keep
pace with average _month_ ly rent increases over the last 5 years.

If minimum wage hikes aren't even successfully chasing cost of living
increases, it's pretty hard to argue they're driving inflation.

------
smackfu
The management was making $28k a year salary. I don't know how viable a
business it was even without the minimum wage increase.

~~~
Afforess
Most businesses survive on slim profit margins. Most businesses are barely
viable. This is why minor changes in the availability of credit, for example,
can cause a recession.

~~~
enraged_camel
Yeah, I think the profit margins on software have really spoiled most people
on HN. $28k a year from a bookstore is not bad. It could actually be a livable
wage in many other parts of the US.

~~~
mikeash
But given that it was in San Francisco, is that remotely viable? Can you rent
a cardboard box in the gutter for $28k/year in SF?

~~~
DrDanDLyons
San Francisco has strong rent control rules. You can pay $1000/month for an
entire floor of a Victorian if you've lived there long enough.

------
karmacondon
It seems like a lot of people aren't mentioning the fact that a minimum wage
increase cuts both ways. Small businesses must pay more, but low end consumers
should now have more money to spend. Raising the minimum from $11 to $15 is a
roughly 30% increase that will affect roughly 5% of Americans. The question
is, what will those people spend that extra money on? I'm guessing it won't be
books, or at least not vintage or trendy books. It will most likely being low
end food, clothing and entertainment (mcdonalds, walmart, dvds) and childrens'
needs of all varieties.

If stores have to raise their prices to cover higher employment costs, then
the worst case will be a push for the lowest income Americans. They make 30%
more and pay 30% more for most goods. But every walmart/mcdonalds/redbox
employee doesn't earn minimum wage and their labor costs don't scale linearly,
so the most likely outcome is that those earning minimum wage will get a small
effective price break, the middle class will pay slightly more for things and
the wealthy will also pay more but not really notice it. Bookstores and other
middle class oriented businesses will be forced to close, while businesses
that cater to minimum wage workers will see slight profit increases.

I'm not sure if this is an ideal situation not, or if it represents an
intended or unintended consequence. But under a certain set of assumptions it
could be viewed as this particular bookstore closing so that someone who is
barely getting by has a few extra dollars to live on each month. It's a shame
when any marginal business is forced to meet its fate, but it might be the
best thing for the economy over all, or at least for the people who have
benefited least from the recent recovery.

------
fixermark
This is an anticipated side-effect of raising the minimum wage: it raises the
"table stakes" a small business needs to compete. Sad, but not in the large
surprising.

(One could argue that it's also an anticipated side-effect of being a
bookstore in a world moving away from bound print media, but I don't think
that's the larger factor here; it's not like anyone expects Barnes & Noble to
go under any time soon).

~~~
skuhn
> it's not like anyone expects Barnes & Noble to go under any time soon

Well actually... On 2014 revenue of $6.4bn they lost $1.6bn. Their total
assets are $3.8bn and liabilities are $2.6bn, which means another yearly loss
of $1.6bn will sink them.

They are expected to spin off the Nook business and make some money (and
reduce losses) from that, but I doubt it will be enough to save them in the
long term.

~~~
hullo
That is all pretty much completely incorrect - I think you must be misreading
a 1.6b expense line as a loss? FY 2014 for BKS was pretty much even.

[https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ABKS&fstype=ii&ei=Kz_...](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ABKS&fstype=ii&ei=Kz_RVIHoB8eZ8wa6nIDgBA)

You'll also see the 2.6b you're calling liabilities is maybe accumulated
depreciation? Actual FY2014 debt is 127.5M. Barnes & Noble is relatively debt-
free for a large retailer.

[https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ABKS&fstype=ii&ei=Kz_...](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ABKS&fstype=ii&ei=Kz_RVIHoB8eZ8wa6nIDgBA)

~~~
skuhn
You're correct, I miscalculated their annual loss (but not from their expense
line). The assets and liabilities are literally from these lines on their
balance sheet:

Total Assets 3,835.75 Total Liabilities 2,627.98

Per:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/earnings/earnings.a...](http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/earnings/earnings.asp?ticker=BKS)

"2014 revenues at Barnes & Noble, Inc. totaled $6.4B USD, while annual losses
equaled $1.12 per share."

B&N has 60.24M shares outstanding. That makes their annual loss $67 million.
They do indeed have a longer runway than I anticipated, but I still feel that
they run a business in decline. Their saving grace from a few years ago (Nook)
is now an albatross. What is their next move?

------
batbomb
I think their small size and specificity (and given the fact that a large
majority of what they have is low-margin paperback fiction) is probably what
makes it really hard to be viable, since there's no real way to ratchet up
volume. The counter example is Green Apple Books, which seems to be doing well
across two geographical locations in less populated areas of the city.

------
AceJohnny2
This makes me sad. I nearly always pick up a book or two from Borderlands when
I go to San Francisco (every other month). They're a great shop and community.
It's shocking, but not entirely unexpected, to learn how little they make :(

