

This November I'm Voting for Tech - aclements18
http://nyuentrepreneur.org/2012/10/this-november-im-voting-for-tech/

======
hugh4life
"For example, Romney feels that one of the best ways to inspire entrepreneurs
is through tax reform. I’ve been to at least a hundred tech related events in
NY over the last couple of years. Not one of them had tax management as the
central topic of discussion. Clearly taxes are not the main obstacle that
stands in the way of any aspiring entrepreneur executing an idea. Besides,
most startups incur net losses for their first several years. What is the
corporate tax rate on negative $500,000?"

Where the hell do you think most seed money comes from?

"Romney’s entire “best thing we can do is get out of your way” type of
approach is not helpful to your average tech entrepreneur. "

The average tech entrepreneur needs to get over themselves.

~~~
woodchuck64
> Where the hell do you think most seed money comes from?

Romney just needs to write out a big fat check to every wealthy person in
America and soon technology will be booming. It's so obvious!

~~~
jordanthoms
You seem to be conflating giving people money, and letting people keep their
own money.

~~~
rayiner
I've always found this concept somewhat amusing. What is "my money?" If I bill
$X for my employer, I see maybe 1/3 of that between salary, benefits, and
overhead. Is the employer taking 2/3 of "my money?" No, because if the
partners weren't bringing in the clients I wouldn't be in a position to bill
for that work. The same is true for every employee whose employer profits from
their labor. I think the same is true for employers and employees with respect
to the government. Is the government taking 1/3 of "my money?" I wouldn't be
making that money without the vast array of services the government provides.
Now it's not an argument for whether I'm taxed too much or too little, but I
feel like the government has a legitimate right to some of the income it
helped me earn. I don't think the concept of "my income" makes much sense in
an interdependent society with fine-grained division of labor. We act together
in large economic units, and there is no naturally right answer to how we
divide up the proceeds of that work.

I could move back to my parents home country of Bangladesh if I didn't like
the taxes. It's tax burden is 8% of GDP versus 26% of GDP here. I don't for
the same reason I don't leave my firm--I make more money even after other
people getting their cut than I would on my own.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_I wouldn't be making that money without the vast array of services the
government provides._

What services? Please be specific.

Before you cite services like roads, fire protection, etc, please go look at
what your taxes are actually spent on:
<http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/piechart_2010_US_total>

~~~
rayiner
The single thing I benefit from the most is the government's suppression of
the physically strong. In the state of nature, people like me would not be at
the top of the economic hierarchy. Those gangs on the south side of Chicago,
lording over their impoverished little domains, would instead lord over me.

We, through the government, impose rules that favor the smart over the strong,
that favor creation over acquisition. These rules enable the wealth of our
society. But they are not cost-less, nor are they the natural order of things.
There is a large class of losers in this system, and I consider government
spending that redistributes some of the fruits of societal production to be
part of the cost of imposing these rules.

Moreover, many of these expenditures benefit businesses directly. Public
education is an enormous subsidy to the business world. My firm's clients are
all large companies that collectively employee millions of people educated on
the public dime. Since our economy is built on mental activity, rather than
manual labor, it is of enormous benefit to companies to have readily available
educated employees. Moreover, many items of spending, such as food aid,
primarily go to children. It is a tremendous benefit to the business world to
have a next-generation workforce that doesn't suffer from the cognitive issues
that can result from malnutrition.

The expenditures that are the hardest to justify are the ones that are
generationally redistributive, like Social Security and Medicare. On the other
hand, these require the least justification--they are benefits mostly paid for
by separately-marked taxes, that every taxpayer can benefit from personally.

And I'm not even going to get started on how tremendously economically
valuable agencies like the EPA are.

So before you talk about what our taxes are spent on, try to cultivate some
perspective about what exactly enables the incredible wealth we have in our
society. As I said, my parents are from a country with far less government
than we have. It's hellish. You don't want to live like that, trust me.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Those gangs on the south side of Chicago, lording over their impoverished
little domains, would instead lord over me._

4.4% of government spending protects you from peaceful people who wish to
enjoy drugs in the privacy of their own home, as well as the gangs you seem to
fear. Another 14.3% protects you from Iraq and the Soviet Union.

