Yeah that’s not how he meant it at all. His whole campaign is about reforming capitalism into a system that stop grinding people down in the pursuit of stock market prices and gdp.
He’s definitely breached a point in the polls (and he’s got significant momentum) where I feel like you guys pretty much have to look at him to consider yourselves informed.
He’s in sixth place right now ffs.
A good way to think about the over riding theme of Yang’s campaign is that he thinks that the core disease in our system is that we are chasing the wrong economic numbers. GDP, stock market prices, core unemployment, and that optimizing around those instead of stuff that actually matters to people (life expectancy, clean air/water, suicide rates, drug addiction rates, incarceration rates, etc) is leading this country to a very dystopian place.
Warren thinks the core disease is corruption. I think she’s on to something as well. This is one of those spots where I absolutely think that both can be right. Neither one is taking money from the special interests either, and are relying on small donations gathered on the internet. I think that’s super important as well.
Yang is the econ nerds candidate basically. UBI, carbon tax & dividend, M4A, everything including the kitchen sink on climate, and so on. The only places he sketches me out are some of the goofier ideas that won’t get done anyway like term limits (although the 18 year Supreme Court term limit has merit).
Every time I’ve mentioned it to conservatives framed as a way of alleviating small business startup friction they’ve admitted it’s a good point. It’s really easy to sell to pro-business conservatives.
For real though. Anyone who thinks about the economic ramifications of having your job and your health insurance linked and the effect that has on new business formation, freedom to switch jobs, relocate, or really anything else that involves not keeping a full time corporate job with benefits…
There are lots of reason why our healthcare system is busted. Cost is absolutely the main one with us spending double what other countries spend for worse outcomes… but the loss of economic freedom is basically the second most destructive part of it.
I think Warren sees the world somewhat like Yang. She’s not only about corruption, but the misaligned incentives and assumptions of the legal/capital system (through corruption or otherwise) that end up harming people.
Today I did a trademark assignment from a founder to an LLC he established four years after the TM was registered. The LLC paid him $10 for the transfer. (Though he’s the sole owner of the LLC.)
BTW, there should be no problem with trademarking “We” as long as it’s used to indicate the source or origin of goods and/or services.
That said, We’s founder isn’t the only one getting paid. So are the lawyers and bankers thinking up and implementing this stuff.
So just to double check. I can legally buy a company entirely with debt that I then transfer to that companies books. Then I can sell to that company any ideas I have for basically any amount that I think those ideas are worth transferring the money to my own personal bank account? Then when the company goes bankrupt I can walk away clean thanks to limited liability? Am I correct here?
Right. I’m sure Yang would agree with everything you said about providing healthcare to all as the moral thing to do. But then, as a bonus, it’s also incredibly beneficial to workers and small and medium business. And the reason you don’t hear that is because Republicans are in the pocket of Big Health and aren’t particularly interested in selling what is very clear would benefit small business (which is supposed to be what Republicans are all about, small business small business Joe the Plumber small business). When in reality most Republicans don’t actually give a shit about small business except to pay them lip service (they know who pays the bills). Also most Democrats are in a similar position vis a vis being bought and paid for by Big Health. And the ones who aren’t don’t particularly want to make that pro-business pitch. Which leaves like literally just Andrew Yang I guess?
Levine (and all the other commentary I have seen) have completely missed the point on the trademark sale. They’re not ripping off the company by making them pay $5.9 million for the trademark, they’re ripping off the government. This is a compensation payment that’s being reported as long-term capital gain and taxed at 20% rather than 40%. Or maybe being rolled into a qualified opportunity zone investment.
The larger point is that if you approach business reporting with the view that everything that seems weird is a lolobvious scam and people whose job it is is to be professional investors are just much dumber than you and can’t see it, you’re going to miss what’s actually going on. Wework may be a good business or doomed, but it’s not doomed because everyone other than internet randoms has failed to grasp that they’re posting losses when you want to show profits. They didn’t pay their CEO $6 million for a core business asset because they didn’t notice that that was strange.
The Stratechery article isn’t interesting because it presents a “bull” case for the value of Wework stock. If you want to speculate about the value of equity securities, go watch Mad Money (if you’re an idiot) or join an investment bank (if you’re not). What’s interesting is that it explains why people think Wework’s business model could be successful and and what they’re trying to do.
Imagine that you were a scientist, and your model of the universe spit out the prediction that “Investors won’t invest a ton of money in a business that leases office space and then subleases it at a loss, while taking on a lot of exposure if rents move around.” You then conduct an experiment (or Adam Neumann conducts it for you) and it turns out that investors will invest a ton of money in such a business. The model is wrong! You could add an epicycle to the model that assumes that investors are actually idiots and you are smart. This saves the model with the benefit of predicting that you are smart. (A risk here is that the model now predicts that the company will implode quickly, so you may need to add more epicycles about how dumb public market investors are later on if that doesn’t happen.) What I think is obviously a better approach is to use the experiment to upgrade the model at a more fundamental level to say that investors will invest a bunch of money in a business like this if they believe there’s a chance that the business can accomplish X. Now you have a more sophisticated model that can be used for more things (are there other areas where something like X could be achieved?) and you also have a new prediction about the experiment that will be run over the next few years: Wework will avoid bankruptcy iff they accomplish X. And you can go from there.
Normally Money Stuff is so great because it does specifically this, and explains what’s actually going on when there’s market news that contradicts most people’s models of the universe. I assume he just missed the mark here because he didn’t get the tax point and it’s buried in a forest of other weird self-dealing transactions.
EDIT: On the trademark thing, I actually just read the S-1 and apparently the trademark was contributed to their operating partnership in exchange for an interest (which I assume is functionally equivalent to WeWork stock), perhaps because it had a short-term holding period. So no gain recognized at all, even at the 20% rate.
That’s super easy. Create a corporation with shares par value at .01. Invest your 30,000 into those shares. Then sell the company to another entity you control for 100M. Bingo you now have 100M in a Roth IRA. I’m not sure of the exact mechanics you use to get this by the IRS, but I’m reasonably sure that this is how Mitt Romney got so much money into his Roth.
An, in the very unlikely event that the IRS is willing to litigate against you, it will take years and there will be no possibility of serious repercussions (mainly just losing the money you were trying to scam the govt out of). See, eg, Mercer, Robert.
(But, your kids will be ugly and not good at anything, and you will die unhappy.)
the We IPO sucks for a lot more reasons than their business model. I suggest you read the IPO filing or analyses of it - it is fraught with issues and massive risks.
The real question is why you care whether Wework sucks or doesn’t suck. Unless you’re thinking about investing in it (which, don’t, because you should index), why is that determination important to you?