in short, this is just squeezing the proverbial balloon...it moves the issue to a different area...over time, taxes have been high jacked and twisted into being used as incentives for influencing behaviors...the problem with that is that you need different behaviors at different times in development and there's an assumption that all parties will behave/think/execute in the same way given the same incentives...while more densely populated areas are more efficient and effective economically for some towns and municipalities, it's not necessarily the best use case for all scenario and all cases...at the end of the day, the goal for most municipalities is to cover the cost of goods and services (schools, infrastructure, fire & safety, parks & recreation, etc.)...if that's the goal, then we can quantify how much it costs per person/family/household to support these goods and services and that should serve as the baseline for the "tax"...your level of good and services should not depend on the market value of your land/property/house...in a recession or downturn with depressed property values, you still need the same level of goods and services if not more...
Stated another way. National and State lotteries are the largest ongoing wealth transfer from the lower-income bracket in the US. The lotteries are overwhelming played by the lower-income and that money is used to fund a large number of things in state governments.
There may be more parallels to SBF and Jon Corzine than to Bernie Madoff. SBF and Corzine ran companies that were regulated by the CFTC which requires segmentation of client funds from corporate funds. Both SBF and Corzine failed to provide the appropriate systems and safeguards to prevent the intermingling of client and corporate funds. Only time and evidence will tell if SBF knowingly and intentionally siphoned client funds for nefarious intent. The situation can get more murky if usage/terms of services policies existed for the alt-coins that were used. In Madoffs' case, there was a point that no investments were being made and new money was being used to pay/boost returns of existing clients which doesn't seem to be the case with FTX.
Enough is enough. No more running from app to app to avoid the death grip of Adobe. A call to action against Adobe's business practices of reducing competition and increasing prices. #StopAdobe and #SaveFigma
it saddens me that we have not put more thought into this topic and we constantly put our education, safety, and services on the economic roller coaster.
no matter how much your home is worth today or in ten years you and other in the community want a standard level of education, safety, and services from your local governments. this should be priced as a service based on the cost to provide it to the members of the community and not based on dynamically changing home values
property taxes should have a baseline cost to cover the essential services (schools, critical infrastructure, safety, etc.) that is the same for everyone (no exemptions) and a variable cost for the non-essential services (parks, beautification projects, etc.) (very limited exemptions) that can be based on the value of your home or land
this way the essential services are always funded and not impacted by economic downturns or property appraisal disputes/challenges and local governments don't have to play the game of increase the millage rate to make up costs for essential services
This statement is often used and is misleading without the context of income of this 1% as a percentage. So, if this 1% earns 80% of all income, then 35-40% is relatively low. I'm not sure if your intent was to mislead or just reiterate stats that you saw from some where, but please give the appropriate context and data to support you claim that this is unfair.
I think that your intentions are good, but approach may be off a bit. I agree that the SEC does protect investors and markets, but I do not agree that a company should be in the black before they IPO.
I think that your main concern is the public market funding VC capital returns. If so, then a more reasonable approach to prevent public market exploitation may be to require a lock up period for investors for a certain amount of time (not sure how you would determine this...) similar to how employees are often beholden to lock up periods post IPO.
Not sure that I completely follow your logic in regards to the "tax" here. With any product, you have two main things: production of the product and distribution of the product. Spotify doesn't NEED to be on Apple devices (they started off on the web), but they WANT to be on Apple devices (and Android devices) because they are great distribution channels for its product.
That said, how much is distribution worth to Spotify? Imagine that Spotify was not software, but instead it was a hardware device. Would they expect Best Buy to carry it for free? Would they expect Walmart or Target not to offer a store branded competitor? I think not.
When you don't own your distribution channel, you pay for distribution one way or another.
with every interaction, we either build trust, maintain trust, or erode trust. it's sad to know that a child was assaulted by an adult and that his trust in law enforcement to serve and protect failed him and his family miserably
Interesting considering the case of hotel mini-bars. In some cases, you get charged regardless of use it. If it senses that you removed the item, you will be charged.
Thanks for sharing the lessons that you learned and evolution of AptDeco. Great presentation with sound advice. Typically, a VC will go all in one category with one company. That company in this space seemed to be MoveLoot at the time. What did VCs miss in their analysis of AptDeco vs. MoveLoot? And, what do you think the key differences were between AptDeco and MoveLoot?
Interesting. I switched from Spotify to Apple Music. The "For You" section with curated playlists were way better than the Spotify playlists IMO. I only wish that I could choose an activity (workout, etc.) and/or mood and a genre and I'd be all set.
Seems like a great use of Slack. Unfortunately, my first and only experience with Slack has not been a fantasy. I joined a public slack on startups and everytime I check, I'm 100+ messages behind. Seems like a giant chat room.