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The Sharing Economy Fights Back Against Regulators
An anonymous reader writes in with a story about the advocacy group "Peers". The group says their goal is to “mainstream, protect, and grow the sharing economy.” "The growth of the 'sharing economy,' a loosely defined term generally referring to the internet-enabled peer-to-peer exchanges of goods, has brought with it a shift in the way we think about consumption. Its rise has been fast, and loud. What started with a few enterprising individuals willing to let complete strangers sleep in their homes and use their possessions has now developed into a formidable economic force that threatens to upend several different industries. Along the way, it has posed some major legal challenges. The companies that are pushing it forward have continually undermined local ordinances, consumer safeguards, and protectionist regulations alike. As a result, governments around the country are trying to reign them in. That’s where Silicon Valley’s newest advocacy group comes in."
Eli. although Barry`s postlng is astonishing... yesterday I picked up a new Maserati from having made $6422 thiss month and would you believe, 10/k last munth. it's definitly my favourite work I have ever done. I started this 6 months ago and right away began to earn more than $77... per/hr. linked here......... www.jam30.com
They pay no rent or utilities and generally park in front of or near busy areas already covered by existing restaurants, adhere to different safety standards. They swoop in, scoop up money and split, leaving existing local businesses struggling in the aftermath.
Some people really jerk off to trendy BS like ride sharing, but I'd rather pay for a cab that has to adhere to safety standards and background checks than get in some weirdo's jalopy.
If you trust humanity you'll end up paying for it, every time.
You rein them in, you don't reign them in. They're horses, not kings.
The "Sharing Economy" is a race to the bottom. The people engaged are selling time and use of the only things they have left (houses, cars, and their personal time) for money to people still working because they cannot find a job that pays enough. It's people hanging onto a shard of what they used to have while renting out the rest. This can only implode, and the faster it grows, the bigger the implosion will be.
The predictions of the 40s and 50s about the future are coming true - robotics will do most menial labor, people will have more free time, except that free time is not evenly divided up among the population. There's the group working 80-120 hour weeks, and the unemployed or sub 20 hours per week minimum wage slave. That will continue until there are not enough consumers to support the people working, and then more layoffs ensue, until we're back in the serfdom and squalor of a good middle ages city with a wealthy elite and beggars and almost no one else in between.
OK, maybe that's a little extreme and apocalyptic view of the future, but where we're going is somewhere between now and there unless some major things change. Automation will remove more manual labor and service type jobs going forward, and there really won't be anything replacing it.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
This has been going on for at least 60 years. HomeLink and Intervac have been around since 1953, using printed books at arrange person to person swaps long before the internet.
The smarter home exchange, http://switchhomes.net
That's the major problem, eh? Can't tax it, can't regulate it. As government gets larger and larger, it needs more and more money to sustain itself. It seeks out new forms of revenue from wherever it finds weakness. Renting out your spare bedroom in New York City causes a lot of losses. No bed tax (in NYC it's something like 20%, or used to be when I worked in hotels), no income tax for the housekeeping staff, no sales tax from the gift shop, etc.
Let's not even get into room owners picking and choosing clients. I've seen them proudly say that they check Facebook and such beforehand, only allow professionals and other clean people, etc. Yeah, what they really mean is "no Negroes". When the "sharing economy" is beyond the reach of government regulation, problems like this that society thought solved re-appear with disturbing frequency.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Just ask Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman, the profits of this whole movement.
*slaps forehead* Prophets of the movement. Prophets.
Hyperbole, thy name is Forbes.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Feckin-A bullshit! NO significant fraction of Americans share their property with pandering parasite strangers. A power-mad Gub'mnt extorts property for redistribution to cronys , and cosmopolitan vote-herders pimp churches, social groups and a vagrant mass to multiply their own power. Nice feckin-A shared economy.
Regulation does have its value. Civilization is better off when food, buildings, etc. are safe, and freeloaders are not cheating. There are risks associated with the unregulated enterprises. Still, even simple things like barter and sales of second-hand merchandise are important contributions to quality of life.
But do the benefits outweigh the costs? That question doesn't get asked enough.
Of course, sometimes 'economy' is just a euphemism for 'bank accounts of the already ultra-rich', which is what some economists seem to think.
collect any 5pilled
For better and most often worse the U.S. economy requires continuous economic growth in order to support it's debt-based structure. A $1.00 of debt today requires $1.03 of consumption next year otherwise the debt interest can't be serviced. This is why the Federal Reserve is so hell bent on preventing deflation, even going so far to say that a moderate amount of inflation is a "good thing". This fact is most critical for the U.S. Government itself since it is the largest issuer of debt in the economy. Sharing and frugality are incongruent with such a system so we'll see much more pushback if the sharing trend picks up steam.