~~~
ckozlowski
This was one of the stores I checked out when visited S.F., as my wife and I
were plotting a move from the east coast to S.F. And while we ended up going
in the other direction, I still think fondly of the S.F. culture, and
Borderlands books was one of those places I visited that I felt would be a
home. Shame to hear it's going.

------
netinstructions
And in Seattle there's bookstore owners/managers who attribute their success
specifically to the high-wage earners who come to the local independent
bookstores to shop[1]. Think of highly paid Amazon workers (or perhaps even
folks with higher minimum wages) having extra money to spend... on local
bookstores.

But then the same bookstore mentioned in the NY Times article[1] goes on to
say a higher minimum wage could be fatal.[2]

Either theres some hypocrisy going on or the people with the newer, higher
minimum wages are not spending their money on bookstores. I'd guess the
latter. But at what point are wages too high or too low so we can have local
bookstores and support them? Should we even be encouraging that in the first
place?

Or look at it another way: How and why are successful bookstores being
successful?

[1][http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/us/bookstores-in-
seattle-s...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/us/bookstores-in-seattle-soar-
and-embrace-an-old-nemesis-amazoncom.html)
[2][http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/03/03/elliott-...](http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/03/03/elliott-
bay-books-owner-says-15-minimum-wage-could-be-possibly-fatal)

------
gyardley
Borderlands surprises me - I thought any business made unprofitable by San
Francisco's minimum wage hikes would close up shop quietly, or just blame the
evil landlord. After all, they've still got inventory to sell before they
close, and there's no percentage in pissing people off.

It'll be interesting to see what replaces the business, when the retail space
eventually becomes available. It'll have to be something high-margin enough to
afford the labor costs, so I believe there's now an increased likelihood that
it'll be a chain store catering to the well-off - something like a Lululemon.
There's now a decreased likelihood that it'll be one of the quirky new
businesses that make a city unique, since start-up costs have increased and
businesses with unknown economics are therefore riskier.

If things in San Francisco work out like I suspect, this'll be a pretty good
example of the law of unintended consequences - the 77% of voters who wanted
to increase the pay of the lowest-paid workers didn't realize they were also
voting for increased chain-ificiation and homogenization of their city. (If
they _did_ realize that, would they have still voted for the measure?)

~~~
bhauer
(I don't live in San Francisco, and I don't know Borderlands from Borders.)

> _Borderlands surprises me - I thought any business made unprofitable by San
> Francisco 's minimum wage hikes would close up shop quietly, or just blame
> the evil landlord. After all, they've still got inventory to sell before
> they close, and there's no percentage in pissing people off._

Who in their right mind would be "pissed off" by Borderlands' conduct here?
Are you suggesting that their customers are going to be offended that they are
placing the blame on the minimum wage law? Are people in San Francisco so
politically insular?

~~~
gyardley
Oh, I'm not merely suggesting it.

San Francisco is an extremely unfriendly place to people known to have the
wrong politics.

~~~
bhauer
Thank you; that is illuminating. I live in Los Angeles, and we have our share
of people who live sheltered political lives, but I've not known people to
punish a business for doing something akin to what we're seeing in this story.
Most people in LA just don't care enough to make a political stand of that
magnitude when it comes down to it.

------
rjett
This is complete spit-balling here, but:

Does anyone know whether bookstores like Borderlands sell their inventory on
consignment, similar to newspaper/magazine stands? Or does the business
purchase books at a wholesale price and hold that inventory on the balance
sheet?

If it's the latter, it would seem like a wise move to reduce inventory by x%
and re-allocate the space/funds towards the more profitable cafe, where prices
have a better elasticity.

Another thought would be to re-orient the inventory towards self-published
works (where there's no publisher setting a price), rare edition classics
(where there's higher markup due to low supply), and pop-culture best sellers
(which have high turnover). I think that a brick and mortar bookstore is as
good as the people working there: if you can find one with an employee that's
engaging, extremely well-read, and can recommend books, you could conceivably
make a bookstore geared towards self-publishers work. Bonus points if you
could provide services to self-published authors to print their works in a
beautiful, professional, yet economical package.