As I said, please go look at what the government actually spends your money on
before replying.

~~~
rayiner
I'm not making the simplistic argument that I'm glad that the government
protects me from gangs. The gang example is illustrative of a deeper point.

The government's institution of property rights, which are protected by the
police, army, courts, etc, makes everything around us possible. Without that
basic order, there is no wealth creation. In the state of nature, a skinny
nerd like Mark Zuckerberg is not king. In the state of nature, the kings are
the people in the gangs: young, strong, capable of using and organizing force.
I don't believe in a god that says "thou shalt not steal" or "thou shalt not
kill." I have to depend on a utilitarian justification for the existence of
property rights: that they allow the existence of the kind of complex society
necessary to create wealth.

The imposition of this wealth-creating order is not free, and the cost is not
just what we spend enforcing order. The cost is enormous: taking away the only
natural ability common to all people: taking what you need. When we create
property rights that allow a landowner to own vastly more land than he could
personally defend, we take away the ability of people to hunt and fish and
subsist on that land as they would in nature.

I believe that programs like welfare, food stamps, etc, are the moral
obligation concomitant with the imposition of this highly artificial order.
The order exists because it results in the greatest good for the greatest
number, but in the process it creates a class of losers. I believe we have an
obligation to take care of, as we can, the losers created by our order. I
consider such expenditures to be a cost of creating that order that ultimately
makes my income possible.

You don't have to agree with me. I think it's immoral to impose an order that
prevents people from fending for themselves outside that order, and then to
not provide for them. You may disagree with that.

Beyond that, even if you disagree with that premise, line item thinking is
still nonsensical. For example, take the spending on Medicare and social
security. You can disagree with whether national insurance is the most
economically efficient way to take care of the elderly, but the cost wouldn't
disappear if we got rid of those systems. Instead, the elderly would move back
in with their kids, as they have done through human history. The cost to you
is not the cost of the program, but the cost of the program minus the cost of
taking care of your parents yourself. This is generally true for every line
item--you have to engage in an alternatives analysis instead of chalking up
the whole dollar value as not benefitting you.

Moreover, in many situations the cost to provide a service would be much
higher without the government. For example, consider the 15% of all spending
that goes to education. Our modern society would not be possible without this
education, and employers benefit from it tremendously (what is the incremental
benefit to an employer of someone who can't read versus someone with a public
education?) People act like education is something that benefits individuals,
but at the end of the day, an individual only benefits from his own education.
An employer benefits from the education of each of his employees. And due to
the public good nature of education, it's unlikely employers could provide it
more cheaply than the government.

In general, I find the approach of "look how much we spend on X" to be
intellectually lazy. Nearly every $1 you spend on taxes benefits you in some
way. The debate is not about whether it does, but how much it does relative to
that $1 and whether there are alternatives that cost less than $1.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_The cost is enormous...we take away the ability of people to hunt and fish
and subsist on that land as they would in nature._

This cost is negligible as well. The cost is merely the cost of providing
hunting/fishing levels of food, and it is only owed to the small subset of
people who would be better off as hunters. We're talking about $1-5/day here.
A few $B in a $12T economy.

In addition to your wildly incorrect accounting, you seem confused as to what
a public good is. Education is a private good, being rivalrous and excludible.
You again cite a tiny fraction of what is provided (literacy + numeracy) while
ignoring the vast majority of spending (most of high school and college).

~~~
rayiner
> This cost is negligible as well. The cost is merely the cost of providing
> hunting/fishing levels of food, and it is only owed to the small subset of
> people who would be better off as hunters. We're talking about $1-5/day
> here.

Only if you use an artificially narrow definition of "better off." Would you
rather be a hunter/gatherer in a world of hunter/gatherers, or a
hunter/gatherer in the modern world? If you consider only the value of food,
the two are fungible. But if you consider the whole range of things people
attach value to (social interaction, etc), the former is far preferable. This
is a false objectivity that is common with approaches like yours. Just because
certain sources of value are "fuzzy" does not mean they are objectively valued
at zero. Also, you're ignoring all the modern findings of behavioral economics
that notes that people perceive value relatively. Acknowledging that fact,
simply paying for hunting/fishing levels of food does not put people in the
same position as they would be otherwise.

> In addition to your wildly incorrect accounting, you seem confused as to
> what a public good is. Education is a private good, being rivalrous and
> excludible.

Sorry, I was imprecise. I meant to say that education generates large positive
externalities. Though I should point out in my defense that it is not uncommon
to use "public good" to refer to something that generates large positive
externalities but does not meet the technical definition of public good...

> You again cite a tiny fraction of what is provided (literacy + numeracy)
> while ignoring the vast majority of spending (most of high school and
> college).

