Bust out the $4 toast, French Laundry reservations, and third-wave Champagne, all you “average” San Francisco workers out there! You make substantially more money per hour than your also-average counterparts elsewhere in the United States. According to a new report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released Tuesday, San Francisco workers makes 53 percent more money per hour than the national average.

The regional Occupational Employment and Wages report, whose deep-dive details can be seen below, finds the average San Francisco worker makes $36.61 per hour. That compares to an average hourly wage of $26.61 elsewhere in the United States. Feel any better about your inability to afford owning a home?

The findings are slightly Silicon Valley-skewed. The BLS defines San Francisco as the “San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco Metropolitan Division,” so a number of wealthy Bay Area neighborhoods outside San Francisco are included in the statistical dragnet. Redwood City is a particularly notable variable here, as the presence of Google, Oracle, and Box campuses is likely affecting these averages.

The BLS separates this data into 22 occupational groups. “When compared to the nationwide distribution, [San Francisco] employment was more highly concentrated in nine of the 22 occupational groups, including computer and mathematical; business and financial operations; and management,” the report said.

“Conversely, 12 groups had employment shares significantly below their national representation, including production; healthcare practitioners and technical; and education, training, and library.”

Of course, averages are not helpful indicators in a city that has almost no middle class. And our misleadingly high ranking is likely to go up again in future iterations of this twice-annual report, as San Francisco minimum wage increases to $14 on Saturday.

Related: Local Panhandlers Are Not Getting Rich

"THEY SEE ME ROLLING..." pic.twitter.com/D1mDBEeZMq

— Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) September 16, 2015

Though many have astutely observed that finance loser turned pharmaceutical wantrapreneur Martin Shkreli is "worthless," the 32-year-old arrested on charges of securities fraud involving his former hedge fund and more recent companies is, in fact, worth at least $45 million.

As Bloomberg and the Business Times report, that's by dint of his E-Trade brokerage account, which was valued at $45 million last week. And, according to court records, he's used $5 million of it as security on his bail bond, though he may not sell or transfer any of those funds from the account.

As CBS SF recalls, Shkreli became the object of scrutiny when his company Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750 (per tablet) virtually overnight. In his recent jaunt to the Bay Area, Shkreli also left disaster in his wake, landing a company he purchased, KaloBios, in bankruptcy after he was understandably fired from it (leading him, of course, to threaten them).

Shkreli has also been criticized for his purchase of the only copy of the Wu-Tang Clan's album Once Upon A Time in Shaolin. While fucking with the Wu-Tang Clan is only a criminal offense in the court of public opinion, Shkreli might see fit to, say, hike up the price of the album and turn that around to pay for some legal fees.

The Feds accuse Shkreli of running what amounts to a million-dollar Ponzi scheme in a "web of lies and deceit" according to US Attorney Robert Caper. Per the indictment, Shkreli is faced with seven counts of villainy including two counts of securities fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and three counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. If convicted he could do 20 years in prison. Maybe he might want to keep the album after all. Could make for some good desert-island listening.

All SFist coverage of Martin Shkreli

A wealth management dude from New York just spent four days in San Francisco and decided to opine about what he saw and heard here. No one seems to have told him where the actually good food and bars are, so he ended up doing a circa-2000 tour of places like Slanted Door, the Redwood Room, and Tunnel Top. And, unlike on the East Coast (according to him?), everybody who's part of this current, money-raking bubble loves to talk openly about all the money they're making, he says.

His name is Joshua Brown, and he has this self-promotional site called The Reformed Broker where he does such writing. He says:

At the bars and clubs, everyone openly talks about money. Some of the words and phrases I heard over and over again in all different locales were “vesting schedule”, “stock options”, “stock units”, “restricted shares”, “burn rate” and “we’re raising a new round”. These items are discussed freely, out in the open — among friends and strangers alike — and are often the icebreaker comments to strike up a conversation. It’s not at all an exaggeration to say that people have caught a sort of finance fever — and it’s highly contagious. The tone is not exactly boastful, it’s more of a social signaling thing, as if to say “Hey, I’m in the game too, just like you.”