~~~
hullo
Books (from major publishers at least) are generally purchased at wholesale
and held - but (and this is a big but) they're generally returnable to the
publisher. Individual store and publisher terms may and will vary.

------
chrisBob
I am surprised. I always thought that increasing low salaries was good for the
economy because those people generally put 100% of their take home pay back
into the economy. On the other hand I put a large percentage of my pay into
savings (including 100% of the differenc when I get a raise) which has a much
smaller benefit to the local economy.

~~~
aidenn0
But in this case, if they buy books, they will buy from Amazon, which won't
have to increase its prices when San Francisco raises minimum wage, as that
will have 0 effect on their costs.

------
hackuser
Are there any economists reading this who can comment on the state of research
and theory on this matter? (This question also raises the issue of posting a
story about minimum wage on HN.)

Many here are applying a few concepts from Econ 101, often with surprising
confidence in their own analysis. I expect economists have studied these
questions extensively.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
[http://www.uh.edu/~adkugler/Neumark%26Wascher.pdf](http://www.uh.edu/~adkugler/Neumark%26Wascher.pdf)
might be a good place to start, perhaps search for citations of that, to get
info. They concluded that for every 10% increase in the min wage the primary
effect was -1% to -2% drop in teenage employment rates (in USA).

------
savanaly
I much prefer dead trees to e books myself, and if I were nearby would love to
visit. It looks great in the pictures.

------
protomyth
What drew me to this article is the general trend of the marginal, but loved,
businesses being forced out of business. It's amazing how many small
businesses that allow folks to do what they love, provide part-time work for
people needing the experience, and contribute to the general "happiness /
uniqueness" of an area are basically one storm away from disappearing.

I'm sure they'll be replaced by a Starbucks or other big company place that
knows the tax system and can bring their scale to bear. Might even employee
more people, or maybe one of those companies doing some automation since the
cost of the worker is higher than the profit they generate.

Regardless, your cool area looks more and more like a strip mall. The strange
and unique mostly lives at the margins.

~~~
pixl97
Live by the margin, die by the margin. You do realize by changing the margins,
you've only moved them somewhere else, not killed them off. Also, it's a
strange metric to say business serviced by mostly middle income earners
generates more happiness than a few hundred/thousands low end employees being
able to pay their bills or afford slightly more.

~~~
protomyth
"Live by the margin, die by the margin."

I'm not sure what to say to this one. Uncaring seems to be the word.

"You do realize by changing the margins, you've only moved them somewhere
else, not killed them off."

Looks like it killed a bookstore. Probably killed a few more businesses in the
area.

"Also, it's a strange metric to say business serviced by mostly middle income
earners generates more happiness than a few hundred/thousands low end
employees being able to pay their bills or afford slightly more."

Your statement of the choices. One which I don't believe are the only choices.
Seems like these folks are going to be out of work now, so they might have
some problem paying their bills.

The whole thought process that people should be "minimum wage workers" as a
continuing, long term condition is misguided and foolish. Its more platform
building just above the water instead of building a way farther up. It also
kills off entry level jobs and part-time jobs for teenagers. Its the wrong
policy and just ignores the real problems.

~~~
pixl97
>It also kills off entry level jobs and part-time jobs for teenagers.

If we disregard wages, those are being killed off already. Health care,
insurance, and automation and off-shoring have reduced the pool of low paying
jobs greatly. If we raise wages, more jobs will be automated sooner. If we do
not raise wages we have a subset of people that do not make enough to live, or
live off government subsidies.

Most of the rest of your argument is "Oh look at the poor buggy whip
manufactures, they should be protected".

~~~
protomyth
No, they really aren't. Most entry level jobs cannot be done "over the wire".

"If we raise wages, more jobs will be automated sooner."

So, lets artificially force automation to put more people out of work quicker.
That doesn't sound like a good idea.

"If we do not raise wages we have a subset of people that do not make enough
to live, or live off government subsidies."

Once again, this is the broken logic that I cannot understand. Teenagers
aren't making a living from the job, they are gaining experience and getting
some pocket money. The desire to have people remain in entry-level jobs to
make a living is some of the poorest use of people and most foolish ideas. If
people spent the effort on providing paths to actual careers that they put
into advocating for higher minimum wages, we probably could get somewhere.
This is just building a platform right above the water, and not building the
paths up.

"Oh look at the poor buggy whip manufactures, they should be protected".

Nope, never even thought something like that. If technology kills the job,
then that's how it goes, but governments doing it is another thing.