The point is that when someone gets an education, they are not the only nor
even the primary beneficiaries of that education. When I buy and eat a cookie,
only I enjoy that cookie. When I get an education, the marginal increase in my
economic value is split between me and my employer. In many companies, the
employer benefits more from the education than you do. One need only look to
see how employers flock to areas with top-tier engineering schools (the Bay
Area, the Research Triangle, Atlanta, Austin, etc) to see how much employers
benefit from public education.

------
yummyfajitas
I'm a techie too. But unlike the author of this piece, I have a little bit of
perspective.

For tech, Romney is probably marginally better than Obama. But I'm not even
going to bother justifying this statement - it's irrelevant. Neither
politician will have any significant effect on the tech community, and even if
they did, it's a minor issue.

Lets focus on a major issue: >500k people just like me (drug users) are
_sitting in jail right now_ for no good reason. For those who are unfamiliar,
sitting in jail is far worse than being unemployed or having marginally fewer
pinterest clones.

Another major issue is the fact that millions of people from the poorest
places on earth (I'm not talking about wealthy nations like Mexico here) could
be lifted from poverty. The vast majority (i.e., >95%) of India lives in what
would be considered dire poverty in the US. Upper class individuals in the
poshest suburbs of Mumbai suffer living conditions comparable to the poorest
housing projects in the US. All we need to do to lift them from poverty is
allow them to enter the US and provide us cheap medical services, clean our
houses and the like.

So yeah, one of the politicians is marginally better than the other on an
issue that neither of them have much control over. Why do we even care?

~~~
siculars
So politicians have no control over domestic tech policy but can affect change
in India by allowing their poor into the US to provide us cheap medical
services? What sense does that make? You, sir, are clearly on drugs.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I don't expect US politicians to affect change in India at all. I expect them
to change the lives of the individuals they allow into the US.

The Indian upper class (doctors, nurses, developers) are poor by US standards.
They can become wealthy simply by allowing them to change location. This would
benefit us too, as would allowing the poor to come over and sell us cheap
house cleaning or dosa preparation services.

Another example: there are about 90k Somalians in the US, mostly refugees from
Somalia's earlier troubles. Assuming they have a GDP per capita _half_ the US
average, Somalian Americans have a GDP of about $2B. That's about 1/3 the GDP
of all of Somalia (approx $6B, pop 10M).

Do you really believe the JOBS Act (the only concrete action the OP attributes
to Obama) even comes remotely close to having such an effect?

------
SethMurphy
I see net neutrality as the single most important issue in my tech bubble.
Giving entrenched tech companies even more of an advantage would be
disastrous. The piracy issue is also woven into the thread of the net
neutrality issue.

I am getting mixed signals from both major parties though:
[http://www.dailytech.com/Democratic+Senators+Block+Republica...](http://www.dailytech.com/Democratic+Senators+Block+Republicanled+Net+Neutrality+Repeal/article23249.htm)

[http://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-legislators-
are-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-legislators-are-really-
outdoing-liberals-in-opposing-sopa-2012-1)

~~~
aclements18
Thanks Seth for pointing out both of these articles. Read the SOPA one, about
to read the others. Would you mind adding that to the comments on the original
post as well? Would like to show some other valuable points to consider.

------
carsongross
How about, instead, you act morally, refuse to vote, and focus on making your
startup successful via non-coercive means.

------
lazyjones
Surely at least people working in tech should know that there are more than 2
parties to vote for?

~~~
nnnnni
A vote for a third party candidate ultimately goes to the "worst of the two"
because otherwise, the vote would have been for the "not as bad of the two".

Of course, that ignores the fact that the electoral college vote (NOT the
popular vote) decides the results.

~~~
rdl
If you live in a "safe" state (CA, WA, ...), where one of the two big
candidates is effectively certain to win, you can vote for your first choice
third-party candidate in a way which might help in the long run -- once e.g.
the Libertarian Party gets 5% of the vote in an election, it gets federal
matching funds, and will be a lot harder to exclude from the process.

In the long run, I think I'd take the worst of the D/R candidates over a
string of 8 consecutive elections if the consequence is ending the two party
stranglehold.

The way the system works, without proportional representation, you probably
will ultimately end up with two parties, but I'd rather replace both current
parties with new competent-but-ideologically-distinct parties (like, say, a
Green/Socialist/Union/Interventionist/etc. party vs. a Libertarian/Free-
Market/Business/Isolationist party).

~~~
pi18n
There are a lot of us that want a third party, but IMO it's just not going to
happen without changing the voting system.

~~~
waterlesscloud
If you don't vote for them, it's guaranteed they won't get traction.