As for whether this is a ridiculous and unsustainable bubble we're in, tech-wise, he says that yes, "everyone" agrees that "These valuations are totally unsustainable… but Uber deserves it. They’re 'the real thing' and 'maybe the next Amazon.'"

Great.

Now will someone please introduce him SFist's food section, or Eater, or something so that he can try spending some of his millions in a restaurant that's less than 15 years old?

Jordan Belfort needs your help. See, he mis-spent his 20s and 30s perpetrating a now-famous fraud while amassing millions of dollars for himself on a certain New York City roadway. But luckily, by listening to Belfort — the actual, real-life "Wolf of Wall Street" -— sound off at Davies Symphony Hall next week, you can help yourself as well as Belfort and his victims.

His fame bigger than ever thanks to Leo DiCaprio's turn as the unscrupulous and rich wild man, Belfort has now embarked on a speaking tour. "The Truth Behind His Success" has made stops "from Dubai to Australia," as the San Francisco Examiner put it, with San Francisco the latest stop.

Belfort, now 52 and living in Southern California, promises to teach "the sales techniques that made him a millionaire stock broker at 26," according to the newspaper. The cornerstone of his "Straight Line" sales technique? "Persuasion," Belfort says, "which allows you, as a salesperson, to influence, to create certainty in another person than lines up to the different elements like emotional certainty, logical certainty."

What? Yes, we'll take one. Whatever you want.

Lest you think this is another example of the onetime jailbird living on the high hog after bilking his clients for their life savings and only serving 22 months in prison, fear not: by buying a ticket to hear the Wolf in action, you're helping him pay back his fraud victims.

Tickets range from $75 to $499, the profits from which go towards Belfort's sizable restitution payments, which amount to half of his income for three years and no more, he tells the newspaper a little testily (poor people are so sensitive!). You should come, Belfort says, provided you believe in redemption. Those who don't understand people "make mistakes...probably shouldn't come."

A notorious schemer comes to Silicon Valley to share the tricks that bankrupted unwitting rubes. This will go well.

In light of the historic protests currently taking place over on Wall Street, along with the trend of banks -- most notably Bank of America -- beginning to charge monthly fees for debit card use, SFist decided to make what little money we have talk by becoming a local credit union customer yesterday.

While shopping around last night, we encountered an impressive roster of potential credit unions. SF Fire Credit Union is by far the most popular one out there, and Redwood seems to have a lot of loyal customers as well. But Provident is the contender we chose, not only for its ease of use -- we signed up and immediately opened an account online, on a Sunday, but for the fact that instead of finding every way imaginable to take our hard-earned pennies, Provident will be adding 2.26% interest to them. (Provided that we actually keep any money in there.) Unheard of!

We're curious which credit unions SFist readers belong to. Fill out our handy poll! If we missed one on the list, let us know in the comments.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Wells Fargo has been ordered "pay more than $200 million to compensate customers who the judge said were improperly charged millions in overdraft fees." Today, Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court of Northern California, ruled that "the San Francisco bank improperly generated excessive overdraft fees for customers by posting transactions in an order that would generate more fees." (The banking industry culls in a whopping $40 billion each year in overdraft fees.) Wells Fargo plans on appealing the ruling. (Pro tip: Credit unions won't nickle and dime you nearly as much, nor make you wallow through as much red tape.)

Alas, today is "major pink slip handout" day over at Yahoo, where "police and security teams have been scheduled to provide order in case anyone goes postal." But things are getting ugly overseas as well. According to Valleywag, "the entire Dublin Finance team was laid off, to be outsourced by some place in Romania. Europe learns who gets axed [today] -- let's hope Rich Riley is among them, but unlikely as he is another Jeff Weiner - completely golden."

We have no idea who that is exactly, but still: yikes.

Any Yahooians who have been ordered to put their Swinglines in a box and scram care to tell their stories? When you've sobered up and dried those tears, we'd love to hear how it all went down.

After paying up last year for disclosure violations, Senator Carole Migden is once again under investigation for not disclosing or itemizing credit card charges that total $397,000. According to the LA Times, she faces $60,000 in administrative fines if she's in breach, our Miss Migden has investigators looking all up in her credit card charging for over the past seven years. Yikes.

