Empty Times Square Building Generates $23 Million a Year From Digital Ads

dryriver writes "Advertising things at the right place is proving to be a cash cow, as electronic ads earn about $23mn each year for an empty building at One Times Square – the iconic tourist destination in the New York City. A 25-story Manhattan office building that has long been empty keeps on bringing in millions to its owner as a billboard. Michael Phillips, CEO of Atlanta-based Jamestown Properties, bought One Times Square through a fund in 1997 for $117 million, as the Wall Street Journal reports. More than 100mn pedestrians pass through the square each year, which is 90% more than 16 years ago, says the Times Square Alliance, a non-profit business improvement organization. And this is what makes a price tag for having a company's name placed on the building the highest in the world, even above such crowded tourist destinations as Piccadilly Circus in London. Dunkin' Brands Group Inc. pays $3.6mn a year for a Dunkin' Donuts digital sign on the One Times Square building, with Anheuser-Busch InBev paying another $3.4mn a year for its advertisement. Sony and News America pay $4mn a year for a shared sign."

Comments

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[webmistressrachel]

If he's making a profit anyway, why not rent or give the space to local community groups / organisations?

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[iserlohn]

Most likely due to tax exceptions for empty buildings.

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[Anonymous Coward]

because that would actually cost money and make it hard to rent if folks willing to pay came along.

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[PPH]

Strip clubs, peep shows. Return Times Square to the greatness that it once was.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Then he'd be accused of being a front for Communist terrorism.

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[Zerth]

Limited property interests(such as 'use of a building') aren't tax deductible.

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[Anonymous Coward]

People making 23 million a year for doing nothing at all do not share.

And that's one of many reasons why we deserve the world we have.

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[Victor_0x53h]

Liability? I thought the same thing. Maybe it's just what super-rich people do: buy stuff. Like a yacht used 10 days out of the year. I can just imagine how regal it would be to say to my friends "Lets spend New Years at my place in Times Square, guys!" It just turns out we can't watch the ball drop because it's mounted directly above us - on my roof.

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[beamdriver]

The building would need extensive renovation for it to be suitable for use.

Chief among these would be the addition of central air conditioning, but I would assume that a building that old would also need a good deal of electrical and structural work, asbestos removal, etc.

At this time, the ads bring in more revenue than rent would, so there's no reason to invest the money.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Paying taxes, maintaining the building, managing building permits, and maintaining the signage... doesn't sound like 'nothing at all' to me.

Nor does it look like 'nothing at all'; doing no work would very quickly lead to a hazardous dilapidated shell.

Ever consider he may not have tenants because no one would want to have 1,000,000 watts of light pouring into their office each and every day?

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[slippyblade]

And I guarantee he, personally, does none of that.

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[alen]

Are you sure he is not investing his profits in other properties?

What if doing major work would have to shut down the billboard for a long time?

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[SJHillman]

Just like the President and Congress do not, personally, do most of the things they're credited with. The millions of blue collar workers are the ones who end up doing it. However, there's something to be said for the guy(s) on top who put it all into motion and maintain it at the highest levels.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure he isn't Bruce Wayne?

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[johnny cashed]

Ever consider he may not have tenants because no one would want to have 1,000,000 watts of light pouring into their office each and every day?

Cannabis grow room?

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[MickyTheIdiot]

But the meme in the U.S. right now is that all the little guys don't do anything and basically don't even deserve enough money to live.

I don't think there has been a time in U.S. history where people in the U.S. have believed the guy in the top shouldn't be paid the best, but right now as a country we seem to be believing the grunts aren't responsible for the success of these groups at all. At least that is what the CEOs are, as a class, believing. As a result many are saying that these people don't even believe a decent wage or deserve to share in the success of the companies they work for.

And there are plenty of people... people that hang on every word of the CEOs like they're super human, that are willing to believe it. Slashdot seems to get more of the CEO worshipers every day and are happy with the idea that corporations should be able to screw over anyone they choose as long as there is a "benefit to the shareholders."

And this article highlights another one... it's fine for a building to sit empty as long as some corporate entity is making money. The US has about 3 times the number of houses available then there are homeless people and many of those houses were obtained by the banks by nefarious means... but since a corporation benefits no one does anything.

We've got problems with morals in the U.S... but not the moral problems we constantly hear about.

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[ArchieBunker]

Because you don't become successful in business by donating or giving things away.

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[icebike]

If he's making a profit anyway, why not rent or give the space to local community groups / organisations?

Maybe it is in need of significant upgrades given its age, an the insurance alone might make it unprofitable to rent or donate space to community groups.
Besides, its not the best place for such groups, their constituents don't live there.

Still, the story may not be totally true, as Google Streetview shows lights on in on the 8th floor and Chase bank still appears to have a branch on the ground floor.

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[queequeg1]

What exceptions are you referring to? I can see why a landlord might not want to rent if the marginal operating costs (janitors, maintenance, tenant improvements, security, etc.) exceed the rents. But I'm not sure what tax benefits are realized by letting the building sit vacant if there are tenants who will pay rents that exceed marginal operating expenses. I can't imagine that there are any property tax benefits, and income tax is applied only on actual income. The landlord can claim depreciation on its returns regardless of occupancy. I'm genuinely curious. Does NY have some sort tax on gross revenues (like Washington's business and occupation tax)?

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[icebike]

Ever consider he may not have tenants because no one would want to have 1,000,000 watts of light pouring into their office each and every day?

The signs point outward, do they not?

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[icebike]

Sitting on his money? You know this How?
Nothing in the story indicates what he is spending his personal money on. For all you know he funds orphanages in East Timor.

But its easy to make accusations on the internet isn't it?

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[Anonymous Coward]

Buy him out, boys!

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[otterpop81]

But the meme in the U.S. right now is that all the little guys don't do anything and basically don't even deserve enough money to live.

_The_ meme. Interesting take on a country that just re-elected the most income-distributing president of all time. We know he didn't win on his economic record. He won on the same kind of class warfare talk that you're giving right now.

right now as a country we seem to be believing the grunts aren't responsible for the success of these groups at all. At least that is what the CEOs are, as a class, believing. As a result many are saying that these people don't even believe a decent wage or deserve to share in the success of the companies they work for.

How much is a "decent wage?" I hear people all the time talk about a "living wage" on here, but nobody puts a dollar figure on it. Give me something concrete. What should the high-school drop-out ditch digger (or whatever) who has learned no marketable skills make? What kinds of things should someone making a "living" wage be able to buy? What things are over the line? For example, how new a car, what kinds of food, cell phones, cable TV, how big of house or apartment? Should this "living wage" increase because people live in a certain area, or should we pay them more because they have a bunch of kids? I want to know what a "living wage" really means.

Also, how much more should a person with a degree make than this base "living wage." I mean a real degree which enables someone to produce something of value. I'm talking about engineering, or science, or something medical (and there are plenty of others), not philosophy or communications or something that qualifies you to be a barista.

And there are plenty of people... people that hang on every word of the CEOs like they're super human, that are willing to believe it. Slashdot seems to get more of the CEO worshipers every day and are happy with the idea that corporations should be able to screw over anyone they choose as long as there is a "benefit to the shareholders."

Like the people here who worship Steve Jobs? I don't get CEO worship either, but I bet if you polled nationally, you'd find that most people _don't_ worship large corporation CEOs either. That said, I don't know what these people (most of them) do that commands the kind of money they make. No doubt many of them are _way_ overpaid, but I also bet you and I both have a lot to learn about what makes a large corporation tick.

And this article highlights another one... it's fine for a building to sit empty as long as some corporate entity is making money.

Who should be the one making it not-fine? Maybe you don't like it, but are you suggesting that there should be law that if you own a building that you should have to bring it up to modern code and rent out space? Do you have any idea what the condition of that particular building is? (I don't). Should there then be law about how much he should rent the space out for? What's your master plan for this? Don't just spout off about how evil it is that he makes a profit. Tell us what he should do, and tell us what you think the role of government is in this situation, especially with respect to private property rights.

The US has about 3 times the number of houses available then there are homeless people and many of those houses were obtained by the banks by nefarious means... but since a corporation benefits no one does anything.

Think so? I'm going to call for citation on that one. Again, what's your end-game proposal here? Should the government force the banks to let homeless people live in bank-owned houses? What's the government's role in this?

I can tell you care deeply about the homeless. How many have you taken into your home to live with you? Should the government force you to take in homeless? So I guess it's fine for a room in your home to sit empty (or "spare") while

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[dreamchaser]

He owns it. He presumably is paying his property taxes on it. Who are you, or who is anyone for that matter, to say what he should do with it? Unless of course you don't believe in private property ownership.

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[otterpop81]

The building is not only paid for in full but he could literally spend $50 million redoing the interior(the next ~two years of income) and then rent out the space for another 5-10 million a year.

Should we make that law then? As soon as your building is paid for, you shall renovate it and rent it out? What if that's one of many other buildings he owns, the rest of which _lose_ money. What then?

Liberals talk about how horrible it is to judge the social morality of others, but they have no problem doing it economically.

It is what is wrong with the Republican Piss Down Theory. This guy is literally sitting on his money.It isn't really doing him as good as it should. If he was actually investing in that property I could see it but he isn't.

The problem with your line of thinking is that if someone invests huge sums of money, time, and life, and makes a profit, they're evil and they should give that profit away, but if they take a loss, then well that's just their own fault for not being a better businessman.

In NYC that location? he could be doing 50-100% more income on that property.

I bet you could do 50-100% more on your own income. How many jobs do you have? Don't have your doctorate yet? That's what's wrong with personal liberty. Not everyone works up to their full potential.

See how ridiculous it sounds when you try to tell someone what they should and shouldn't be doing with their own money and their own life? Get your own life, and don't judge the actions of other people based on 5 sentences you read in a slashdot summary.

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[mooingyak]

Ever consider he may not have tenants because no one would want to have 1,000,000 watts of light pouring into their office each and every day?

If he wants to rent the space, he'll find takers without much trouble. Also, as someone whose workspace is in Times Square facing said billboards, it's much better to be in the building with the ads on it than the building that faces the ads.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And it's how hot inside?

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[icebike]

It appears there isn't any windows in this building at all, the ground floor appears to have a Walgreens, if it is the building I think it is.

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[mooingyak]

I understood that to mean he's pissing away his corporation's money. As in, letting a building in one of the highest rent markets in the country lay unused. There's no way that building makes more money empty than it does with tenants.

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[Fluffeh]

Who are you, or who is anyone for that matter, to say what he should do with it?

Curious and/or surprised folk?

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[rgbrenner]

sssshhhhhhhhh.. this is slashdot where citation-less posts with made up reasoning get +5.

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[pollarda]

This is New York City where if you rent or lease space, you are automatically the bad guy. Why rent or lease and incur the liability?

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[icebike]

I understood that to mean he's pissing away his corporation's money. As in, letting a building in one of the highest rent markets in the country lay unused. There's no way that building makes more money empty than it does with tenants.

I;m not sure he would make much renting that place. It would probably inhibit his advertising campaign. Its not that big such that he would have many tenants anyway.

Its a very little ( by NYC standards) building, with no parking.

Here's a link to the 3D view on Google Maps. (Fairly resource intensive view).

Here's a street view, its the building behind the tiny police department office.

This Google Satellite image shows its about 6 car lengths long, wedge shaped building. You simply aren't going to get much rent for that building, with no parking, no view.

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[JimCanuck]

Should we make that law then? As soon as your building is paid for, you shall renovate it and rent it out? What if that's one of many other buildings he owns, the rest of which _lose_ money. What then?

Anybody who has actually rented out property knows the return on investment is to tiny that it's better just to flip the property on some other poor sap and let them watch their money end up going to endless fixes and utility increases while the Government tells you you can only increase your rent per year a fraction of just the different between last years utility rate and this coming years.

In my personal case, I'm looking at a 2.5% rent increase, while the property tax, and water/sewage's increase alone eats it up, include electricity and natural gas? At this rate, I'll be paying to have renters in in a couple years.

The age of buying property and getting a good return on your investment is long dead. Unless you constantly evict your tenants and increase your new renting price on a near yearly basis.

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[Seumas]

I don't know why you were modded "funny". You're spot on. Times Square and Vegas were fantastic before they were nerfed and Disneyfied for boomers and their stupid kids.

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[mooingyak]

When I'm at work, I look out the window at that building. I'm familiar with it's dimensions and location.