~~~
pixl97
>Teenagers aren't making a living from the job, they are gaining experience
and getting some pocket money.

Teenagers aren't making anything from the jobs _now_ , they have been replaced
by low skill older people who have been replaced by technology already.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-03-14/how-to-
fix-t...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-03-14/how-to-fix-the-
shockingly-high-teen-unemployment-rate)

>This is just building a platform right above the water, and not building the
paths up.

Correct, Minimum income is one solution to this issue.

How to fix the teenage employment problem is lower education costs or start
apprenticeship programs to get them in to high tech jobs. We don't need 100
million toilet washers any more.

>If technology kills the job, then that's how it goes, but governments doing
it is another thing.

Ah, so you're one of those. I see logic is already out the window.

~~~
protomyth
"Ah, so you're one of those. I see logic is already out the window."

Please explain this line, I tend to think ill of anyone who uses the line "one
of those" on another person. I feel disinclined to spend time gathering the
youth stats versus minimum wage increases if ad hominem are your preference.

------
6stringmerc
Honest question:

Do the cafe workers get paid the same hourly wage as the bookstore employees,
or are they classified as restaurant personnel and make $2.13/hour + tips like
I did when working in a restaurant / cafe setting? Does SF/CA have different
rules in place? I'm genuinely curious and some brief searching alludes to the
$2.13 going up to $7.07.

That's not $15/hour. It's interesting to use the "prices go up everywhere"
argument when not directly addressing the economics. IMO the $2.13 isn't
really a viable discussion point for business owners. Tips are the accounting
and tax responsibility of the employee / earner...hmmm...

~~~
alwaysdoit
CA does not allow tips to count towards minimum wage.

[http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_tipsandgratuities.htm](http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_tipsandgratuities.htm)

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
Thought #1: bookstores go under all the time, specialty bookstores even more
so.

Thought #2: google maps has a 'see inside' feature, and that store looks like
a little tiny place, I don't work in SF any more but if I did and made time
out of my commute to go there, odds are I'd be disappointed.

I shopped at City Lights up on Kearny, and that always seemed to be doing a
pretty good business, and after I quit that SF job I worked in Mountain View
which has a pretty good used bookstore right downtown, and a decent new
bookstore right next to it, both of which seem to be moving lots of product.

------
mattvanhorn
I'm terribly saddened by this. It's a great genre bookstore, and although I
have a kindle, I still love having dead tree books, especially ones I read for
pleasure.

------
greggman
I'm curious if they could just become 100% cafe. I've got to assume it would
be successful. They're in a great location. There's plenty of other cafes in
SF that are doing fine. I suppose maybe they don't want to run a cafe?
Although they are already running a cafe. What about just making it a SciFi
themed cafe? They could still put a few books out. They could still invite
authors and have SciFi / Fantasy speakers.

Just a thought.

------
atiffany
I hope they manage to keep the cafe open. The staff is awesome, and it's a
wonderful environment to work out of from time to time.

------
fubarred
Sad to see another awesome bookstore go.

First Bogey's Books in Davis, then even Borders. :(

From what I heard at the time, Powell's (one of the bookstore others would
sell their inventory to) was overwhelmed with shipments from closing
bookstores and the market rate for used domestic books was quite low for a
long time. Has this changed?

------
listic
How did the US publishing industry found itself in a situation that the book
price is fixed and printed on the book?

~~~
walterbell
Royalties are tied to list price.

This avoids accounting shenanigans of the kind observed in music and film,
where creative properties with millions of dollars in revenue somehow make
little profit, reducing payments to the talent.

A fixed list price means that royalties can be calculated based on unit sales,
rather than unit sales times a variable price (even within one outlet) at
thousands of retail outlets. Shenanigans are then limited to inventory
accounting.

------
minikites
If you can't sustain a business paying people a living wage then the market
will find someone who can.

If you argue that businesses can't function without the ability to pay people
poverty wages then that's essentially saying capitalism can't function without
a permanent underclass.

