This November I'm Voting for Tech
nyuentrepreneur.org"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.
Tax rates matter a lot more to "small business creation" than to tech startups, particularly if tech startups are externally financed C corps. Remember, there are two main meanings of entrepreneurship -- one is usually starting a local business (or even just a franchise, or a side business, or whatever), and the other is starting a tech or scalable startup.
Most small businesses are sole proprietorships or in some cases LLC/LLP taxed as partnership, or maybe an S corp, so individual tax rates apply. It's usually a person giving up the potential for a high W2 income (or 1099 income in some cases), taking high risk, in exchange for ongoing annual revenue after a few years.
Lower taxes (or pro-savings tax policies) allow enough capital accumulation for a plumber to set up his own plumbing business, and let a $200k/yr employee who gives up his salary to run a business and hire a few people build up capital from operating profit to expand. As a sole prop, he can't retain earnings, so he has to pay taxes on his profits every year. If he has "lumpy" income (big contract one year), this could be really difficult.
There are totally different kinds of businesses, but really, 95+% of people are going to start the self-funded (or maybe personal debt funded) operating business, not a scalable tech startup. 95% of the jobs are going to come from either tech/scalable startups or self-funded startups which become such runaway successes that they convert to scalable businesses (e.g. Walmart growing from a single store...). So, there's a good argument for tax structure to favor either type.
I also think fixing a few problems (health care, bankruptcy laws restored to pre-2005, reducing regulation/bureaucracy in hiring people, etc.) would encourage particularly the "small business" type even more than lower taxes. I don't think employers should have as much regulatory compliance requirement as they do now -- they shouldn't be collecting taxes, handling healthcare, or really anything other than focusing on their business and direct regulations in their industry (food safety for restaurants, reactor safety for nuclear plants...).
> 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!
You seem to be conflating giving people money, and letting people keep their own money.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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).
> 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.
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?
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.
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?
We've got plenty of work to do here without worrying about fixing the rest of the world--consider parts of Appalachia, the homeless in our own cities, and so forth. And yes, this also means military adventures abroad need to stop.
Also, if I haven't misread your post, you seem to imply that we should be bringing in these folks as cheap labor to "elevate" them...there's something vaguely off-putting about that remark.
Also, if I haven't misread your post, you seem to imply that we should be bringing in these folks as cheap labor to "elevate" them...there's something vaguely off-putting about that remark.
That's because you are viewing it through the lens of status rather than economics. I'm not proposing to raise anyone's status, I'm simply proposing to give them the opportunity to earn for themselves 24/7 running water and electricity, decent housing, schools for their children (where the teachers actually show up), etc.
I'm also not proposing fixing the rest of the world. I'm proposing helping millions of people at a net benefit to ourselves.
Are you seriously arguing that making a few wealthy Appalachians even wealthier is a bigger issue than making millions of poor people wealthy and the rest of us even wealthier?
We've got hundreds of thousands--if not millions--here in the United States that need the same sort of help, and that they ought be prioritized before we reach out to help others.
On a related note, are you familiar with Lifeboat Ethics ( http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_et... )? It's an interesting issue I'd run across in a ethics course a few years ago--seems relevant here.
Chris is telling you that compared to the lives of a huge number of South/Southeast Asians, even those living "below poverty" in the US are wealthy; by and large, the American poor can expect electricity, running water, shelter, some form of nourishment, and even school for their children. The poorest people in India have none of this.
From another vantage point, as a health economist recently said: vis a vis access to health care, you're better off as a homeless person in the United States in 2012 than President Dwight Eisenhower was during his term of office. Meanwhile, the rural poor of Asia are probably still nowhere nearly as well off as Ike was. They still die of polio.
Right, that part I parsed without issue.
I'd rather see no homeless people on the street (a decently-sized problem in my part of the US) than more homeless people who are still better off than they would be in their old nation.
I'm unconvinced that there exists some sort of moral imperative that we need to seek the suggested path instead of working towards only temporary frictional unemployment and better care for everyone currently in our nation.
Which way are you taking your reasoning here? If it's moral reasoning, then surely it's better to take a deal that creates a net benefit to our economy in exchange for giving hundreds of thousands of people running water, electricity, and schools for their children. If it's rational reasoning, surely it's better to take whichever deals provide a net benefit to our economy.
I'm using rational reasoning--I'm getting different results from you folks because I believe I'm looking at other factors (societal stresses due to wealth distribution, overburdened school systems, convoluted healthcare system, etc.) that would serve to confound your good intentions.
The only "help" I'm proposing is that we allow people to live and work in the US for willing employers.
I don't favor prioritizing the millions of people in the US who already suffer the problem of not being allowed to live and work here - illegal immigrants have already demonstrated a willingness to break our laws.