You'd rent it as an office space, not a residential space. No one cares that it doesn't have parking. The decision makers will take the corner slots with a view and not give a damn that everyone else doesn't have a view (or, given that those lights are irritatingly distracting, maybe the reverse)

You might not get as much as a larger building, but I have no doubt you could make enough to be worth doing.

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[manu0601]

UN Human Rights article 17 says that "No one can arbitrarily be deprived of his ownership.", which implies there are legitimate reasons to deprive someone of its ownership. 1789 french's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen goes further, noting the public necessity as the reason:

Property being an inviolable and sacred right, no one can be deprived of it, unless demanded by public necessity, legally constituted, explicitly demands it, and under the condition of a just and prior indemnity.

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[interval1066]

alowing people to use the building would incure a liability. its cheaper to leave it empty.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful?? News flash: The government tells you what you can do with your property all the fucking time. Check out zoning laws, public safety laws, and thousands of bylaws just to start with.

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[Son of Byrne]

Don't know why you've been modded a troll, but I think that your comment cuts to the quick of the aforementioned hollow argument.

In real estate, there is a concept known as highest and best use of property. That concept works exactly the way that it sounds and is one of the tools that an appraiser uses when trying to determine the value of a property. In this case, the building may serve its highest and best use as a billboard and not as office space/hotel/whatever. Who cares that the building sits empty? It most likely is not heated, not plumbed, and may not even have any interior walls/flooring/etc.

Further, I don't think that asking someone to justify their ridiculous statements (without even using the term "ridiculous statements") qualifies as trolling. If it did, then count Socrates as one of the first trolls.

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[Anonymous Coward]

He is the _least_ income distributing president of all time. Taxes were 10% higher under Reagan of all people.

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[pyro_peter_911]

I think you're unfairly moderated as Troll here, so I'll reply and have you bumped up to insightful in just a few moments... :)

How much is a "decent wage?" I hear people all the time talk about a "living wage" on here, but nobody puts a dollar figure on it. Give me something concrete. What should the high-school drop-out ditch digger (or whatever) who has learned no marketable skills make? What kinds of things should someone making a "living" wage be able to buy? What things are over the line? For example, how new a car, what kinds of food, cell phones, cable TV, how big of house or apartment? Should this "living wage" increase because people live in a certain area, or should we pay them more because they have a bunch of kids? I want to know what a "living wage" really means.
Also, how much more should a person with a degree make than this base "living wage." I mean a real degree which enables someone to produce something of value. I'm talking about engineering, or science, or something medical (and there are plenty of others), not philosophy or communications or something that qualifies you to be a barista.

Here's how I've always attempted to communicate this idea that you're sharing.
When you impose a minimum wage there are, almost by definition, jobs that are no longer worth hiring someone to do.
Is it worth $8/hr for a gym to hire a kid to wipe sweat off the equipment in the afternoons? Probably not. Wipe your own sweat.
Is it worth $8/hr for the mechanic to figure out why your BMW's heated cupholder isn't working? Probably so. The shop is going to bill $150/hr for the repair, so the mechanic has plenty of room between $8/hr and $150/hr to carve out a reasonable salary, while the owner still gets paid too.

Now, to run the "decent wage" and minimum wage ideas to their absurd extreme. If a $0 minimum wage is bad, and a $10 minimum wage is little better, why not make the minimum wage $10,000/hr! We'll All Be Rich! I'll have two new cars by lunchtime! Obviously, "We'll all be rich!" is the wrong answer. We'll all be criminals and working for whatever we're worth is the correct answer. If you insist on being law abiding, you'll be unemployed. No one on /. is worth $10K/hr (I'm sorry if this is a shock to some). Obviously, $10K/hr minimum is extreme, but the effects of raising the minimum wage to a "living wage" of $20/hr would be similar. Now everyone is getting paid at least $40K/year for their full time jobs. Great! But your Papa John's pizza is going to go up by a bit more than $0.15 to make it worth selling crappy pizzas.

You've just cut the bottom four rungs off of the economic ladder. It is no longer possible to go from sweeping the floors at the auto shop, to doing oil changes, to changing brakes, to being a highly skilled mechanic working on high end cars. The only job in that chain that is worth hiring an employee for is the last one. Everyone below that point gets the shaft and becomes a criminal.

The simple fact is that minimum wage laws hurt the very ones they are supposed to be helping, either by eliminating their jobs or by forcing them into "under the table" working arrangements where they can be paid what they are worth.

Peter

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[nbauman]

Manhattan has actually been coming out of a weak real estate market. I live around the Times Square neighborhood. Several real estate construction projects were cancelled. There are empty stores. It's counter-intuitive, since the price of Manhattan real estate seemed infinite, but that's why we get real estate bubbles that finally burst.

For example, Mayor Bloomberg sold the Donnell library to a hotel company, but the market crashed so it is now a gutted building on 53rd St. between 5th and 6th Ave., one of the most expensive locations in the world.

There are stores in the neighborhood that have closed, and left vacant instead of being rented (even in the Christmas sales season).

Some buildings just stay vacant for reasons that I can't understand. For example, there is 400 W. 57th St., on the SW corner of 9th Ave., which is owned by a Korean investment syndicate, that has remained vacant for maybe 15 years. There was an article in the New York Times about how it was a prime location (3 blocks from Carnegie Hall, and 4 blocks from Lincoln Center) and how they were planning to do something with it, but last time I walked by it was still empty.

Sometimes a real estate company will have vacant property, so they'll throw up a cheap store just do something with it rather than let it sit vacant. I think a lot of the 99-cent stores are set up like that. Some of these stores, like the restaurants and tacky shops, have the landlord as a partner. They're waiting for the real estate market to come back, and then they'll tear down the block and build a new building.

It's strange to think that a building like the one on Times Square could have signs on the outside, but nobody exploiting the inside in eternally-hustling Manhattan. But it happens.

Here's another one: I was living in another building around that area. My super asked me to help him do something in the back yard. He took me through a non-public door, and into a big back yard, that nobody in the building was allowed to use. There was a line of buildings down the north and south street, with a string of back yards between them, and nobody was using the back yards. It was like a collection of secret gardens. There are lots of streets like that in Manhattan, with closed-off back yards, even though space is so precious.

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[Anonymous Coward]

You are my hero. At least for today. Your response completely bottles the proper attitude and response to this type of thinking. Not anger or opposing talking points, but rational dialog ready to discuss pros and cons. What a concept.

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[Garth Smith]

Humans have generally believed since the Magna Carta that there should be some limits on power. As far back as Bible times when people taxed/tithed their government/religion that there should be some transfer of wealth from the wealthy to the poor. Without such transfers of wealth, the ultimate conclusion will always be fiefdoms where a few Lords use their power and wealth to acquire more power and wealth.

Believing in private property doesn't mean that society gets zero say in how you use that property. Where is your empathy?

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[Garth Smith]

Please mod parent, aka me, down. After rereading grandparent, I realize he already mentioned property taxes have been paid and grandparent does not seem to take any issue with taxes.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Did you miss the part about buying it for $117 million? Those loan payments eat into that cash flow quite a bit I'm sure.

Sorry but commercial real estate is valued based on how much you can anticipate to make off of it. The smarter/more creative the owner is at making money, the more he gets paid. Go read Think and Grow Rich (it is deliberately not titled Work Hard and Grow Rich). Thinking is one of the hardest activities there is; that I why so few people engage in it.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Because why would anyone mess with a deal this weird and profitable? Tenants might be within their rights to ask for billboards to be removed or something, if not now, then maybe later with a change in the law.

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[nbauman]

here's your citation and stfu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_To_Serfdom

        There is no reason why, in a society which has reached the general level of wealth ours has, the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom; that is: some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health. Nor is there any reason why the state should not help to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance in providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision.

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[SydShamino]

The flaw in your logic is that most of the jobs created at the sub-minimum wage level (in the absence of such a wage) wouldn't go to a 13-year-old making money to buy candy. They would go to people working five jobs trying to scrape by a living. Instead, with a minimum wage, those people scrape by a living while working only three jobs, thereby providing them a small amount of time at rest.

Also, minimum wage establishes a base line for education. As you point out, certain jobs are no longer worth hiring someone to do them. Those jobs by their wage point had little to no education requirement. Okay, so there are no longer jobs for people who chose to drop out of school in ninth grade and refuse to learn a trade. You know what? That's a fair trade to me. If those people have a development disability that prevents them for learning a skill, then we have a social safety net to help them.

Finally the $10,000/hr statement is just absurd right now, because that price point would eliminate all jobs except those requiring skill as a Fortune 500 CEO. Now, if we were a country with 501 citizens and 500 CEO jobs to fill? Then sure, it would be perfectly viable.

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[Anonymous Coward]

What exceptions are you referring to? I can see why a landlord might not want to rent if the marginal operating costs (janitors, maintenance, tenant improvements, security, etc.) exceed the rents. But I'm not sure what tax benefits are realized by letting the building sit vacant if there are tenants who will pay rents that exceed marginal operating expenses. I can't imagine that there are any property tax benefits, and income tax is applied only on actual income. The landlord can claim depreciation on its returns regardless of occupancy. I'm genuinely curious. Does NY have some sort tax on gross revenues (like Washington's business and occupation tax)?

I don't know the situation in New York but it could be exactly as the GP said. Some cities provide property tax breaks on commercial properties that are unoccupied. Even giving away the space to a local community group could mean a big tax bill increase.

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[SydShamino]

Should we make that law then?

I think you're the only one proposing that we make it a law. Everyone else is merely pointing out a flaw in the usual argument in favor of trickle-down economics. In other words, while he should and is free to use that land as he sees fit (albeit while paying his taxes and having historical restrictions likely preventing removal of the building), there's no reason that he should receive favorable tax rates over those who work hard for a living, and indeed due to the high income he can contribute a greater share to the general welfare without it impacting his lifestyle.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure there is a valid reason to believe in private property ownership, actually, if you mean "believe" as in acknowledging that something objectively exists.

Out of curiosity, what would you say would have been the first person with legitimate "title" to the property upon which this building exists, and by what criteria did it become "his"?

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[Anonymous Coward]

If those people have a development disability that prevents them for learning a skill, then we have a social safety net to help them.

I know people that are perfectly heathy and capable on many jobs but have not had one for decades. They live off of government handouts and under the table side jobs. There are MANY people that do this their entire lives. The federal government allows this and in my opinion, the Obama administration seems to encourage it or at least considers it perfectly acceptable.

My uncle was collecting unemployment for the last two years. Him and his wife are empty nesters with no debt. While collecting that money, they added an addition to their house, bought another new car, and went to Europe for vacation.

People that worked hard their entire life and were responsible with their money and people that never worked a day in their life and are slugs are taking advantage of handouts and making a good living doing it.

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[garyoa1]

Used to be if you wanted to make more money you worked harder and/or longer. Then some politician came up with a "minimum" wage law. No one noticed it was really a tax increase. They still don't.

Did it help the poor? Hell no. It hurt. If it wasn't for minimum wage you'd still be paying about a nickel for a loaf of bread.

Minimum wage is nothing more than a hidden tax increase. One that makes the politicians look good.

Look, you get a raise. Your employer has to raise his prices. Within a month you're back to where you were since every employer everywhere has to raise prices.

But wait! There's more! You're actually worse off. The wage increase means you get more money, but it also means you pay more taxes. And if it puts you over the edge to that higher tax bracket... you're behind. Your cost of living goes up and taxes go up but you never notice it. But you're smiling like a jackass eating briars and the politicians are just smiling since they now have enough money to vote themselves another raise.

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[AK Marc]

Homeowner property tax is on value. Some places do commercial property tax on revenue or profit (to give the 1% a desperately needed tax break). Perhaps the rules are written somewhere that an external billboard is not included in the P&L for the property, and so sitting empty generates minimum property tax, though making 10% profit and 90% tax on that would still give a bigger net income than $0 tax on $0 income. So there's very little reason someone would want it empty for tax reasons alone (unless there are some tax swaps that essentially generate income from it being empty). I've seen people spend 10x the cost to renovate a historical building than it would have cost to demolish it and rebuild the identical item at that place. So perhaps it's an issue of renovations being expensive.

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[Anonymous Coward]

First the estimates for a living wage in the US are around $11/hr-$14/hr. I'm not saying it's viable to raise the minimum wage that high, but no one is talking about a $20/hr minimum wage.

