I've asked my Iowa Assembly members Sen. Matt McCoy and Rep. Jo Oldson to help stop Iowa House Study Bill 130 and Senate Study Bill 1228.
If passed and signed by Gov. Branstad these bills would immediately create a brand new law called "Iowa Transportation Network Company Insurance Act" designed to crush taxicab competition by putting draconian burdens on rideshare drivers, ultimately resulting in fewer transportation options for Iowans and prospective Iowans, as well as tourists.
We need an environment in Iowa that allows innovation and free market competition to flourish, and this is a step in the wrong direction.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
How to end poverty and disrupt a corrupt U.S. Congress
Poverty exists because too many workers aren't paid equitably by corporate American capitalists for the fruits of their labor, limiting consumer spending, which hurts the economy, which kills jobs, creating high unemployment, which creates the need for a compulsory levy on other people's earnings to pay into the welfare system.
The business model of corporate America is to keep labor costs as low as possible, but if small businesses on Main Street shared in that kind of greed (essentially pocketing more than their fair share of the profits, which they enjoy thanks in large measure to their labor force), they’d be run out of town.
In recent years, corporate America has been able to get away with paying low wages precisely because of the high unemployment they caused in the first place; more workers competing for fewer jobs facilitates a low-wage climate.
A lot of the job loss in this country is permanent because U.S. companies have been pushing production offshore, exacerbating an already poor economy.
It is the proliferation of big business and their political campaign funding that has hurt the U.S. economy.
The only way to fix the problem is by creating a system that doesn’t provide financial rewards for the current business model.
1. The first step is to eliminate the giant teat of the individual taxpaying collective by constitutional amendment. In other words, end individual income taxes. (Not including capital gains and Wall Street speculation.) In this way, campaign contributions would go to shrinking government spending, since all tax revenues would come directly out of corporations’ pockets instead of the low hanging fruit of the weaker class: the worker, lobbies would have incentive to do only that.
2. The second step is to tax commerce where it occurs, not where the corporation happens to be headquartered. It’s not fair for a company to be penalized by virtue of the geography of their home office when its success comes from the markets it serves well.
3. Eliminate compulsory contracts, both directly by mandate and those indirectly by necessity. This stops insurance companies from amassing fortunes on the back of the free market system, allowing prices for services to soar unchecked. This will also dissolve large pools of capital, which are sitting targets for frivolous litigation.
4. Shift all sales taxes to the seller and require that all advertised consumer prices are the actual, total, final prices … after all taxes, fees and surcharges. This puts integrity back in consumer-business dealings and provides price transparency and eliminates obscuring actual costs behind hidden additional costs to consumers, restoring consumer trust.
The business model of corporate America is to keep labor costs as low as possible, but if small businesses on Main Street shared in that kind of greed (essentially pocketing more than their fair share of the profits, which they enjoy thanks in large measure to their labor force), they’d be run out of town.
In recent years, corporate America has been able to get away with paying low wages precisely because of the high unemployment they caused in the first place; more workers competing for fewer jobs facilitates a low-wage climate.
A lot of the job loss in this country is permanent because U.S. companies have been pushing production offshore, exacerbating an already poor economy.
It is the proliferation of big business and their political campaign funding that has hurt the U.S. economy.
The only way to fix the problem is by creating a system that doesn’t provide financial rewards for the current business model.
1. The first step is to eliminate the giant teat of the individual taxpaying collective by constitutional amendment. In other words, end individual income taxes. (Not including capital gains and Wall Street speculation.) In this way, campaign contributions would go to shrinking government spending, since all tax revenues would come directly out of corporations’ pockets instead of the low hanging fruit of the weaker class: the worker, lobbies would have incentive to do only that.
2. The second step is to tax commerce where it occurs, not where the corporation happens to be headquartered. It’s not fair for a company to be penalized by virtue of the geography of their home office when its success comes from the markets it serves well.
3. Eliminate compulsory contracts, both directly by mandate and those indirectly by necessity. This stops insurance companies from amassing fortunes on the back of the free market system, allowing prices for services to soar unchecked. This will also dissolve large pools of capital, which are sitting targets for frivolous litigation.
4. Shift all sales taxes to the seller and require that all advertised consumer prices are the actual, total, final prices … after all taxes, fees and surcharges. This puts integrity back in consumer-business dealings and provides price transparency and eliminates obscuring actual costs behind hidden additional costs to consumers, restoring consumer trust.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Top five reasons radio advertising is better than television advertising ... and YouTube isn't one of them!
If having the more persuasive pitch in a competition between radio and television is considered stealing, then guilty as charged. Many people operate on the full faith and credit of bad information in perpetuity, and the conventional wisdom on Madison Avenue is no exception.
Here are my top five reasons radio advertising is better than television advertising:
5) TV advertising is overpriced chiefly because it's easily disrupted by technology and a general collective attention deficit in the real world.
4) One doesn't require a study to prove that images are nearly superfluous in marketing; most people know innately that the most significant, powerful and lasting impressions in our memories are made by audio input to the brain.
3) The best marketing value in radio and social media is derived from the power of a personal recommendation from familiar, credible people; you don't need pictures for that, but sound is our most penetrating cue.
2) Without an intuitive presumption, reinforced by the ad industry, that television is just better because it delivers motion and color, we can all understand on a primal level how disinterested people are in what we have to show. It's hard not to notice that you can't sit in the same room with a person and keep their eyes on you for very long?
1) The most significant reason people get your message is because they have no earlids.
Here are my top five reasons radio advertising is better than television advertising:
5) TV advertising is overpriced chiefly because it's easily disrupted by technology and a general collective attention deficit in the real world.
4) One doesn't require a study to prove that images are nearly superfluous in marketing; most people know innately that the most significant, powerful and lasting impressions in our memories are made by audio input to the brain.
3) The best marketing value in radio and social media is derived from the power of a personal recommendation from familiar, credible people; you don't need pictures for that, but sound is our most penetrating cue.
2) Without an intuitive presumption, reinforced by the ad industry, that television is just better because it delivers motion and color, we can all understand on a primal level how disinterested people are in what we have to show. It's hard not to notice that you can't sit in the same room with a person and keep their eyes on you for very long?
1) The most significant reason people get your message is because they have no earlids.
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