AirBnB

Ronald Reagan:

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Airbnb is moving.

Airbnb is an accommodations web-service that lets home owners and renters offer their unused living space.  It sidestepped the hotel industry, disrupted the hotel market, and empowered entrepreneurs around the globe. 

The Commies agree: This innovation must be stopped.

Had the Internet existed in 1908, I'd link to the TechCrunch article from the San Francisco hippie rally protesting the bourgeois automobile and demanding massive tax penalties against the capitalist endeavor.  Think of the stagecoach workers being thrown out on the streets!

Airbnb has been in the news twice this week.

First, they took it to the government with a splendid ad.  However, ball-less as many entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are these days, they took the ad down moments after the liberals bleated.

You see, the government started taxing Airbnb ABOVE AND BEYOND the normal corporate taxes.  They justified the tax increase with the usual: the children, the libraries and parks, fairness.  The Obama voters agreed.  Not with critical thought, but out of envy and resentment.

So, did the tax revenue help the children?  The libraries and parks?  Those due some fairness?  Or did it go to failing union pensions and deficit spending?  Airbnb was asking:

Dear Public Library System,

We hope you use some of the $12 million in hotel taxes to keep the library open later.

Love, Airbnb

BAM!  The government scam exposed in 24 words.  Like I said, "splendid."

Airbnb is in the news again today with the California Proposition F, on today's ballot.  Proposition F would limit Airbnb hosts to renting their space to 75 days a year.  (That leaves 290 days a year they can rent their spaces for cash via Craigslist, thus saving both Airbnb and themselves thousands in taxes.)

The proponents say Prop F is causing rent rates to increase in San Francisco, thus increasing the number of homeless in that homeless-friendly city.  If the Marxists had half a brain cell among their masses, they'd know that the market dictates rent rates, and Airbnb just facilitates the market mechanism of finding the true market rates. 

We'll be watching today's vote.  And if F passes, we'll be watching San Francisco's rent rates plummet as the liberals promised.