You are right that there is a point at which the minimum wage can be too high, but, somewhat counter-intuitively, it can actually be too low (people who earn little money spend little money), although there is plenty of disagreement among economists on the precise right way to handle a minimum wage. Wikipedia is a good starting place for discussions pro/con minimum wage.

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[Anonymous Coward]

It frightens me that you got a 5 for this drivel. Obama, the "most income-distributing president of all time"? That is an utterly baseless falsity. Because he advocates raising taxes on the richest of the rich, to *nowhere near* the levels they paid pre-Reagan? Because he endorsed a piece of health care legislation that is *more conservative the health care legislation proposed by Richard Nixon*? You're insane.

In fact what has happened since the 80s is the right wing has moved extremely far right, and the left wing has followed them. Obama would have been a Republican in a more sensible generation.

And while the economy isn't great, exit polls showed that a majority of voters believe that our economic problems were caused by Republicans (oh and by the way, that is true.) Was Mittens, that lying piece of shit, going to turn it all around in your fantasy world?

Sista please.

   

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you don't become successful in business by donating or giving things away.

Why didn't anybody tell me this 10 years ago?! I started donating my time to maintain a few websites for local non-profit types, over time the sites grew so much the orgs happily started paying me and referring me to other businesses, and now I make a comfortable living as a webmaster. If only I knew donating is not good for business, I would have never done that and I'd still be answering to a PHB.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that it is entirely his right to not rent it out. On the other hand, it seems strange that an office building in the middle of Manhattan would be left vacant. The fact that it is not rented out suggests either (1) the building is not actually usable as an office building (another poster suggested the light from the signs might leak inside too much, many others have suggested the internal infrastructure is likely not maintained), (2) there are some misplaced incentives discouraging him from renting it out for some reason (someone suggested there might be tax breaks for keeping a building empty... which if it is true if a very weird thing to make a tax incentive for) or (3) he would be perfectly willing to rent the building out, but there isn't actually enough demand at the price he would have to charge to make a reasonable profit. (3) seems unlikely given that real estate is expected to be very expensive in that area. (2) would indicate something is very wrong with the surrounding tax laws (something wrong with tax laws, yeah, not news, I know).

tl;dr If someone is doing something you don't like apparently in order to get a larger profit, consider what the incentives are making that the most profitable choice.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Seinfeld.

http://i.imgur.com/SAj2R.jpg

Re:Profit

[AK Marc]

. Interesting take on a country that just re-elected the most income-distributing president of all time.
[...]
I'm going to call for citation on that one.

I'd like to see a cite for your claim. Income tax is still well below historic highs, so he's not re-distributing that much. Or are you counting the re-distributions *to* the 1% (GM, Haliburton, and the like)?

How much is a "decent wage?" I hear people all the time talk about a "living wage" on here, but nobody puts a dollar figure on it. Give me something concrete. What should the high-school drop-out ditch digger (or whatever) who has learned no marketable skills make?

Anyone who words the question that way is looking for a fight. No wonder nobody will answer you.

I don't get CEO worship either, but I bet if you polled nationally, you'd find that most people _don't_ worship large corporation CEOs either.

The system was set up by CEOs to help CEOs. Golden parachutes for failed CEOs, where the worse you do, the more you make isn't uncommon (not that the are paid for failure, but paid more for lower time served because it hurts their career, so if you get fired in the first week, you get more than if you get fired after a few years). And the people that set your salary are almost all CEOs (directors aren't people knowledgable about the market or industry, but other CEOs).

I can tell you care deeply about the homeless. How many have you taken into your home to live with you?

2. And I've offered to take more, but they didn't accept. The offers have been around local disasters where the government stepped in and created crisis shelters. How about yourself?

Maybe you don't like it, but are you suggesting that there should be law that if you own a building that you should have to bring it up to modern code and rent out space?

There are places where such rules exist, and they seem to work out rather well.

Re:Profit

[markass530]

The most income-distributing president of all time? So what, you're saying the president personally makes sure people get paid?

Re:Profit

[shutdown -p now]

Interesting take on a country that just re-elected the most income-distributing president of all time.

What, did they dig FDR and re-elect him?

Tax rates are a record low in the past two decades, and Obama has so far done little to change that.

We know he didn't win on his economic record. He won on the same kind of class warfare talk that you're giving right now.

No, he won on the "I'm not those guys" record. By which I mean that he's not a loony who spouts bullshit about how raped women don't conceive unless they "really wanted it" and so don't need abortions, or how gays are icky abominations that should be glad to not be in jail and just shut up about that whole marriage thing, or how Hispanics are a "culture of losers". This election wasn't really a victory for Obama - it was a loss for the bigots on extreme social conservative right. Good riddance, too. Next time try running some guy who actually focuses on the economy. Having a fiscal plan which does not involve money conjured from thin air to balance the budget helps there (or, at least, don't claim that it'll balance!).

How much is a "decent wage?" I hear people all the time talk about a "living wage" on here, but nobody puts a dollar figure on it. Give me something concrete. What should the high-school drop-out ditch digger (or whatever) who has learned no marketable skills make? What kinds of things should someone making a "living" wage be able to buy? What things are over the line? For example, how new a car, what kinds of food, cell phones, cable TV, how big of house or apartment? Should this "living wage" increase because people live in a certain area, or should we pay them more because they have a bunch of kids? I want to know what a "living wage" really means.

A "decent wage" should not be lower than some reasonable factor relative to the highest wage in the company (note, I'm talking wages here, not dividends). "Reasonable" in this case is debatable and varies depending on who you ask, but vast majority of us agree that the 200x-500x rates that we see today are unreasonable. Personally, I think anything beyond 20x is unhealthy.

Please describe your moral code with respect to who should be giving what to whom in what situations, and who should be allowed to be on the receiving end.

Muslims has this nice term, "fard al-kifaya". This is a duty which is imposed on community as a whole - in other words, it is fulfilled when there are enough people that make it happen by whatever means necessary (and moral), and there is no personal individual obligation for every member of said community to participate. But if it is not fulfilled, then everyone should do what they reasonably can to contribute.

Same reasoning would seem to apply here - Americans as a society are certainly wealthy enough to eradicate poverty and homelessness, and it is therefore morally binding on them to do so. If, as fiscal conservatives and libertarians keep telling us, this is something that can be achieved entirely through private charity, then that's absolutely fine and government needs not be involved, but so far it hasn't happened.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Who should be the one making it not-fine? Maybe you don't like it, but are you suggesting that there should be law that if you own a building that you should have to bring it up to modern code and rent out space? Do you have any idea what the condition of that particular building is? (I don't). Should there then be law about how much he should rent the space out for? What's your master plan for this? Don't just spout off about how evil it is that he makes a profit. Tell us what he should do, and tell us what you think the role of government is in this situation, especially with respect to private property rights.

New York City's answer to (nearly) all of your (rhetorical) questions is "Yes & we make the rules, stupid." (A quick google on NYC building codes, rent control & stabilization, building ownership laws will turn up more than enough citations to fill your own pipe).

That said, as a new yorker, I think it's hilarious that this is even a headline: "News Flash: Wealthy New York Sleazebag turns a buck".

If people actually wanted to live there - there would be people living there. But it's times square - if you've spent more than an hour there you know that's not the case. Its zoned for advertising & offices who value the zipcode & bragging rights (and whose employees despise them for insisting they traverse through hell each day).

Re:Profit

[Stormy Dragon]

The building currently doesn't have an HVAC system, which means that it's not up to current building codes. The charity wouldn't be able to get an occupancy permit from the city.

Re:Profit

[Firethorn]

doing no work would very quickly lead to a hazardous dilapidated shell.

This is in line with my original thought on why such an upscale building would be empty - it's possible that it's already a hazardous shell, except for the bits necessary to keep the billboard up, and for whatever reason(incredible amount of asbestos?), it'd cost more than what he could rent it out for to fix.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

I thankfully lost you when you said that getting pushed into a higher tax bracket puts you behind. Thanks for pointing out that you're one of the many people who spews shit on the internet but doesn't do 5 minutes of basic research about how taxation actually works. If some of my income is taxed at 0% and the other more than half is taxed at 15%, my total rate is about 13%. This is what most Americans pays. You are not "behind", you're paying 0% on 1-12,000; 15% on 12-35,000, etc etc. Unless you're married or have more than 11,000 or so in deductions in which case double the numbers.

You're a retard. The saddest thing is that I'm sure you believe your objectively incorrect theory of income taxation.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a good idea. Make the space a government sponsored industrial scale city farming research site. Red and blue LEDs provide the light plants grave.

Re:Profit

[AK Marc]

The wage increase means you get more money, but it also means you pay more taxes. And if it puts you over the edge to that higher tax bracket...

The US has some of the lowest taxes. I'm in the top 10% of wage earners in the US and pay less than 10% of my gross in federal income tax.

And there's never a case where $1 income costs you more than $0.35 in tax (though if you are at one of the few plateaus where you also lose a credit, you can get stung, but those are very rare and only mentioned by liars looking to make up unrealistic scenarios to push their lying agenda). The politicians voting themselves raises were elected by you. You are the problem. When the voters wake up, the nightmare will end. How long will the US voters remain asleep? I'm guessing it's a terminal coma, and only death can renew the US. Because people like you are more interested in blame and irrational pet theories than solving the actual problem (the voters are dumb). Either educate the voters, or you get the government you deserve.

Re:Profit

[MaskedSlacker]

Further, I don't think that asking someone to justify their ridiculous statements (without even using the term "ridiculous statements") qualifies as trolling. If it did, then count Socrates as one of the first trolls.

Why do you think they executed him? He was just so committed to the troll that he went along with it for the lulz.

Re:Profit

[AK Marc]

That's the trick of the 1%. They make it sound like it's easy to make millions, but in fact, in the US, it just isn't that common (well, more common now, with the value of the dollar falling, but when a million will get you a stick of gum, it's no longer such a milestone). If I had the chance to pay what he did when he bought it, I would. But getting the first $117 million is the hard part. Extracting rent from that capital is easy.

Re:Profit

[MaskedSlacker]

Actually, he's accidentally right, and you're wrong.

Your basic point is right, but you're knocking down a strawman that has nothing to do with what he's talking about.

His point is that raising minimum wage DOES NOT raise the value of mopping floors. The floor mopper nominally gets paid more, sure, but prices rise so his pre-tax buying power is constant. However, his total tax-rate has risen, so his post-tax buying power has actually fallen.

If the floor mopper in question was given a raise in isolation and bumped into a higher tax bracket, you'd be right because his buying power would have increased more than his total tax rate did. However when all floor moppers get the same raise, and prices rise with them, buying power rises LESS than the total tax rate.

Re:Profit

[hattig]

We know he didn't win on his economic record.

Compared to other parts of the world, his policies have been a roaring success - and an economy doesn't exist in a vacuum these days so that's a really good sign.

How much is a "decent wage?" I hear people all the time talk about a "living wage" on here, but nobody puts a dollar figure on it. Give me something concrete. What should the high-school drop-out ditch digger (or whatever) who has learned no marketable skills make? What kinds of things should someone making a "living" wage be able to buy? What things are over the line? For example, how new a car, what kinds of food, cell phones, cable TV, how big of house or apartment? Should this "living wage" increase because people live in a certain area, or should we pay them more because they have a bunch of kids? I want to know what a "living wage" really means.

To put it simply, a living wage means that someone who is working full time can afford all the necessities (food, bills, housing, clothing, etc) and some wants (beers, meals out, days out) without having to get into debt. The main variance is going to be the cost of housing. Overall, the car won't be new, the cell phone a cheaper model, no billed cable TV (but internet access), and enough space for them to live, in a residence that is not in a state of bad repair because of crappy abusive landlords.

Yes, the living wage should increase in expensive areas. That's because these people - the cleaners, the bin men, etc - are needed in those locations, but rents are more expensive.

Children don't get to choose who they are born to. They should all get a child benefit paid to a responsible carer.

A person with a degree invests money and time to get that degree. Let's say that is six years and $100,000 compared to a person who dropped out of school (for non-academic reasons - not everybody is academic, education paths need more vocational study options) at 16 and subsequently because a labourer/binman/etc. It would make sense that the effort, investment and loss of potential earnings whilst studying was repaid in additional wages over a period of time, say a decade.

I'm not going to get into the housing argument, let's just say that whilst there are homeless people it is a scandal that houses lie empty, and additionally I believe the worth of a society can be ascertained from how it treats the unfortunates within that society.

Re:Profit

[Rockoon]

Tax rates are a record low in the past two decades, and Obama has so far done little to change that.