If you're reading this and live in California, you should strongly consider
the 3rd parties on the ballot. Obama's got the state locked up by 15-20
points, so there's no risk in third party voting. Obama will win, Romney will
lose. This will happen however you vote.

So take a look at the 3rd parties, and if one of them more closely matches
your views, support them. Don't waste your vote on parties you don't believe
in.

------
cletus
Disclaimer: I'm not a US citizen so I can't vote at all.

If your primary concern is the tech sector and entrepreneurs then the choices
are pretty woeful.

The Obama administration is without doubt the most hostile to the tech sector
through and the Internet its strong pro-IP stance between:

\- staffing the DoJ with RIAA lawyers [1]

\- appointing RIAA lobbyists as federal judges [2]

\- having an anaemic stance on software patents ("don't blame us") [3] since
the White House is by far the largest bully pulpit in the country they could
act if they wanted to. It is within the power of Congress and the White House
to reform the American Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit, which is
responsible for a lot of software patent nonsense and, at this point, is
arguably an example of regulatory capture

\- only came out against SOPA/PIPA when public backlash had already basically
killed them [4] [5]

\- tried to negotiate and pass the original ACTA treaty in secret, which would
have largely equated piracy with terrorism [6]

\- used diplomatic pressure on foreign governments to tow the same hardline IP
stance eg the AFACT downloading case against iiNet in Australia (which was
ultimately lost) [7]

\- enacted the America Invents Act, which gives patents to the first-to-file
[8]

Romney has been essentially silent on the issue of software patents and, let's
face it, he's the off-cycle dud candidate of this election. By this I mean
look at the candidates that went up against the incumbent seeking reelection:

2004: John Kerry

1996: Bob Dole

1992: Clinton obviously won against Bush Sr but this was in large part to Ross
Perot more than anything else (IMHO)

1984: Walter Mondale

Anyway, if the tech sector concerns you--and since you're reading HN it
probably does--the choices are terrible this time around. Software patents
threaten the entire tech sector [1]:
<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/04/obama-taps-fift/>

[2]: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/03/riaa-lobbyist-
bec...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/03/riaa-lobbyist-becomes-
federal-judge-rules-on-file-sharing-cases/)

[3]: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/11/white-house-
blame...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/11/white-house-blame-the-
courts-not-us-for-software-patents/)

[4]: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/sopa-obama-
donors-h...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/sopa-obama-donors-
hollywood-silicon-valley_n_1213159.html)

[5]: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/01/16/obama-
sa...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/01/16/obama-says-so-long-
sopa-killing-controversial-internet-piracy-legislation/)

[6]: <http://boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html>

[7]:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/31/afact_subcontractor_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/31/afact_subcontractor_to_mpaa/)

[8]: [http://macdailynews.com/2011/09/16/obama-signs-first-to-
file...](http://macdailynews.com/2011/09/16/obama-signs-first-to-file-u-s-
patent-reform-bill-into-law/)

~~~
tzs
> enacted the America Invents Act, which gives patents to the first-to-file

That was not hostile to the tech sector. First to file vs. first to invent is
neither favorable to nor unfavorable to the tech sector, and the AIA contains
some strong anti-troll provisions which are quite favorable to the tech
sector.

~~~
tptacek
In particular, as 'tzs has been at pains to point out on HN for years now: AIA
first-to-file means that two competing claims to the same patent --- two
people rushing to file the same patent on essentially the same idea at the
same time --- can now be adjudicated a simple, predictable measure rather than
by "first to constructive invention". It is probably not much of an
exaggeration to suggest that the previous standard was, in effect, "the party
with the best lawyer wins".

First-to-file only matters when you have two parties eligible for the same
conflicting patentable idea. It does not create some new gold rush of
patentability; it applies only in the tiny minority of cases where two people
are filing conflicting patents simultaneously. It's possible that there hasn't
been a single widely-known trolled patent that was obtained under these kinds
of circumstances.

MEANWHILE: AIA also includes provisions that prevent trolls from joining
together defendants in suits into a single case in the troll's jurisdiction.
Since that was a major part of the litigation M.O. for patent trolls, it's
hard to look at AIA as a win for trolls.

------
onetwothreefour
As a "tech startup" (wtf does that even mean?) I'll take lower health
insurance premiums for employees over any tax cuts proposed by either party.

I don't know what other people are paying, but it costs us up to $1500/m if an
employee has a family to provide decent insurance in CA.

But... I don't really see that ever happening without a complete overhaul of
the healthcare system.

------
AgathaTheWitch
Single-issue voting is bad for democracy.

