Move The NBA's 2017 All Star Game Out of Moron Mountain

http://www.wwaytv3.com/2015/06/23/charlotte-hornets-to-host-nba-all-star-game-in-2017/

If you've ever seen Space Jam, the North Carolina General Assembly is looking a lot like Moron Mountain. They even have former NBA superstar/movie-star Michael Jordan going against them. The Assembly recently passed what is known as House Bill 2, which repeals some of Charlotte's rules that prohibit certain forms of employment discrimination based on skin color, religion, and most notably, sexual orientation. The league and Jordan's team, the Charlotte Hornets, have an opportunity to deliver a major blow against acts of legislation that allow for discrimination. In an effort to promote tolerance and inclusion at all NBA games, Commissioner Adam Silver is considering moving the game out of Charlotte as a result of this bill, focusing on the ban on Charlotte's protections for the LGBT community.

The league's concerns about the passing of this bill are legitimate. The NBA is a dominant global force. Players from all over the country and world hope to play in the NBA one day. The best team in the league is considered the best team in the world, and the same goes for the most valuable players being among the best in the world. With such a widespread influence, there is a strong emphasis on the love for the sport overcoming all sorts of differences between people, making it an enjoyable environment for all, while trying to promote equality and acceptance. Consequently, this was the first major sports league able to create an atmosphere friendly and accepting enough for Jason Collins, the first openly gay player in any of the major professional American sports leagues, to come out to the world, receive nothing but support from the NBA, and comfortably join his team in the locker room shortly after. 

The All Star game is a huge globally diverse event for the NBA. People from all over travel to watch it live or tune in on TV for the historic game. So although moving it for political reasons seems like a bit of a push, the North Carolina Assembly pushed pretty hard against the NBA's core values with House Bill 2. Even before the bill, there were no state law protections for discrimination based on sexual orientation. Local governments established anti-discrimination rules, until this bill overturned and banned all of them, most notably the Charlotte Ordinance. It's difficult to a business that attracts such diverse fans to host a large-scale event in a state that recently sent such a striking message directly to the city of Charlotte.

With respect to the NBA and its fans, reactions can be better analyzed through the resemblance to Donald Sterling's scandal as the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. After a recording leaked with some extremely racist conversations involving Sterling, in which he basically said he doesn't like certain minorities coming to his games, the entire league turned their backs on him, boycotted his ownership, and even many influential voices like Magic Johnson refused to attend Clipper games until Sterling sold his share of the Clippers. The NBA consistently insisted there is no place in the league for discrimination. They eventually ran him out of team ownership and initiated a lifetime ban. The NBA and its affiliated media sources publicly humiliated and punished Sterling for his racist scandal, and for good reason, because the association thrives on the diversity and acceptance of everyone who wants to play or attend.

From Adam Silver's perspective, any threat to the inclusion of a group of people threatens to diminish the league's values. Whether motivated by profit or goodwill, the NBA is fighting an important cause working to further stigmatize discrimination towards the LGBT community and any other minority group, but rather than spend money on convincing lawmakers, they currently have the unique power to take a significant benefit away from the state ultimately for a good cause. It seems fitting that the state loses out on the opportunity to host the All Star Game when they attempt to allow for discrimination. 

With Jordan on his side, Adam Silver should motivate the league to stand together and move the 2017 All Star Game out of Moron Mountain. 

The New Breed of Tax-Friendly Companies and the Outstanding Talent in Ireland

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140707120342-11027096-the-three-keys-to-unlocking-the-sharing-economy

Companies that make up the young "sharing economy," including Uber and Airbnb, have created various legal complications for the government since their rise to popularity. These firms provide a useful service and reliable income for many users. Behind the surface of the apps, however, they are joining the group of corporate giants that exploit the global economy stemming from the U.S. out of large amounts of tax revenue, and they can do it even easier than the asset-heavy businesses that currently make up most of the market.

Uber has set up a very elaborate scheme to avoid paying taxes on nearly all of the rides that take place outside of the U.S. The revenue is recognized based on where the intellectual property is, and through a large amount of subsidiaries and paperwork, Uber shifts money around in the form of royalties through Ireland, the Netherlands, and Bermuda, where the tax codes are very favorable. Airbnb has joined the party with very similar tricks. David Kocieniewski quoted an interesting Australian hearing that took place in November 2015 on Bloomberg Businessweek in a post titled "The Sharing Economy Doesn't Share the Wealth." Representatives from Uber and Airbnb attended the conference:

The Australian Senate called local managers to testify alongside Uber in November at a public hearing on corporate tax avoidance. Sam McDonagh, Airbnb's country manager there, testified that taxes never motivate the company's strategic choices. "The No. 1 reason we located ourselves in Ireland was for access to great talent," McDonagh said. The response from one of the senators: "Come on!" 

No offense to Irish employees, but that laughable statement from Sam McDonagh portrays how the company plans to affect the global economy as its growth is solidified through the profits they deceptively keep. It also negates another statement from an Airbnb spokesman Nick Papas, stating "When we make long-term business decisions, we act in the best interest of our community." Airbnb shields almost all of its profit from the country where they actually rented. If they are acting in the best interest of local communities, a good start would be paying taxes to the communities' governments that provide the basic services they benefit from. Uber, as the other main example, should pay its fair share for safe roads that governments' tax revenues provide.

If it's not the U.S.'s revenue being lost, it's taxes that should have went to another government where the service took place. Furthermore, these companies are taking a lot of business out of more industries that are less susceptible to tax tricks, like traditional taxi cabs and hotels, to fuel their growth. Uber has 10 subsidiaries in the Netherlands that share one address. There is no way to argue any income should be associated with a location based on a bunch of paperwork and an office, as opposed to where the service is being performed or where the company's intellectual property was created.