..a nice factoid that is being misused here, since it doesnt tell us anything about the (lack of) redistribution that you are trying to use it for.

I don't have figures in front of me for exactly the last 2 decades.. the numbers I have right now are for 1979 to 2009 (XLS spreadsheet), so I am using 1979 to 2009:

The lowest quintiles share of the federal tax liability was 2.1% in 1979 :: 0.3% in 2009.
The second quintiles share of the federal tax liability was 7.4% in 1979 :: 3.8% in 2009.
The middle quintiles share of the federal tax liability was 13.6% in 1979 :: 9.4% in 2009.
The fourth quintiles share of the federal tax liability was 21.6% in 1979 :: 18.3% in 2009.
The highest quintiles share of the federal tax liability was 55.3% in 1979 :: 67.9% in 2009.

I'm no genius, but it looks to me like everyone is paying less of a share than they used to for their government except for the top 20%, and before you go there, the top 1% went from a 14.2% share of the liability to a 22.3% share of the liability.

People wanted a progressive tax system, and they got it in spades.

Now we have a president that wants to raise taxes "on the rich" because they arent paying "their fair share", and in light of the evidence that "the rich" already pay most of the taxes, its hard not to conclude that this is pure class warfare unless you don't actually know the evidence.

These numbers I give arent from some right wing blog, and they arent from fox news. They come verbatim from the Congressional Budget Office. I didnt "adjust" them, nor am I misrepresenting what the figures are actually of.

I also didn't cherry pick, as is evident because I did not use the individual income tax data (which excludes among other things the social insurance taxes) which puts that bottom quintile at -6.6% (yes, NEGATIVE 6.6%) and the top quintile at 94.1% (yes, 19 out of 20 dollars in income tax is paid by the top 20%)

Your turn. Please argue that Obama is not trying to redistribute the wealth, but do so by using actual data instead of supposition and innuendo, and neither "adjust" nor cherry pick the data. Can you do that, or are you just a bunch of opinion?

Re:Profit

[hattig]

Is it worth $8/hr for a gym to hire a kid to wipe sweat off the equipment in the afternoons? Probably not. Wipe your own sweat.

This is why many minimum wage implementations have different minimum wage values depending upon the age of the worker - allowing a business to hire that "sweat wiper and general gym dogsbody".

For example, the UK (https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates):
Age 21+ : £6.19/hr ($9.96/hr)
18 - 20: £4.98/hr
http://www.livingwage.org.uk/about-living-wage
The London Living Wage is currently £8.55 per hour. The link above shows that it is good for the employees and the employers, that the minimum wage laws benefit those they are supposed to be helping because lots of jobs are necessary but underappreciated.
Before the minimum wage was introduced in the UK lots of people were saying the exact same things you are saying. You don't hear squat from them anymore, because they were wrong.

Re:Profit

[hattig]

Bah, it missed off the under 18 category, at £3.68 per hour.

Re:Profit

[Rockoon]

Also, as someone whose workspace is in Times Square facing said billboards, it's much better to be in the building with the ads on it than the building that faces the ads.

Lets say you own a small chain of hardware stores, and you need a place for your offices, so you rent this place out. Then Home Depot buys time on that build-board... hows that going for you?

The existence of the advertisements reduces demand for the building as a work space.

Re:Profit

[hattig]

Used to be if you wanted to make more money you worked harder and/or longer.

People ran out of hours in the day to work earning abusive pay rates just to get by because the cost of living has been increasing.

Did it help the poor? Hell no. It hurt. If it wasn't for minimum wage you'd still be paying about a nickel for a loaf of bread.

The price of bread rose because the price of the ingredients has risen massively in the past ten years.
Why should people be paid a pittance to work full time, doing tiring work, and that wage doesn't even cover basic living costs? Or do you live in a third world country?

And if it puts you over the edge to that higher tax bracket... you're behind.

Do you understand how progressive taxation actually works?

Re:Profit

[hattig]

Indeed I think the only use for this advertising hoarding with empty rooms is as a storage facility, given that many of the windows will be obscured by the advertising hoardings, and access to the hoardings is required for repairs.

I'm sure that a storage facility in that location would be well utilised by local businesses, even if the rates were high. That, or a server colocation facility.

Gotta be a better use than letting it lie empty, but I don't think it's an option to turn the inside into office space or residential space, simply because the primary earner is the advertising, and that has a lot of downsides for potential secondary uses.

Re:Profit

[MysteriousPreacher]

I thought economists were pretty divided on the effects of a minimum wage. Glad to see you have everything worked out. Where are you published?

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why you think economists are pretty divided on the subject. A minimum wage is a price floor on labor. The economic analysis of price floors is pretty fleshed out. You can set a price floor that isn't terribly harmful.. but that will be because the floor isn't set very far over the natural price. So, help the poor people! But... not too much. Sounds like a great plan.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

The German constitution says "Property entails obligations. Its use shall also serve the
public good." but it is mostly used as tax justification.

Re:Profit

[TheRaven64]

Your numbers only tell part of the story. Try factoring in concentration of wealth and re-running the numbers.

Re:Profit

[TheRaven64]

Only as a retail space. There are lots of other uses. That close to Wall Street, I would be surprised if there weren't some HFT firms that would be interested in sticking a data centre in there, for example. At the lower-tech end, there are almost certainly nearby businesses that would like some local storage space: divide it up into large storage lockers and rent it out as overflow storage for any of the nearby retail businesses. Who cares if you're a small hardware store and Home Depot has a big advert over your overflow storage space, none of your customers even know you store stuff there...

Re:Profit

[TheRaven64]

What do you think the rate on the mortgage is? At 10% (insanely high at the moment), it would be $11.7m/year, which is under half of the income. More plausibly it's a quarter. Don't forget that the loan interest is applied before tax, so that's directly on the income, not on the post-tax profit.

Re:Profit

[Ginger Unicorn]

Ever consider he may not have tenants because no one would want to have 1,000,000 watts of light pouring into their office each and every day?

If only there ware some kind of magical material that was opaque to visible light.

Re:Profit

[TheRaven64]

In my personal case, I'm looking at a 2.5% rent increase, while the property tax, and water/sewage's increase alone eats it up, include electricity and natural gas? At this rate, I'll be paying to have renters in in a couple years.

Why are you paying any of these? I'm renting out my house at the moment, because I moved to a different city, and my tenant is responsible for the tax, water, electricity, gas, and Internet bills. The money he pays me covers mortgage interest, maintenance costs, and is paying off the capital on the mortgage on top. One of the big savings from renting the house out was that I got to stop paying council tax and utility bills on it.

Re:Profit

[TheRaven64]

They make it sound like it's easy to make millions

It's very easy to make millions. As long as you start with billions...

Re:Profit

[vlpronj]

Good point. I'm guessing he's had 0 lawsuits from tenants over the period of vacancy. I would also think his insurance costs would be pretty low, since fire risk, if the building is properly maintained and monitored, should be minimal. There's always the temptation to increase income, or offer room to charities, but even if his profit is only 50% of the income, why risk that to make a few more million? If the owner is anything like most people, a "few more million" a year won't really improve his quality of life once he's earning 10s of millions a year - it'll just complicate it. Without RTFA, here's hoping he's living happily in a nice $1.5 million home somewhere, with a few nice high-end cars and 60" TVs scattered around, donating the majority of income to charity. If anybody doubts that someone could be happy doing that, I'd be willing to try, if you provide the funds...

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why you think there are companies clamoring to lease space in Times Square. Having a lot of foot traffic in Times Square is no advantage for the office workers inside. Its only an advantage for a retail space. And, then, only really an advantage on the ground floor.

This advertising earns 25 million/year at minimal expense. You suggest that he should spend 2 years income renovating a facility where it might take 10 years to recover the nominal investment. Only.. if he invested the 2 years of income elsewhere he could probably do better. Which.. is almost certainly what is happening.

Now, theoretically you could find a company willing to front the renovation costs themselves (at least for the space they're occupying) for a break on the lease expense. Which results in an immediate, but small, profit. However, any such company almost certainly has many other lease options in the city... from building owners who are more in need of tenants than the building in Times Square commanding the highest billboard rates in the world. Those other building owners are more motivated to make the reno investment themselves to capture long term revenues from tenants. Thus, this guy won't find such tenants and therefore we're back to the above situation where he has better investment opportunities .. and is taking them.

Re:Profit

[nospam007]

"If he's making a profit anyway, why not rent or give the space to local community groups / organisations?"

You completely missed the point, this is Slashdot not alt.economics.

We just want to discuss how long until we finally get our VR Glasses with an Adblocker extension, so that we don't have to see that crap.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

...and Busch Gardens used to have Free Beer.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Most likely due to tax exceptions for empty buildings.

I think the term you are looking for is Writing Down a Loss. A property owner takes the income from renting the exterior and subtracts the loss due to income not realized from the empty building and voila - no profit. Funny how that works.

Re:Profit

[Rude Turnip]

I hear this complaint now and then, but the fact of the matter is that New York used to be a shit hole in decline before it got gentrified. I avoid Times Square because of the foot traffic, but when I do pass through, I don't feel like I'm in any danger. In any case, that entire area was going to be razed and replaced with cold, soul-less office buildings if not for some folks who wanted to keep the area looking just about the same.

Re:Profit

[Rockoon]

Your numbers only tell part of the story. Try factoring in concentration of wealth and re-running the numbers.

Its broken up by quintiles, so already does factor in concentration of income. The top 20% of the people are paying 67.9% of the taxes, the bottom 20% of the people are paying 0.3% of the taxes.

Wealth is a red herring. We don't tax wealth for a very good reason. We tax income.

Re:Profit

[Rockoon]

Only as a retail space.

Your response to an example that doesnt use the property as a retail space, is to say "only as a retail space"

How about learning to read. Can you do that for me, or are you a bit thick?

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

How did this get modded insightful? Three paragraphs and hypocrisy abounds.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

I would agree with Vegas, but Times Square was a hell hole before it was Nerfed and Disneyfied.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

He owns it. He presumably is paying his property taxes on it. Who are you, or who is anyone for that matter, to say what he should do with it? Unless of course you don't believe in private property ownership.

He only 'owns' it because the government, funded by all taxpayers, is prepared to defend his ownership, if necessary by force.

How does anyone own property? Probably because a previous owner seized it by force, and then at some point the law was created to stop any further seizure by force, freezing the ownership in time (i.e. future changes of ownership had to now be transactions rather than seizures). There's nothing moral or intrinsic about land ownership.

It's always interesting how 'absolute property ownership' devotees have no answer to the question 'how did they get this land in the first place (i.e. who gave the original 'owner' the right to sell it to the second 'owner' etc.), why can't I get it by the same means, and why is the effectively arbitrary time at which this changed now sacrosanct?'

TL;DR Some people grabbed a load of stuff by force, then changed the rules to stop that happening in future (including having everybody else pay to defend what they grabbed), now claim an absolute moral right to that stuff and are outraged if anyone challenges it.

Re:Profit

[MysteriousPreacher]

I don't know why you think economists are pretty divided on the subject. A minimum wage is a price floor on labor. The economic analysis of price floors is pretty fleshed out. You can set a price floor that isn't terribly harmful.. but that will be because the floor isn't set very far over the natural price. So, help the poor people! But... not too much. Sounds like a great plan.

I checked out the wikipedia article and followed some of the studies and theories linked. I can see a minimum wage being a good thing, so long as it's obviously not set at a silly level. On employment levels, it seems complicated. Setting a minimum wage could reduce unemployment, through companies hiring fewer people, but could reduce it by making employment worthwhile for people who'd be better off just taking the benefits and black economy work.

How much it'd affect prices overall I don't know. I'd assume it'd have the largest impact on goods and services traditionally made/provided by unskilled workers, and then if the increase is significant enough, it'd have a knock-on impact on more expensive goods/services as cost of living for higher paid workers adjusts to the price increases (assuming that even happens).

I'm not claiming expertise here. It's more I think it problematic to make bold assertions, as the previous guy did, when this seems way more complicated than saying that minimum wage is just a stealth tax, with nothing but a bunch of assertions to back this up.

Re:Profit

[MickLinux]

_The_ meme. Interesting take on a country that just re-elected the most income-distributing president of all time.

I'm sorry, That honor belongs to GW Bush. Specifically, it was on his watch that we DOUBLED the national debt, crashed the economy, and gave it all, for free, to banks under a zero-interest, no date of repayment loan system [and yes, GMAC is also a bank, as is GE.]