~~~
smsm42
If by "underclass" you mean people that work on low value jobs - yes, these
people exist and will always exist, unless you figure out how to make everyone
be born with equal skills and immediately be ready to take any job and do it
equally well. Then, of course, you could pay everybody the same and be content
that nobody is paid below average. Fortunately, this particular nightmare
society would never happen.

In real world, people have different skills, and they start with low to no
skills and then develop them. In the process, they progress from low wages to
high wages. When I was young and uneducated, I worked low-wage jobs like
cleaning the floors in local supermarket or looking after the conveyor in
local bakery. If these job were forced to have wage anywhere close to what I
ask for now, these jobs wouldn't exist. And I, as a poor student, would not
have a possibility to study, since I would literally have no money to buy food
with, let alone pay other bills. Yes, that's how capitalism works and I'm not
sure how could it work differently and remain capitalism. If you prefer the
other option - taking the money to central authority and then let it provide
for the food to the students, the education, the wages and so on - that's not
capitalism and the experience shows that idea doesn't really work out.

------
perlgeek
So the minimum wages will rise by 2018, and they are closing now (read, March
2015)? Why 2.75 years earlier? Why not wait?

~~~
amadeus
They addressed this in the article.

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wtbob
In which San Franciscans discover economics.

Poor folks—I really mean it. It's terrible to have to end a dream, and it's
worse to see a successful business destroyed.

~~~
al2o3cr
They cleared $3k in profit for 2013 (read down a couple posts on the blog)
while paying themselves next-to-nothing - and that out of the cafe profits and
not the bookstore. I think the term "successful" is very questionable here.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
This has nothing to do with minimum wage, and everything to do with running an
unsuccessful business in the first place.

If you're clearing $3k in profit a year you have a very expensive hobby, not a
viable business.

We can all be sad that a bookshop is closing, but the real culprit was a lack
of sales and marketing savvy, and a lack of customer interest in the
product/experience being offered.

Minimum wage may have thrown a few rocks onto the coffin, but it certainly
didn't dig the grave.

There a lot of new booksellers making a living on Amazon. Some of them trade
internationally. (I buy a steady stream of specialist titles from US sellers.)

If I wanted to buy from Borderlands, not only would I be paying far too much
for every book in their list, I'd also be charged $25 for shipping.

Somehow everyone else in the world can ship me a book for less than half that.
But Borderlands hasn't figured out how to.

 _That 's_ where the fail is. Not in hand-wringing about having to pay staff
an amount that still isn't close to a fair wage.

~~~
shadowflit
Also, while this store sounds like a great place and one that I would visit...
this article is the first time I have seen the name. I live in SF, I could
have been going here, and yet I did not know it existed (and close enough that
I could have combined it with Tartine visits to boot). Sure, it's partially my
failure, but it's also a marketing failure.

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jedanbik
The rent also doubled for their location. That would seem to be the bigger
elephant in the room, no?

~~~
pronoiac
Rent doubled at their _old_ location. It's why they moved, back in 2000.

~~~
smackfu
Valencia isn't exactly in the middle of nowhere, I'd be surprised if their
rent hasn't been increasing.

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masterleep
The minimum wage is a cruel policy that makes it unprofitable to employ low
skilled workers. It's great for Silicon Valley robotics engineers, and
terrible for disadvantaged urban teenagers.

So, great job San Francisco voters; your ignorance of economics is
exacerbating the inequality you complain about.

~~~
yequalsx
There are lots of profitable companies that hire low skilled workers at
minimum wage. Given this fact it is not possible that your first sentence is
true. Perhaps you meant something different.

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masterleep
If it makes it clearer, please insert a "sufficiently" before the low in that
sentence.

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schaeffer_x
"In November, San Francisco voters overwhelmingly passed a measure that will
increase the minimum wage within the city to $15 per hour by 2018. Although
all of us at Borderlands support the concept of a living wage in principal and
we believe that it's possible that the new law will be good for San Francisco
-- Borderlands Books as it exists is not a financially viable business if
subject to that minimum wage. Consequently we will be closing our doors no
later than March 31st."

I would love to know why Borderlands thinks "it's possible that the new law
will be good for San Francisco" considering other employers like them will be
closing down because of it. Low wages > no wages.

~~~
jforman
They had prime real estate that a more robust business will pick up. The jobs
will be replaced.

Whether this is good social policy is a much more complicated question.