Good Lord, Gr8Apes, how far are you willing to stretch your wire to whup up a pseudo-scare for the imbecilic (the only ones who will gasp and say "Oh, God, Yes, What IF???" to such a yo-yo pull from beyond left-field)? For your information, in case you should ever take your courage in your teeth, don an absorbent garment and step out into the real world to ride-share, the normal drill, that every professional driving-instructor knows, and everyone else should know, and refresh recall of every time they get in a car with they suspect might have drunk more than he or she remembers, is to reach over and turn the ignition key off (counter-clockwise one click [to kill the engine, but not lock the steering]) as soon as anything looking hairy begins. In real life there is not always a cop to call to jump from his motorcycle through your passenger window and do this for you, so, in real life you sometimes have to do things for yourself.
It's easy to be cheaper than the established players when you're not paying taxes.
Don't worry, a Charles Manson-like character will eventually come along and wake people up from their Hippy 2.0 daze as the rainbow and flowers take a shit on their face.
Table-ized A.I.
Excessive consumption means big money for businesses. You can bet they will fight any changes in society tooth and nail. And they will not play nice. To them sharing is just another pinko-commie-socialist activity with evil advocates.
The way this will play out depends on economics.
If the USA and dollar finally lose reserve status as some have predicted then I can see it going the way of Argentina. There, there are a lot of things that go on that are illegal. Especially in sharing and things like the black market dollar market. At first the police and government did all they did to enforce rules but in the end attrition set in. So many people were breaking the law just to survive. The police had to be corrupt to survive too. In the end the police relaxed and just stopped acting on petty rules for things like resturant licensing for the government as they finally came to relise that having an empty street is pointless. The governments authority was eventually greatly reduced. Unfortunatly it took many years for this to happen.
My main point in this is that the laws are still there. Nothing changed. It was just a case of people, police etc just ignoring those laws.
So these petty laws in the end just undermine the authority of the government. It's a waste of their power. Try to take away from this that this is a good thing as most governments are filled with good people trapped by things like the military-industrial complex, central banks and popularism.
In the end economics will be the decider.
But until then check out all the options. It's good to see society rerouting around it's restrictions. Sharing is amoungst a number of groundswell trends. I can't see companies being able to do much about this in the long term other than being better companies. It's good to see avocacy speeding up the process.
Here's another example. In Spain they've banned 3month home lettings under pressure from hotels. This took away income from the more efficient decentralised small businessness and individuals making cash on the side. In turn this will effect the economy there - it's funny how the exact opposite of what is needed causing a self feedback cycle of regulation. As a result people have been doing it anyway as they are so desperate for cash in some cases they have nothing to lose. The gov have been sending round stooges testing letting agents to see if they will let and then throwing them in jail, or fining people heavily. Yet still it goes on as people have little choice. Then there's AirBNB and subcontracting for hotels - a way round the problem. AirBNB recently showed how it has boosted the economy in San Francisco. No wonder - it's increased competition and that always leads to efficiencies. It's also greater choice.
So sharing is not only a social trend but it can also be more efficient than money and regulation.
Viva la resistence.
A blog I run for the wealth
You are not forced to participate.
Just how do they allocate a share of property taxes to a vehicle that is parked someplace for two hours a day?
Tax evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance, on the other hand, is legal, and people pay tax professionals big bucks for avoidance advice. Food trucks avoid property tax by not occupying as much property. This makes them more tax-efficient. Think of it this way: Does a higher MPG (or lower cL/km) vehicle dodge fuel taxes? And is that a bad thing?
Not many people are going to look for a business license or health certification posted anywhere
Are dumb customers enough of a reason to ban food trucks entirely? It'd be better just to figure out a way to make certifications easier to check and harder to forge. This is a technical problem that admits a technical solution. Photograph the food truck's license plate with your Android phone and get a history of its reviews, code violations, etc.
Let's see, let's see, what color are like 98% of politicians
True, only 2 percent of the sitting U.S. Senate (Sens. Scott and Cowan) are black. But I count 42 black Representatives in the 113th House, making up 9.7%. And for the past twelve and a half years, the United States has had an African-American President or Secretary of State.
Consumerism convinced us to buy a lot of things that we don't really need or seldom use so, now that times are getting tougher, we're lending/renting our excess.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Top tax rate for corporations is less than that of individuals in the US by about 20%.
So yeah, it should be cheaper for corporations to supply products than individual tax payers.
So why isn't?
You statement is loaded with an assumption that people don't pay taxes -- they do. It's the corporations that have lower tax rates, yet have many rights as people including owning many politicians.
So if it is easier for corporations to be cheaper, why aren't they?
Sharing or not sharing, Govt expects you to pay taxes.
Govt can print currency. But Govt is imposing taxes to keep us subservient. http://www.lietaer.com/2010/03/the-worgl-experiment/
Casteism