But yes, Obama also voted for it as a senator. As did McCain. As did the Democratic establishment. As did the Republican establishment, except for Ron Paul.

As far as I can tell, Obama was reelected, because Romney looked all set to do it all again. Anyhow, Romney's son says Romney didn't really want to win: he just ran because there wasn't anyone better. So either Romney was arrogant, or had no awareness of what "better" means.

Re:Profit

[Grishnakh]

Posts don't need citations. This isn't Wikipedia or any other peer-reviewed article, it's a chat forum. You're right that posts with incorrect information routinely get modded up to +5, but leave the citation stuff out of it. IMO, it's OK to ask for (or even demand) a citation if someone is spewing bullshit, and you're calling them on it, but don't expect people to provide citations right off the bat. I don't see any citations in your post backing your claims, for instance.

Re:Profit

[Grishnakh]

I'm not disputing your assertion, but why the hell would a city provide tax breaks for unoccupied buildings? All that does is create an incentive to leave useful buildings standing empty, not generating taxable income for the city (both through tax on the rent itself, and also if the renter is a business, taxes from the business's income, plus also the network effects on the economy of that business). It doesn't make any sense at all. Of course, government officials aren't exactly known to be the sharpest tools in the shed, but this concept is so basic that the government of NYC, one of the premier cities of the world, should be able to grasp it.

Re:Profit

[MickLinux]

Fund that on an optional property tax, and you'd have the economy back in a heartbeat. What do I mean by optional?

I mean, if you declare the worth and pay the taxes, then the government confirms your right to it. If you don't declare the worth and pay the taxes, anyone can declare a value and pay the taxes, and the government transfers it to the new owner.

If someone else declares a greater worth, they have to be willing and able to buy it at that value... and you then have the option of selling, or declaring the greater worth, yourself.

Empty skyscrapers will quickly be filled, and there won't be hoarding, except what produced income [thus the economy comes back].

And all taxes become optional.

Re:Profit

[Grishnakh]

I don't know about the tax aspects of it, but as far as historical buildings go, sometimes there's laws in place that forbid the demolishing of historic buildings in particular places, so the owner may not be allowed to demolish it and rebuild a replica.

Re:Profit

[mcgrew]

Interesting take on a country that just re-elected the most income-distributing president of all time.

I take it you're unfamiliar with history. Ever heard of Abraham Lincoln? The income tax was instituted under his administration, and only the rich paid. Ever hear of FDR? His administration instituted Social Security and had such programs as the WPA. Sorry you slept through class.

We know he didn't win on his economic record.

No, he won on Mitt Romney's economic record. He won because he wasn't a far right-wing looney like Santorum or Gingrich.

He won on the same kind of class warfare talk that you're giving right now.

The 1% have been waging war on the rest of us for a long, long time. It's about time we started admitting that ugly fact.

How much is a "decent wage?" I hear people all the time talk about a "living wage" on here, but nobody puts a dollar figure on it.

A decent wage is a wage that will let a worker support his family. You can't put a dollar amount on it, because the cost of things varies place to place. A decent wage in Springfield is half what a decent wage is in Chicago, because everything costs twice as much there.

What should the high-school drop-out ditch digger (or whatever) who has learned no marketable skills make?

Why should McDonald's and Walmar workers be dependant on food stamps? Many of their workers are homeless. I wouldn't even call that a fair wage, let alone "decent". In fact, it's so indecent it's obscene.

Also, how much more should a person with a degree make than this base "living wage."

There should be a hell of a lot less disparity between an engineer's wage and the CEO's wage. The disparity today is greater than the disparity between the CEO and janitor thirty years ago.

I'm going to call for citation on that one.

Here are a whole lot of them.

Should the government force the banks to let homeless people live in bank-owned houses?

They should be forced to rent those houses at an affordable price. Someone working at WalMart should be able to afford rent on a small two bedroom house, but they can't because WalMart is too stingy and greedy.

How many have you taken into your home to live with you?

I don't know about the GP, but many of us have and do.

Please describe your moral code with respect to who should be giving what to whom in what situations

Again, I don't know about he GP, but as a Christian, my moral code mostly comes from the first four books of the New Testament. It comes down HARD on the rich and greedy.

Re:Profit

[JMJimmy]

citation needed ;)

Re:Profit

[JMJimmy]

I think he was being sardonic, or maybe factious, either way definitely not requiring of a serious response ;)

Re:Profit

[mooingyak]

Lets say you own a small chain of hardware stores, and you need a place for your offices, so you rent this place out. Then Home Depot buys time on that build-board... hows that going for you?

Not quite sure I get your point here.

This is different from you renting space somewhere else and Home Depot buying a billboard in Times Square how?

Re:Profit

[mcgrew]

Is it worth $8/hr for a gym to hire a kid to wipe sweat off the equipment in the afternoons?

If it's not worth paying someone a decent wage, it's not worth doing at all. If sweaty equpment is losing customers and money for you, damned right it's worth it.

why not make the minimum wage $10,000/hr!

Are you stupid, or do you think the rest of us are? Your arguments for making people go hungry because they weren't born into the right family are shockingly obscene.

Re:Profit

[mcgrew]

Did it help the poor? Hell no. It hurt. If it wasn't for minimum wage you'd still be paying about a nickel for a loaf of bread.

That is the most asinine load of bullshit I've heard all damned year. The workers aren't getting that 95 cents over your nickle a loaf of generic bread gets, nor does he cause the $3 for a loaf of Winder Bread ($5 in the convinience store).

A five pound bag of potatos is $2, the same price as a medium, single serving of fries at McDonald's. Do you really think most of that $2 goes to the fry cook and cashier? No, it goes to the CEO, board, and stockholders, all but maybe fifty cents of it.

When one in ten is out of work, it's easy to rip off the poor by paying them far less than honorable wages, unless you have a minimum wage.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to live down the block from 400 W. 57th Street, and one of the doormen in the building I was living in was living in that building (this was 12 years ago). He had no heat, and they had made offers to him but he was holding out, and it had been 7 years that they had been trying to oust the tenants. Tenants have quite a bit of power in NYC, perhaps more than anywhere else in the world. If you can own property in Manhattan, make money and not have tenants, I would say you're in pretty good shape.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Paying taxes, maintaining the building, managing building permits, and maintaining the signage... doesn't sound like 'nothing at all' to me.

Hahaha, you're trying to spin a weekend or two's worth of "work" into some grandiose BS. Scheduling a few contractors and making sure your suppliers get paid is hardly an epic effort, your average office manager (you know, the people they used to call secrataries) could do that.

Re:Profit

[AK Marc]

I watched a documentary on a renovation once where the building was made to look like the original. The only original parts left were some of the frame. The outside was 100% new (aside from a portion of a visible chimney), made to look old. Aside from testing some support beams, nobody would have been able to tell after the construction if he had just bulldozed it and built the whole thing from new materials to the old look. I just don't get why the rules include original material, rather than just original look. When you are doing that and retaining the historic status, it seems silly to leave in 10% original material in a manner that nobody could ever tell from the outside. It's a waste of money and gives no benefit. Though the "rules" aren't so much rules, they are just an excuse for some busy-body old women to sit on a "historical" committee and tell others what to do.

Re:Profit

[rcamera]

it's not at all close to wall street. it is, however, right near the nasdaq exchange.

of course, if you wanted to colo with nasdaq, you'd have your servers next to theirs in carteret, nj - not "on wall st" or in times square.

Re:Profit

[GoogleShill]

No, no, no. It's only redistribution if you lower middle-class taxes and raise upper-class taxes! Doing the opposite is called capitalism!

You are correct. If anything, Obama has done more to undo the Reagan-era tax changes that substantially redistributed money from the middle class to the upper-class.

Re:Profit

[Qzukk]

if the building is properly maintained and monitored

An insurance company would likely assume that an empty building is being maintained and monitored by the vagrants that live in it.

Re:Profit

[shutdown -p now]

Its broken up by quintiles, so already does factor in concentration of income. The top 20% of the people are paying 67.9% of the taxes, the bottom 20% of the people are paying 0.3% of the taxes.

It is still meaningless unless you look at the actual numbers - how much more do the people in the top quintile earn compared to the bottom one, on average?

Re:Profit

[Qzukk]

hypocrisy abounds

Most insightful two words on slashdot this week.

Re:Profit

[Burning1]

How much is a "decent wage?" I hear people all the time talk about a "living wage" on here, but nobody puts a dollar figure on it. Give me something concrete. What should the high-school drop-out ditch digger (or whatever) who has learned no marketable skills make? What kinds of things should someone making a "living" wage be able to buy? What things are over the line? For example, how new a car, what kinds of food, cell phones, cable TV, how big of house or apartment? Should this "living wage" increase because people live in a certain area, or should we pay them more because they have a bunch of kids? I want to know what a "living wage" really means.

Won't bother responding to the rest of your comment, but did want to address this. There isn't a fixed dollar amount for a living wage, because a living wage is strongly corrolated to the area in which one lives. A living wage in Cambodia is much lower than a living wage in Tokoyo.

Here's a starting point to understand what a living wage means:

http://finances.msn.com/saving-money-advice/6952105

Pointing out that the wealthiest americans are becoming a huge drain on society isn't class warfare, it's a reality. These are the people who will do what they can to cut jobs and reduce expenses. Jobs are created by demand for goods and services. Since the US has become a service oriented economy, employment is driven primarily by consumerism. Consumerism is driven by the middle and lower classes. If you want to strengthen our economy, focus on those classes. The rich will benefit from it as well.

Re:Profit

[mcgrew]

I thought economists were pretty divided on the effects of a minimum wage.

They're divided on just about everything. Ecomonics as a "science" is a joke. You won't find a single economist that there's not another calling the first a gold-studded liar.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

That is incorrect. The quintiles are simple percentage groupings of households based on their income. Each quintile has 20% of the households in it regardless of incomes. An example to illustrate follows:

Households and their annual income:
A - 20K, B - 25K, C - 30K, D - 35K, E - 40K, F - 45K, G - 50K, H - 55K, I - 60K, J - 65K

The quintiles from bottom to top would be (A and B) (C and D) (E and F) (G and H) (I and J) Where each household falls in the quintiles depends on their income as compared to everyone else. Under no cincumstances can you rank more than 20% of the households into each quintile. In my completely unscientific example the bottom quintile is responsible for just 45K of income which a single household in the middle quintile makes on it's own. So I would obviously expect the higher quintiles to bear a much larger share of the tax burden than the quintiles below them. It's just simple mathematical sense.

Now lets say that the incomes for the example quintiles stay largely the same except that the top quintiles member households doubled their income. Would you still expect each quintiles share of the tax burden to stay the same?

Re:Profit

[garyoa1]

I did say IF.

Re:Profit

[MickLinux]

That's for someone with no kids, and recieving free government services, which have to be paid with taxes. Those government services, then, are a freebe to employers paying $11-$14/hr.

Cut out government services, and the minimum living wage will go up. Now add in a family, and it'll be about $45k per year -- in a mobile home. With no retirement. And no college for the kids. And no money in the church basket [not a reasonable option for many people].

I know, because as an underemployed engineer with kids, I earned from $30k up through $60k. $45k was about the break-even point.

So... the employers get the labor and the profits, and we're told it's because the workers are lazy and/or unskilled. But the most recent bubble -- the re-college-education bubble, hasn't produced any wage increases, only debt. So that is a non-starter.

Re:Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

"Doing nothing at all"? How about: taking significant risk.

Do you think some benefactor just decided one day to unload a building that was earning $23mm/year for $117 million? Hell no. When he bought the building, ad revenue was probably more like $8-10 million (article says foot traffic grew 90%, makes sense that ad revenue would move in line). With no guarantees it would ever rise. Whatever the ad revenue was, at the time of the sale, Jamestown Properties was the highest bidder -- meaning numerous other smart, professional, experienced real estate investors and building managers were NOT willing to pay $117 million for the building.

The fact he's now been proven right and is minting money? Good for him.

(Further: who knows how much has been invested in the building to upgrade utilities, facilities, structure, technology, etc? Or towards a sales team... Dunkin Donuts doesn't write $3.6mm checks every day...)

Re:Profit

[MickLinux]

I went through that. I was a field engineer, making about $50k, 55 hours a week. With 3 kids, I qualified for state supplied health care for the kids.

