When some of these new companies are led by former government officials who are all too good at playing the game of corporate cronyism it’s like the wild west out there. These companies have fast become the new monopolies and market giants. They are hiring former Obama Administration officials as lobbyists to make sure that they abide by different rules. When you look at the makeup of the people hired by Airbnb and Uber, they are ironically loaded up with the likes of Obama Campaign manager David Plouffe of Uber and former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder for Airbnb.
The real irony is that both of these men would have regulated and taxed these companies out of existence in their former jobs. According to CNN Tech, former Obama staffers have taken over Silicon Valley.
Airbnb hired Nick Shapiro, a former deputy Chief of Staff at the CIA under President Obama to help work with Washington to protect their business model.
The New York Post reported back in 2016 that many of the Airbnb listings are not from families trying to supplement income, but by de facto hotel operators who purchased properties to rent out like a hotel room, but without paying any taxes. The Post reported that “critics contend that a large portion of Airbnb listings are offered by commercial operators with multiple properties who are essentially running illegal hotels” and cited statistics that show “property owners with two or more listings generated 44 percent of all Airbnb revenue in Los Angeles.” The Post also reported that “in New York City, the state attorney general found that, between 2010 and 2014, more than 300,000 Airbnb reservations violated the law, representing about $304 million in booking revenue, with about $40 million of that going to Airbnb.” Competition is great, but gaming the system puts the traditional providers of hotel rooms at a competitive disadvantage.
It is ironic that the Obama Administration pushed to hike minimum wage laws and regulations that protect employees are now in the business of skirting those same laws. They crowed about everybody “paying their fair share,” yet are now paid to make sure that their companies pay as close to nothing as possible. Virtually crushing the competition with the weight of taxation and government regulation. These liberals know best how to skirt those rules, because they wrote them. – READ MORE
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