The main cause of concern for not keeping tidy books is that it could mean that money is being spent for personal, not campaign-related, use. Apparently, Migden's reports only list the amount spent and the name of the credit card company...and that's all. (Hey, she sounds better at managing her finances than us. But we digress.)

Oh, and the cattiest part of all, "[t]he Fair Political Practices Commission launched an investigation of Migden's expenses after receiving a formal complaint from Assemblyman Mark Leno...who is a candidate to unseat her in the June 2008 election." Oh, you two. Can't you hug it out over Grasshoppers at the Lex? Don't the gays and the dykes have an strained enough relationship as it is?

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According to the story, Matt really wasn't sure if his bud Sean was making a joke or not (although we've yet to hear Sean Penn make a joke and can't be sure he ever has) and turned it down because he refused to switch to the Democratic Party.

Now, we've done a quick search through the news and couldn't find any damn stories corroborating it and Wonkette doesn't supply any links to the story. So, this could either be Wonkette having a laugh at our expense, and, if so, are you having a laugh? Are they having a laugh? Or, they got tipped onto a juicy-ass rumor that somehow scooped the entire San Francisco media/gossip train. We kinda hope this story is true 'cause besides giving old SFist an actual election to cover, and quite a juicy one at that, the idea of Sean Penn being involved in SF politics and playing money fairy to Matt Gonzalez is just stupendously awesome.

How I would fix MUNI. (Disclaimer: I am not an administrative professional but this is my way):

Major realignment of the Divisions / Departments
I would simplify the tree a bit, making the chain of command from top to the entry level classes.

Hire competent Executives followed by Managers
Establish clear guidelines for hiring competent / qualified personnel and more importantly, hold them to the position. This has happened already, i.e. the hire of Ken MacDonald, GM of Operations. He has done a lot of good. The problem are the assist GM, the managers and the supervisors.

Hire competent Supervisors and employees
noted above.

Have parts and equipment in stock for repairs
(there are) problems with finance and contract personnel. Buses out of service due to no parts in stock. Cars out of service due to no parts in stock. For quite a few months there, there was "no money" to acquire more parts. We've had over 50 buses of different types parked or deadlined due to no parts / inability to repair. We've had over 50 DPT carts parked when instead, they could be in the field.

While we've been digesting the dueling banjos style competition for a Board of Supes Code of Conduct, we were left pickin' our skulls as to why the Supes don't already have a code of conduct? Seriously, right? The progressive bubble of San Francisco doesn't have a code of conduct for its Board of Supervisors, while such luminary cities as Simi Valley, Pismo Beach, Goleta and Fresno do? Sounds Crazy, right?

Well, not so much. Lost in the shuffle between Chris Daly and Michela Alioto-Pier ("MAP") dueling codes of conduct is that San Francisco is already policed by, not just one, but two different organizations dedicated to protecting citizens from ethics violations. The first is the state's Fair Political Practices Commission ("FPPC") while the second is the San Francisco Ethics Commission. Both organizations overlook officials conduct and, in particular, deal with conflict of interest, disclosure, campaign finance issues, and post-state employment.

Most people can't comprehend our near OCD level obsession with Chris Daly, Ed Jew, Gavin, and the Board of Supes. So, we're cool when people ask us questions like, "How do you know this?" or "Why do you care?" or "How do you stay awake during all those board meetings?" We've gotten over it and understand most people's position, which is why we just want to say that our mental health is okay and we are not locked in a room, Mel Gibson-style staring at a wall of newspaper clippings. However, this is kinda weird:

First, the Chronicle, on July 19th, runs an article stating:

After Daly's comments last month, implying that Newsom used cocaine -- which were made as Daly was contesting the mayor's spending plans for the new fiscal year -- Peskin removed Daly from his seat as chairman of the board's powerful Budget and Finance Committee.

Which, according to Chris Daly's blog posting from that same day, is incorrect since he was removed from head of the budget committee days before his cocaine speech. The next day The Chronicle (July 20th) runs a correction stating that they made a mistake and wish to retract their incorrect fact. All's well and good.