I then was promoted -- and understanding what the deal was, accepted -- to a position as project manager making salary $60k, no overtime, 70+ hours per week for over a year, and a good deal more business related expenses, non-deductable. Lost the health care, but other things went up, and spending 70+ hours, you spend more on lunches and such... So I went from saving about $3000 a year to saving nothing, and working 15+ hours extra.

It was a real hit, and I knew it was coming, couldn't do anything about it except turn down the position, and I still decided that I should fill the spot.

It's real. It also hurts.

Re:Profit

[saihung]

Interesting take on a country that just re-elected the most income-distributing president of all time. We know he didn't win on his economic record. He won on the same kind of class warfare talk that you're giving right now.

I'd ask you what possible justification you could have for these claims, but either you really believe this (in which case you're an imbecile) or you are being intentionally dishonest (in which case you are below notice). How did a post that starts off with this garbage get modded +5?

Re:Profit

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Its broken up by quintiles, so already does factor in concentration of income. The top 20% of the people are paying 67.9% of the taxes, the bottom 20% of the people are paying 0.3% of the taxes.

No, those quintiles are even divisions by the number of people, not by income - the same number of people are in the top 20% as are in the bottom 20% regardless of their actual income levels.

In fact, those same CBO numbers show that the top 20% saw a 10% increase in after tax income, while all other quintiles saw a decline of 2-3% over the period of 1979-2007.

That report also states that the equalizing effect of wealth transfer is less in 2007 than 1997 - a direct contradiction of your permise that taxation has become more progressive over that time period.

Re:Profit

[AK Marc]

So you took a demotion (or have they made up a new name for "promotions" in duties with cuts in pay). I was offered one of those once. I turned it down. Worked out great. Given that there are very few non-deductible business expenses (unless you are someone that counts dry-cleaning, personal lunch or commuting as a business expense), I can't see how a position at a company would change your non-deductible business expenses.

Re:Profit

[pyro_peter_911]

The flaw in your logic is that most of the jobs created at the sub-minimum wage level (in the absence of such a wage) wouldn't go to a 13-year-old making money to buy candy. They would go to people working five jobs trying to scrape by a living. Instead, with a minimum wage, those people scrape by a living while working only three jobs, thereby providing them a small amount of time at rest.

Also, minimum wage establishes a base line for education. As you point out, certain jobs are no longer worth hiring someone to do them. Those jobs by their wage point had little to no education requirement. Okay, so there are no longer jobs for people who chose to drop out of school in ninth grade and refuse to learn a trade. You know what? That's a fair trade to me. If those people have a development disability that prevents them for learning a skill, then we have a social safety net to help them.

Finally the $10,000/hr statement is just absurd right now, because that price point would eliminate all jobs except those requiring skill as a Fortune 500 CEO. Now, if we were a country with 501 citizens and 500 CEO jobs to fill? Then sure, it would be perfectly viable.

Why wouldn't they? My first job (coincidentally around age 13) was picking potatoes for fifty cents per barrel. I made enough to buy an Intellivision cartridge with a weekend afternoon of work. It was probably about $3.00 per hour for me.
Day laborers with no skills besides a willingness to work, many not even able to speak English, are in the same boat today. They are below your base line for education. Rather than allow them to improve their position in life by legal but low paying work, which gains them access to better skills and education, you suggest that they should become criminals by working at a wage that they can earn or become a burden upon society. What kind of trade is that? What is society getting in that trade?

I see that I managed to wing you with my point in the case of the $10,000/hr minimum wage. You can see how that minimum wage eliminates legal jobs. My assertion is that to a lesser degree this job destroying characteristic is inherent in lesser minimum wages. Minimum wages don't help people with educations and skills who are above that wage point. They hurt the weakest, poorest, least capable members of our society.

As you rightly observe, it doesn't take a lot of education or skills to lift yourself above minimum wage. Most of us manage to do it while we're still teenagers. But if you made the minimum wage a higher living wage then getting that critical First Real Job just got a lot harder for a lot of young people.

Peter

Re:Profit

[pyro_peter_911]

Is it worth $8/hr for a gym to hire a kid to wipe sweat off the equipment in the afternoons?

If it's not worth paying someone a decent wage, it's not worth doing at all. If sweaty equpment is losing customers and money for you, damned right it's worth it.

And that's what happens. If an employer decides that mopping sweat is worth $6/hr then that employer will happily hire someone at $5/hr but hire no one at $8/hr and leave the job undone. The person who is hurt here is the invisible person who would have been happily working for this employer if it was legal to do so.

why not make the minimum wage $10,000/hr!

Are you stupid, or do you think the rest of us are? Your arguments for making people go hungry because they weren't born into the right family are shockingly obscene.

No, I'm not stupid; jury's still out on you though. I didn't think it was a very complex thought experiment. See, there's this range of possible minimum wages from $0/hr which is no minimum wage to stupidly high numbers like $10,000/hr. I could have made the Stupidly High Number anywhere from $100/hr to $10^29 / hr. I settled on $10,000/hr because it has a pretty number of zeroes in it. At any rate, at the Stupidly High Number end of the range there are Obvious Problems. These Obvious Problems are that no one can legally work because they are prohibited by law from entering into an employment agreement at rates acceptable to both the worker and the employer. Everyone goes hungry.
Now, here's the part that you failed to grasp. As you move down from the Stupidly High Number you are forcing fewer and fewer people into the "Would Work, But Legally Can't" category. Easily most of the population is in the WWBLC category until you get below, say, $30/hr. Now not everyone is going hungry, but many still are.
The WWBLC category gets smaller and smaller the closer the minimum wage gets to $0/hr.
I assert that the people in that WWBLC category are harmed by minimum wage laws. They're unjustly made into criminals by taking work. It is difficult to see or quantify them at "normal" minimum wages. The sweat mopper job that didn't ever exist because it wasn't worth doing doesn't get added onto some list and counted like a job that moved to China is counted. You never say that Timmy lost his sweat mopper job because the job never existed. Timmy is just sitting on his ass wishing he could find someone to give him a job for his $5/hr skill. Or, more likely, rather than going hungry Timmy is working in the grey market and getting paid his $5 in cash under the table. Now Timmy's a criminal, but at least he's working.

I'm not suggesting that people go hungry.
I'm suggesting that people be allowed to work at a wage that is mutually beneficial to both the worker and the employer. Why do you think you should have a veto power over their employment decision?

Peter

Re:Profit

[pyro_peter_911]

That seems like a good way to minimize the ill effects of minimum wage laws. I don't believe we have anything like that in my state. Peter

Re:Profit

[rolfwind]

Perhaps liability reasons. No good deed goes unpunished, especially in litigous America.

Re:Profit

[MickLinux]

Then the problem is not with the economic structure, but rather with the iniquity in the wealthy who believe that the person who mops his floors does not deserve to live. And although it is indeed nonsense to talk about raising the minimum wage to $10000/hr, it is not unreasonable to point out that now it isn't just the floor moppers who don't deserve to live: it is the grocers, and the checkout clerks, and the substitute teachers, and the nurses, and the construction workers, and the foremen, and the field engineers, and the draftsmen.

In short it is any of those who are not beneficiaries of government spending (considering that the government is the owner of last resort), or in the owner class. It is anyone who labors for his bread.

And that is a serious prospect.

Re:Profit

[zippthorne]

The wage increase means you get more money, but it also means you pay more taxes. And if it puts you over the edge to that higher tax bracket...

Do the countries you're comparing the US to also have state, town, and sometimes county governments taking a share as well? The states are where most of the activity is supposed to occur, btw, the federal government is only supposed to be handling the "provide for common defense," a single point for treaties, unify the state economies type stuff.

Re:Profit

[volmtech]

I have done exactly that. Down on their luck family, not strangers, but all the bed rooms in my house are occupied.

Re:Profit

[volmtech]

After you equated tax rates with tax revenues I could no longer respect any thing you wrote. When Bush cut tax rates did revenues go up, or down. If lower tax rates are bad why does Obama want to keep Bush's tax cuts for incomes below $250000?

Re:Profit

[shutdown -p now]

After you equated tax rates with tax revenues

I never did so.

When Bush cut tax rates did revenues go up, or down.

Accounting for all the other factors, they went down.

If lower tax rates are bad why does Obama want to keep Bush's tax cuts for incomes below $250000?

Because he wants the tax distribution to be more progressive, and it's easier to keep the cuts than it is to lower the rates.

Re:Profit

[taharvey]

You numbers are *way* wrong.

Look at the tax policy center historical data: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=456

The top quintile dropped from 27.1% in 1979 to 23.2% in 2009. The top 1% dropped from 35.1 to 28.9%.

And this is just tax bracket, it says nothing of all of the loopholes that the wealthily employ to drop their actual rates to 20% and below. (http://www.accountantbyday.com/2011/09/22/how-does-a-billionaire-pay-less-tax-than-his-secretary/)

Re:Profit

[AK Marc]

Most town state and sometimes county governments that take money based on income do so as a percentage of federal income. As federal income will never go up more than a small percentage of the previous dollar taxed, you will never reach a situation where someone will make $1 more and pay more in "income tax" (federal, state, and local) than if he didn't make that last $1. The brackets are an irrelevant talking point trotted out by the liars and the ignorant.

Re:Profit

[kmoser]

I avoid Times Square because of the foot traffic, but when I do pass through, I don't feel like I'm in any danger.

You may not be in physical danger, but you're in danger of losing your soul.

Re:Profit

[nobaloney]

here's hoping he's living happily in a nice $1.5 million home somewhere, with a few nice high-end cars and 60" TVs scattered around

Way too small a screen:
http://news.cnet.com/Sharp-unveils-108-inch-LCD-television/2100-1041_3-6147881.html

Re:Profit

[volmtech]

Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Profit

[MickLinux]

When the purchaser regularly underpurchases vital items, including basic Osha n95 masks, then you can 1] buy it yourself 2] shut down product delivery, 3] break the law, give your best workers silicosis, and face the wrath of God on judgement day.

I guess you could term that "clawback", though the normal usage refers to Madoff losers suing winners and such.

In my case, I still think it was the right move to take the position: but as I was well aware beforehand, financially speaking it was the wrong move.

But the company also could have been more just. When I took the job we were way behind schedule, and we never missed a delivery. Although I could accept the company not paying bonuses in such circumstances, to stay afloat, the company actually was trying to buy out a competitor, and did not pay bonuses. So be it. Maybe they still will. Or maybe the fiscal cliff will make bonuses advantageous, where they weren't before {somehow}.

Re:Profit

[AK Marc]

When the purchaser regularly underpurchases vital items, including basic Osha n95 masks, then you can 1] buy it yourself 2] shut down product delivery, 3] break the law, give your best workers silicosis, and face the wrath of God on judgement day.

I'm confused. You are saying that there were 100 workers and the purcahser would buy 50 sets of PPE, but the company would require 100 workers to work, even if they didn't have minimum necessary PPE? I'd choose #1 and expense it back. If they wouldn't accept the expense report, then I'd do #3 and report the company to OSHA and your state's version. I'm presuming #2 was a facetious choice, acting like it's a gross over reaction and bad for everyone, because if they wouldn't let you buy them yourself because the purchaser sucked, they wouldn't let you shut down production.

Warn them. Warn them in writing, saving a copy. Report them. If they fire you for reporting them, then you can sue the crap out of them. The whistle-blower laws suck, but they work for a very narrow set of reporting where you work for a company breaking the law and report that company to the government and nobody else (the whistle-blower laws don't work as well for reporting the government or blowing the whistle to the press). Warn them, report them, the problem is fixed in a week, hopefully before anyone gets any health problems from the company failing to provide PPE.

Re:Profit

[sjames]

Minimum wage is there to avoid turning the social safety net into a payroll subsidy. You have to pay workers enough to live because dead employees are not productive. You have to pay for better than a homeless lifestyle because it's cheaper than providing your (few) customers with a gas-mask and disinfecting shower.

Advertising: A perverse incentive

[Anonymous Coward]

So a building, which is nominally meant to house people and objects, is being used to hang billboards. Space being at a premium in New York City, I find it rather amusing that you can make more money off of advertising using the side of your building than in leasing the floor space.

Re:Advertising: A perverse incentive

[damn_registrars]

So a building, which is nominally meant to house people and objects, is being used to hang billboards. Space being at a premium in New York City, I find it rather amusing that you can make more money off of advertising using the side of your building than in leasing the floor space.