Whatever the solution may be, whether it leans in favor of the U.S. or local countries participating in the growth of the sharing economy, this outbreak of paperwork and subsidiaries ruling the tax revenues that governments collect cannot continue to be the status quo of corporate taxation. All around the world these firms deceive governments, and in turn, the people. At least the outstanding talent in Ireland has something to show for it.

California's $15 Minimum Wage Will Keep the Poor, Poor

Imagine you are attempting to get out of your family's cycle of poverty in a sketchy, less developed area of California, and you have a job to support at least the most basic of needs, you're struggling but at least you're slightly above the poverty line in your county. Suddenly, you get laid off, and it doesn't look like another job is in sight, and you can't afford to move to LA or SF where there's work.  

Nobody should live below the poverty line. That should be the point of a minimum wage. The current political approach to minimum wage nearly abandons this for the sake of politics. The previous minimum was too low, but it doesn’t make much sense to simply wait for the minimum to become outdated so the poor hit rock bottom, and then agree to raise it to a new level, until enough people eventually agree it should be at some other level, and so forth.

The underlying argument makes even less sense in the grand scheme of preventing poverty. ‘We should set minimum wage at $X an hour for the foreseeable future’ does not work to stabilize poverty in the long term. Minimum wage policy should not be a tool to exert control on lower class wages. Costs of basic necessities and the poverty level are results of local economic factors; they are not set by policymakers. If the goal is to make sure workers aren’t living in poverty, the minimum wage should also be a result of our economy, not a way to control the supply and demand of unskilled labor and try to drastically improve the lives of the poor overnight. The minimum wage should rise proportionally to rises in the cost of basic living. Whether or not full-time workers are living in poverty should not depend on the bets of current policymakers.

The California minimum wage change creates a short-term solution at best; it would eventually need to be updated. Due to the lack of federal action, minimum wage is now largely a state issue, but sometimes even a county/city decision. Even before the state decision, Los Angeles incorporated a higher minimum wage for the sake of the high living expenses in the city. The problem with the state following its lead is that it costs significantly less to live in most of the California that exists outside of the major urban counties, a rural population consisting of well over half of the state.

California has a large living wage variation in different parts of the state, an economic phenomenon virtually ignored in this decision. Businesses have decisions to make that are affected by the cost of labor. No company is going to put money into any type of jobs that don’t warrant a return. If outsourcing wasn’t already a huge threat to the economy, having to pay $15 an hour for unskilled labor anywhere in California will largely discourage investment into rural and lower class areas that need small businesses, development, infrastructure and jobs the most. This change will deplete those areas and keep most of the poor poor.

The Living Wage Calculator developed by Amy Glasmeier, a professor of urban planning at MIT, portrays this problem and thus the ignorance of this decision. The living wage for a single adult with no children in San Francisco and the areas surrounding ranges from $13 to $14 per hour. For the most expensive counties in Southern California near Los Angeles, this number ranges from $12 to $13. The vast majority of the state, however, has a living wage of about $9 to $10. Businesses do not stay alive by providing unnecessary welfare to minimum wage earners. A favorable difference of roughly 30% above the cost of living for a large portion of the unskilled working-class population will drive much of California out of consideration for any type of investments that require that level of labor and it will end up severely damaging the state economy. We’ll see small businesses suffer, more borderline-poverty level workers move to part-time, and much of the poor will be out of work altogether.

The minimum wage should be updated proportionally to rises in the cost of basic living for specific counties or large areas inside of which the living wage can be reasonably averaged out and then updated on a yearly basis, so all areas of the state can continue to grow with the economy and more minimum wage workers can actually find jobs to avoid living below the poverty line. Until we make this change, minimum wage will always be an argument instead of an attempt at an actual solution that reduces poverty and helps get less privileged people out of their cycles. 

Anti-Semitism on College Campuses

The Israeli-Palestinian debate has taken its form in college student organizations such as the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). This group has a strong influence in many schools such as the University of California campuses, that attempt to maintain objectivity and the institution's values in its political standpoints, and usually don't lean one way or another. Educational institutions are also quick to control any situation of verbal harassment and simultaneously attempt to promote free speech. SJP should be given its right to advocate for the Palestinian people, but it looks more like this organization supports movements that attack the state of Israel and go against the foundation of free enterprise democracy, even in America. Considering the radical nature of the leaders and causes they implicitly support and the basic values their support goes against, should this group be banned as a hate group?

SJP's motives are in line with the movement to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction the state of Israel (BDS) in America, and asks schools like UCLA to divest from a large number of companies that contribute to Israel in any way. Additionally, SJP affiliates are vocally active in promoting "a ban of all Zionists" from various campuses like CUNY. Many Jewish students have reported they felt harassed and as if members of SJP were creating a hateful environment for Jews, consistently shouting racial slurs and hinting of another intifada, which refers to violent efforts against Israel.

And not only does the group clearly ask universities to take a very aggressive side on the issue, but it promotes violence and anti-democracy here in America. The group's founder, Hatem Bazian, in a rally against the Iraq war in San Francisco, indicated efforts need to become even more radical, and that "it's about time that we have an intifada in this country that changes fundamentally the political dynamics in here [America]." It is ok to disagree with actions taken by the Israeli government and advocate for the wellness of a people. But this is clearly taking a touchy issue and getting a free pass to discriminate and invoke fear.

Free speech is extremely important, especially to produce open young minds on campuses. But when a group contributes hate and promotes violence in schools in America, their membership as a student organization should be revoked.