The wikipedia page for this building suggests one significant difficulty in leasing the space:

Because of the extensive cost of renovating the building with central air conditioning, the building currently has no tenants above the retail floors

That, and the building where it sits can hold more advertising than what you could accommodate if you tore it down and just put up traditional billboards.

mn?

[mahju]

Is it just me or when did "mn" surpass "m" for million? "100mn pedestrians" looks like it should be a measurement in milli-newtons per pedestrians - I'm sure the imperial equivalent is slugs per servants.

Re:mn?

[Anonymous Coward]

And 100m looks like 100 metres of pedestrians roll through. No winning here.

Re:mn?

[Ryan101]

I just assumed 100 Minnesotan pedestrians passed through each year.

Re:mn?

[gman003]

I believe the proper unit, then, would be 100 Megapedestrians. I would suggest abbreviating to 100 MPd, except that looks like Megapalladium.

Re:mn?

[shutdown -p now]

Newtons are capital N, so it would be "mN" then. "mn" sounds like it could be French nautical miles (which are of course the same as usual ones, except the name is in French).

Re:mn?

[Phreakiture]

Given that the source of the story is from Europe (RT = Russia Today) I would expect that the article would be composed in the Queen's English, some of the conventions of which differ from here in North America. Add a dose of copypasta to it, and you have the article summary you saw above.

Don't tell the advertisers it's a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

I sincerely doubt very much of that money spent translates into actual business.. It's a prestige thing more than anything.

Perfect Spot

[DanielRavenNest]

...for an evil genius to set up his lair. Who would ever suspect an empty building at the busiest intersection in the world?

Re:Perfect Spot

[Anonymous Coward]

They would have to evict all the super heroes first.

Re:Perfect Spot

[ohnocitizen]

Damn.

Empty 23 story building

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of all the good this person could do if he opened the building to the homeless or community organizations.

Re:Empty 23 story building

[halivar]

How many spare rooms in your own house do you really need? One room, one person's life changed. Hop to.

Re:Empty 23 story building

[SonnyDog09]

Think of all the good this person could do if he opened the building to the homeless or community organizations.

Think of all the permits that would be required before the building could be used for this. Think of all the inspectors that would need to be paid off.

Re:Empty 23 story building

[Anonymous Coward]

everybody needs 2 rooms
a place to go and a place to be.

Mn

[isorox]

What is a "mn"?

Re:Mn

[Anonymous Coward]

Million

Re:Mn

[Existential Wombat]

a manoneter

Now I Know Who's Making Too Much Money

[Anonymous Coward]

[100 million people a year] / [some of them being the same people going to and from work every day] - [tourists who don't speak english] = ~5 million a year

Dunkin Donuts thinks it's worth $1 a person to walk past a gigantic logo. It's clear they have more money than they know what to do with, combined with a bunch of overpaid creatively bankrupt marketing people.

Re:Now I Know Who's Making Too Much Money

[dmomo]

Not sure if your logic / math is correct, but aretn't you missing the number of people who see those billboards indirectly ( TV, photos, etc)?

Re:Now I Know Who's Making Too Much Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Advertising at that level is about two things:

- reminding people repeatedly to buy stuff they don't really need
- reminding people repeatedly to buy your brand instead of the competitors

So the ads are actually targeted to those people going to and from work every day, reminding them that they really need to eat donuts, every day, and not just any donuts but Dunkin Donuts. Additionally, Dunkin is not only advertising to these people but also preventing Krispy Donuts, Apu Donuts, McDonalds, the Soup Nazi, and all other food venues from telling the same people about their competing products.

hilarious

[slashmydots]

He's not making money off the advertising, he's making money off the stupid companies not realizing that there's no way in hell it has an ROI above 1. 3.4 million at Dunkin Donuts' profit margin? That billboard would have to convince something like 1 in 10 people that sees it to go buy a coffee from them to make up its cost. This is right up there with GE realizing after many years that its Facebook ad campaign to the tune of $43 mil didn't have an ROI above 1.

Re:hilarious

[icebike]

That billboard would have to convince something like 1 in 10 people that sees it to go buy a coffee from them to make up its cost.

Nonsense. One in 1000 would make it profitable, and one in 100 would make it very profitable.

Re:hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not making money off the advertising, he's making money off the stupid companies not realizing that there's no way in hell it has an ROI above 1. 3.4 million at Dunkin Donuts' profit margin? That billboard would have to convince something like 1 in 10 people that sees it to go buy a coffee from them to make up its cost. This is right up there with GE realizing after many years that its Facebook ad campaign to the tune of $43 mil didn't have an ROI above 1.

Then of course you are avoiding the fact that this intersection ends up in more location shots on US television that practically anywhere else outside of the White House/Capitol Hill. 100 million may walk past it, but I'm guessing closer to 300 million see it.

Re:hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

According to a travel magazine, Times square is the most visited tourist location in the world bringing in 39 million people annually

That would put slashmydots 1 in 10 estimate in the right ballpark. Now, this probably just includes visitors, there is probably an equal number of New Yorkers who pass through the area / visit it multiple times. But still it should not change the order of magnitude.

Re:hilarious

[rgbrenner]

You're quick to call others stupid, and then show off how dumb you are. Look: the value of a customer is not the same as the amount of a single order. It is the value of ALL of the orders that customer will place over their lifetime.

For example, at some point Starbucks convinced me to purchase one of their incredibly overpriced drinks. I held out for literally years. Then about 3-4 years ago, I started buying their drinks, and since then, they've earned literally hundreds of dollars from me. That + all of the drinks I will buy in the future = my value to Starbucks.

Re:hilarious

[rgbrenner]

Ok, let's use your number. 39 million people per year. That's 100,000 per day.

Dunkin donuts pays 3.6m per year. That's just under $10,000/day

That's $0.10 per person. 1 in 10, would make that $1 per customer acquired.

You really think a Dunkin Donuts customer is worth $1? They're going to buy 1 cup of their cheapest coffee, and then NEVER visit the place again their lives.

That's one of the dumbest assumptions I've ever heard.

Dunkin Donuts knows how much each of those customers are worth. It sure as hell isn't $1.

Re:hilarious

[TheLink]

Lots more people see it than merely those physically there. It's in a very famous area, where New Year celebrations are held, where some movies do some filming, where tourists take photos which are then shown to their friends and posted online, etc.

That said, if this is bringing in 23 million/year I wonder how much Toshiba is paying for their ad on the "ball drop" building...

Re:hilarious

[icebike]

I know a lot of people who are addicted to Dunkin. Getting someone into the store for the first time
only costing a buck is worth it.

Dunkin' Brands opened its 10,000th location of Dunkin' Donuts in mid-December. Don't assume every ad manager in an organization that big is an idiot.

Re:hilarious

[O('_')O_Bush]

He said it would work for 1:10, and not likely for an order of magnitude difference, and I agree, but it is close. 1:100, at 10$ a pop to break even, I would think that the lifelong addicts caused just by the single advertisement averaged with the people stopping in for a single cup of coffee, just because of the ad, would likely average out somewhere around that.

I doubt ROI is 1, but it probably isn't far off.

Re:hilarious

[rgbrenner]

Those are all just numbers you pulled out of thin air. You don't know the average DD order size, the average number of orders placed by a customer, the conversation rate of this ad, or any of the other information you need to determine if this ad is profitable. So just STOP. The people who DO KNOW those numbers -- DD marketing employees -- ran those numbers and determined this ad was worth it. In fact it was SO worth it, that they purchased an ENTIRE YEAR up front.

Re:hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

brand recognition is as important as the act of turning a pair of eyeballs into a $5 sale...

Re:hilarious

[zieroh]

You're making the rash assumption that a Dunkin Donuts customer will ever return again after their first visit.

Re:hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

Times square is photographed often. How many hundrets of millions of people to you think get to see it in TV, books or photographs? You can have your ad removed today, and it will be displayed in books and TV productions for decades to come.

Re:hilarious

[argStyopa]

Personally, I suspect that MOST TV advertising is not rigorously measured in this respect. Does a 30 second Nike spot during the superbowl REALLY convince enough people (who weren't going to buy Nike anyway) to buy Nikes, such that the margin gained from those shoes exceeds the cost of the $1 million ad?

Once you start to question this, the whole card-house of advertising, big-money television, and ultimately the wealth of both sports teams (who make a significant chunk of their revenue on tv deals) and Hollywood becomes even more shamtastic.

Re:hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

Two points:

(1) It isn't about individual sales. It's about familiarity, or "brand awareness". The ad is there specifically to reinforce the Dunkin Donuts brand as a whole, not to sell $ad_viewer[922] a cup of coffee.

(2) It isn't just about 39 million people. Times square is one of the most photographed, most filmed places on earth. It's iconic. And a good portion of those films and photos contain an image of the Dunkin Donuts logo. It's a gift that keeps on giving.

As it is, here in my volcano lair the next DD is probably a couple of thousand miles away. But thanks to their persistent maintenance of the brand, the next time I'm stateside I may well visit one of their shops, just because somehow it's eerily familiar, and I therefore figure that there's only a small chance that they'll mess with my coffee.

Lastly - mmmh ... coffee.

Re:hilarious

[Kjella]

Those are all just numbers you pulled out of thin air. You don't know the average DD order size, the average number of orders placed by a customer, the conversation rate of this ad, or any of the other information you need to determine if this ad is profitable. So just STOP. The people who DO KNOW those numbers -- DD marketing employees -- ran those numbers and determined this ad was worth it. In fact it was SO worth it, that they purchased an ENTIRE YEAR up front.

Neither do they, no really. Maybe they can somewhat say how many will directly go have a coffee after seeing the bill board, but even those aren't really certain unless you try without it as maybe now most people know you're there anyway. But all the other potential halo effects of people maybe thinking about finding a Dunking Donut the next time they want coffee are mostly wild guesses at sales go up and down as things get trendy and less trendy and competition comes and goes and hold sales and habits change from fiscal crisis to boom years and good press and bad press and whatever. Sure they have some more numbers to work with to estimate what an ad campaign meant for their sales but it's a very inaccurate science.

The same is often true for customer satisfaction, yes the company does make a survey and they absolutely care very much what those numbers say but for example one big production outage can destroy any useful data on whether those usability improvements you did actually had any effect at all and by the next survey it's way too late. A lot of the time you simply have to go with the subjective and qualitative measure and say that we think we did the right thing. Sometimes those beliefs are very, very wrong. One example I remember from a class was a car manufacturer that spent lots of money on only getting the finest and most perfect leathers for their leather seats. Turns out the customers were more happy with less perfect seats that showed it was real leather and not blemishless seats that looked almost artificial.

As a good example, many quite reputable companies spent a lot of money to get a Second Life presence to be so "Web 2.0" and yeah... I don't think any of them actually paid off but for a time marketeers thought they'd work - and placebo is almost as good as empirical data in marketing.

Re:hilarious

[brianerst]

Being a lover of all things doughnutty, I'm not a fan at all of Dunkin' Donuts. They sell stuff that is vaguely donut shaped and I suppose they can soak up coffee, but that's about it.

That being said, my company has an office in Manhattan. I've visited a few times and there seems to be a ubiquitous box of DD sitting around. The weird thing is - the Manahttan DDs are far superior to any DD I've had the misfortune of eating anywhere else. They occasionally seem almost like real donuts.

So, if the sign in Times Square can get some sucker to try a Manhattan DD, they may think "not bad" and try again. When they get back to their home area and get the craptacular donuts produced there, it may take a few visits before they give up. Or maybe they try a different branch, thinking that that one local branch must just have bad employees. Pretty soon, that poor sucker has eaten a dozen bad donuts.

This is the reason for the advertisement - getting the poor folk in flyover country to remember a "good" Dunkin' Donut and keep trying to find one locally. As DD has pretty much obliterated most other donut chains outside the South, they will wander aimlessly like nomads, trying to find a good donut.

$3.6 million and a few higher-quality donut shops in the immediate area of the advertisement is a whole hell of a lot cheaper than upgrading the quality of the donuts across the entire system.

Re:hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the retail stores in Times Square are losing money. They are often the flagship stores for companies, and they are keeping a presence there for brand recognition, not to make a profit on the store.

So, the tourist in Times Square sees the billboard, buys a cup of coffee, then goes home and brags to their friends about their trip to NYC, and maybe shares an anecdote about how crazy the Dunkin Donuts was that they visited. So, it's not about the one cup of coffee they are buying after seeing the sign, it's about brand loyalty. Think of how many people you know that are Dunkin Donuts customers for life? How much is that worth?

Re:hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

Not every ad campaign is profitable, clearly, but frankly, most are. It's difficult to measure specifically but easy to measure generally -- companies that advertise make more profit.

Re:hilarious

[ChrisMaple]

I find it hard to believe that Times Square stores that have been there for decades, particularly the camera/electronics stores that carry many brands and specialize in ripping off tourists, are money losers.

Re:The Curse of the Network Effect Goes Times Squa

[samkass]

The Curse of the Network Effect is obvious enough in real estate that there is an entire school of political economy geared toward a single tax on land value -- a school most identified with the 19th century political economics author, Henry George.

Again, the real solution is to stop taxing economic activity (capital gains, income, sales, value added, etc) and instead tax market-assessed liquid value of assets.

And, again, of course, not many people are going to really understand this idea so it must be demonstrated by those who do get it.

That's why we need Sortocracy.

The proposal you link to essentially removes all control anyone has over their own property. Everyone is, in effect, required to sell any property at any time to the highest bidder. That may be economically efficient, but it sucks on a day-to-day basis for real people. It's the "infinite frictionless plane" type of economist thought problem, not an actual solution to anything. The law would last about as long as it would take for grandma to be kicked out of her house.

Prestige

[Frankie70]

Does the prestige translate into actual business?

Building is decades obsolete

[kriston]

The One Times Square building is decades obsolete for an office building. However, as a mounting point for the multimedia signs, it is very functional. The empty floors provide power and space for the equipment required to run the signs and the massive equipment required to cool the equipment that runs the signs.

Plus, it's at the crossroads of the world.

Re:Building is decades obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, it's at the crossroads of the world.

Timbuktu still thinks it is as well.

Inefficiency

[jibjibjib]

And people say the free market leads to efficient allocation of resources...

Re:Inefficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

And people say the free market leads to efficient allocation of resources...

Do you have any idea how many palms they would have to grease to get the building permits to rennovate? Not to mention ADA compliance and other issues. Don't invoke the "free market" if you don't know dick about it.

Why should he risk operating a building as a building in such a perilous place:

https://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2012/nyc-department-of-housing-preservation-and-development-inspections-supervisors-and-three-real-estate-developers-arrested-on-bribery-charges

Re:Inefficiency

[shutdown -p now]

Of course they do. It's just that their definition of "efficient" is different from yours and mine. E.g. in this case, 23 million are allocated into the guy's pockets every year. Pretty damn efficient!

Re:Inefficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

Fairly sure it isn't the free market that is making it too expensive to bring the building up to NYC's standards for actually renting out space.

False advertising :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets set something straight here, the building used to be empty but about a year ago a Walgreens (with its own crap load of digital signs) opened taking up the first 3 floors. I have been working across the street from this building for the past 5 years and indeed the rest of the building is empty. It is also quite narrow and I just don't see how it would make for comfortable offices. While some taxes might be getting paid the owner does not need to pay for heating or cooling or most types of maintenance. Security, cleaning, water, etc ... This really was a smart move by the guy.

Re:False advertising :)

[brianerst]

Wait - it's that building? It's the New Years Eve Ball-Drop building - which is why they can get those ridiculous ad dollars - the entire area is built around that building (heck, Times Square is named after that building - it was the New York Times offices 100 years ago or so).

It's also a ridiculously narrow building sitting on what is effectively a traffic island - I'd hate to try to get large numbers of people in and out of that building these days. The Walgreens is at the base of the building and is still so narrow that most parts of it have no more than two cramped aisles of goods - the shop is three stories tall and is still probably less than half the square footage of an average Walgreens. The north end of the building is one window wide while the south end is four windows wide.

It's kind of a shame that the building itself is covered up, as it's gorgeous, but if there was a case that lot dimensions and position call for just using a building for advertising, this is it.

I'm sure that

[bobstreo]

there are all kinds of jobs being created by this business, so YAY.

Datacenter candidate?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the building isn't fit for human inhabitants, I wonder how useful that square footage would be for a datacenter. With NASDAQ next door, there has to be gobs of fiber running along Times Square. Power infrastructure is already there for the signs. The issue of HVAC is still there, but localized air conditioning is probably easier to achieve than central air.

Re:Datacenter candidate?

[smellotron]

With NASDAQ next door, there has to be gobs of fiber running along Times Square.

NASDAQ offers high-speed connectivity in Cartaret, NJ and a backup in Ashburn, VA; neither of which is next door to Times Square.

Re:Datacenter candidate?

[Animats]

With NASDAQ next door, there has to be gobs of fiber running along Times Square.

NASDAQ isn't there at all. The NASDAQ put that sign in years ago to give them a visible presence in New York. NASDAQ corporate HQ is downtown at 165 Broadway. The signage is strictly for PR purposes.

Operationally, NASDAQ is distributed. The data centers aren't in New York. Neither are those of the NYSE; the main one is in New Jersey, but there's a backup elsewhere.

After Hurricane Sandy, the NYSE and the NASDAQ closed for two days. But not because they couldn't operate. The NYSE operations people wanted to transfer operational control to the NYSE Arca offices in Chicago and come back up the next day for online trading. The floor traders and the Wall Street financial community screamed. They were terrified of the financial system running without them. Especially if it worked just fine.

Ugh, awful kneejerk nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're saying is, of course, "don't question the way things are, don't wonder if there can be a different or fairer-seeming world".

Why bother linking to WSJ?

[Dahamma]

Yay for hard paywalls! Even Slashdot doesn't want users to RTFA any more...

Re:Why bother linking to WSJ?

[nbauman]

If you can't figure out how to get around the WSJ paywall you don't belong on Slashdot.

Re:Why bother linking to WSJ?

[Dahamma]

Did you RTFA? If not, STFU.

Re:Why bother linking to WSJ?

[nbauman]

Perhaps my post was inappropriately insulting. Do a Google search for the article headline, and click on the cache.

Allied Chemical?

[dbk25]

Is that the building that used to be the Allied Chemical tower? I remember seeing some very cool science exhibits there when I was young.

mn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone else read that as manonetres?

Which building?

[Grizzley9]

And yet, even in the linked article there is no picture of the building. How hard would it be to at least have a pic of the actual building in one of the most photographed places on earth?

According to other posters, it's not completely empty, a Walgreens takes up the first 3 floors, but still, a nice retirement package for the guy that bought it.

Re:Which building?

[Grizzley9]

My bad, this is the building, but from a bad angle as you don't see the companies listed nor the Walgreens on the bottom floors until you look at the other side.

Re:The Curse of the Network Effect Goes Times Squa

[Baldrson]

I don't know whether you failed to do the arithmetic or to understand the proposal. First of all there is no requirement that anyone sell their property. There _is_ however a requirement that everyone pay tax. In this, there is nothing distinguishing this from other forms of govenance. Secondly, even if one has no income, one needn't sell one's property so long as the accumulated tax liability does not equal or exceed the liquid value.

That doesn't sound very profitable

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like a lost opportunity.

Re:The Curse of the Network Effect Goes Times Squa

[MickLinux]

Real people all over the country, have lost their jobs, and then discovered that they never owned their property at all. Now the government does. Or, in reality, a bank does.

If we did as the GP suggested, we'd have an economy back right quickly. And though in concept you might be closer to not owning anything outright, in reality, you'd be more the master of your property than you ever had been.

The GP is right. But in a fascist world, it'll never happen.

Trolling huh, I'll bite

[Anubis350]

But the meme in the U.S. right now is that all the little guys don't do anything and basically don't even deserve enough money to live.

_The_ meme. Interesting take on a country that just re-elected the most income-distributing president of all time. We know he didn't win on his economic record. He won on the same kind of class warfare talk that you're giving right now.

Are you really that ignorant of US history? There have been periods when the top tax rate was 90+% in this country, Obama is proposing a raise from 35% to ~40%. We have one of the largest concentration of wealth in the hands of the wealthy and corporations, somehow I don't think it's going to be a major problem. Moreover, historically we've drastically (far more than 5%) raised taxes to pay for wars, instead we accompanied Iraq and Afghanistan with tax *cuts*, taxes must rise at least somewhat to pay that bill, and someone making a million+/yr can afford it - someone making 20k cannot. As far as far reaching wealth-redistributing legislation goes, have you forgotten the New Deal? Trust busting? Hell, how about the elimination of slavery? I don't think most people would argue against those today....

right now as a country we seem to be believing the grunts aren't responsible for the success of these groups at all. At least that is what the CEOs are, as a class, believing. As a result many are saying that these people don't even believe a decent wage or deserve to share in the success of the companies they work for.

How much is a "decent wage?" I hear people all the time talk about a "living wage" on here, but nobody puts a dollar figure on it. Give me something concrete. What should the high-school drop-out ditch digger (or whatever) who has learned no marketable skills make? What kinds of things should someone making a "living" wage be able to buy? What things are over the line? For example, how new a car, what kinds of food, cell phones, cable TV, how big of house or apartment? Should this "living wage" increase because people live in a certain area, or should we pay them more because they have a bunch of kids? I want to know what a "living wage" really means.

Also, how much more should a person with a degree make than this base "living wage." I mean a real degree which enables someone to produce something of value. I'm talking about engineering, or science, or something medical (and there are plenty of others), not philosophy or communications or something that qualifies you to be a barista.

Of course it should vary by region, that's why the military has a different COLA based on where your stationed, to adjust for exactly that. There are already dollar amounts for that adjustment, for allowing for affordable living standards, they're maintained by the DOT. A living wage should mean exactly that, you shouldn't have to work an 80 hour week just to pay for rent, food, clothes, and the ability to see a doctor when you're sick. Barista's BTW make a nice living comparatively speaking, and at the most high profile place you can find them, Starbucks, they get health insurance. Which reminds me, I notice you didn't mention medical care in there, think of how much cheaper *your* life would be if everyone had guaranteed insurance and got preventative care instead of having to wait to go to the emergency room, default on their debt, and have your premiums and mine cover it....

And there are plenty of people... people that hang on every word of the CEOs like they're super human, that are willing to believe it. Slashdot seems to get more of the CEO worshipers every day and are happy with the idea that corporations should be able to screw over anyone they choose as long as there is a "benefit to the shareholders."

Like the people here who worship Steve Jobs? I don't get CEO worship either, but I bet if you polled nationally, you'd find that most people _do

Real estate "parking"

[swb]

Someone more business savvy than me told me that while "self storage" facilities weren't a bad business considering how much junk people have, they are often setup primarily for "parking" real estate until something more valuable can be constructed on the site.

Storage brings in some revenue to pay property taxes and basic maintenance and the facilities themselves have very low overhead costs as most are just a vast network of non-climate controlled one-story garage-type structures with a fence around them. Plus it keeps local officials from bitching about undeveloped or poorly maintained property.

Now, there are more elaborate storage centers run as legitimate businesses in their own right and some of these may have more elaborate facilities (climate control, electricity, etc), but a lot of the plain/simple ones are just holding places for real estate investors.

"Living Wage"

[Dr. Evil]

"I hear people all the time talk about a "living wage" on here, but nobody puts a dollar figure on it. Give me something concrete. What should the high-school drop-out ditch digger (or whatever) who has learned no marketable skills make?"

Depends where you live.

A "living wage" is to maintiain the minimum standards of decency at roughly 40 hours per week. Food, clothes, shelter and a little to get you over a few sick days or manditory holidays.

The wage for a ditch-digger in Manhattan should be higher than a ditch-digger in Detroit. Yes, you make sacrifices to live in Manhattan, but your employer shouldn't expect you to go to food banks, dig toothbrushes out of the garbage or wear shoes with holes in them. They're paying a premium to dig holes in Manhattan. Labour is more expensive.

If you smoke, drink, have a chronic illness or even just have children, it's more complex.

Re:The Curse of the Network Effect Goes Times Squa

[catprog]

highest bidder sets the value.

high value = lots of tax.

The whole world is one big advertisement!

[iq145]

Can't go anywhere or do anything without being swamped with ads.... online or off. That's the whole reason Facebook is making so much money! They pretend their 'goal' is to unite long lost family and friends. But their true goal is to make loads of money through advertising and spam. Nothing more...

Re:The Curse of the Network Effect Goes Times Squa

[Baldrson]

The bid must be cash escrowed at an effective 0 rate of return. If the asset is something like land, yes, the tax rate is going to be "high" because just about anybody can extract rent from land at the same rate. If the asset is something like stock in some startup that is having trouble raising capital, clearly the cash value to others is going to be close to zero while the actual value may be as large as Google.