Wait wait wait... you don't favor helping out the illegal immigrants who are already here with not being allowed to live and work? Because they immigrated without dealing with the broken system?
But we need to bring in still more people who by definition are a worse fit to our country? What?
I'm sorry, sir, but I'm rather baffled by your stance. Illegals are often victims of arbitrary laws, much like recreational drug users.
I'd be happy to continue this discussion in email further if you'd like.
I don't agree with a lot of what Chris says, but the logic he's using is pretty clear.
There are millions of willing potential immigrants living terrible lives in dire rural poverty without access to running water, antibiotics, or electricity, for whom lives in the United States mowing lawns and cleaning bathrooms would be a dramatic step forwards in quality of life, and an immeasurable improvement for the prospects of their children.
Therefore, it makes sense for us to simultaneously improve millions of lives and staff millions of menial jobs with low-cost labor, as it's a win-win for both sides: a net benefit to our economy, and a gigantic quality of life boost for the laborers.
Meanwhile, there are hundreds of thousands of people already residing in the United States who came here illegally. We have virtually no signals on the suitability of most potential immigrants to life in the US, but the one signal we have from illegal immigrants is "willingness to break the law".
I do not agree with this point for a variety of reasons but it is not a hard point to understand.
That signal seems a poor proxy for something we can measure more directly. If what we care about is "do illegal immigrant break laws more often than legal immigrants and/or more often than the general population" then we have decades of immigration and crime statistics we can use to answer that question. If they don't, then citing "willingness to break our laws" is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.
I think the point was that immigration laws are still laws, even if you (or someone) doesn't believe they are good laws.
However, your point is quite correct, if one subtracts the immigration law from the equation how do the statistics stack up. A more complex picture will likely emerge as it does whenever statistics are quoted, for example is the root cause immigration or poverty caused by the status.
It's not that it's a hard point to understand: it's that it lacks all bearing in reality and policy.
Go back to the original point:
This is nonsense--the idea that somehow transplanting these people to the US will magically create wealth. "Aha!" we say," This fellow was in the top quartile of his former economy--let us bring him into the United States so he may be worth more as a member of our top quartile!". That's rubbish."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."Moreover, the "cheap medical" bit isn't correct. It's not labor shortages that are causing all the runaway costs in healthcare, and to pretend that bringing over physicians will somehow improve our situation (without explicitly saying how) is just wishful thinking.
There is still more issue with "Oh, well, they can do menial jobs and suchlike, and clean our houses." We already have folks for that--normal immigrants and illegals, no less--and additionally it creates yet more lower class issues. The problems we have with the economic gap here persist and are worsened by this sort of thinking, regardless of any absolute scale of poverty.
And then, the signals bit.
If you want to talk about signals, observe the point--however odious it may be--that a reliable signal we have from the poor is that they both are unskilled enough not to be desirable additions to our economy and irresponsible enough to continue breeding and voting. I can support this signal however you'd like with a straight face.
Signals, sir, are whatever you interpret them to be, regardless of origin or intent.
Compare that with another signal from illegals here--that they care enough about quality of life, for themselves and their children, that they'll willingly do whatever it takes to become part of the economy and community (note that I did not say citizenry, as they do not use official channels to becomes citizens).
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All this annoyance aside, I'd much rather see an attempt to upgrade their countries and societies in place than flood our own lower classes with more immigrants, especially if we can't even come to terms with existing problems like our resident illegal alien population.
The fact that the two of you have made such observations about the illegal immigrants tells me that we've a ways to go before we should even consider helping out people abroad.
This fellow was in the top quartile of his former economy--let us bring him into the United States so he may be worth more as a member of our top quartile!". That's rubbish.
How so? The reasoning seems quite clear. A skilled developer currently working at some shitty Indian company might be allowed to create value for millions of people at Google.
It's not labor shortages that are causing all the runaway costs in healthcare, and to pretend that bringing over physicians will somehow improve our situation (without explicitly saying how) is just wishful thinking.
Higher supply -> lower price. Less scarcity. Simple enough. Why do you feel this wouldn't help?
You seem to feel that there will be no gains from trade due to immigration. Can you explain this claim?
As for your concern about poor people voting, I share this concern. These are issues to work out. I generally favor excluding immigrants and their children from the welfare state and voting, and taking immigration from a diverse set of countries with high assimilatability. But these are implementation details, not a reason to scrap the whole idea.
Incidentally, the only reason I favor deporting our current illegals is an instrumental reason. We need more immigration, but we also need to control it carefully (as you note, it can be dangerous). If we fail to enforce our existing laws, we create incentives for breaking our current (and future) laws.
There is a huge labor shortage in the health care industry.
It's hard to take seriously the "lower class problems" that are created when you move someone from a place with no running water to a place with free public schools.
I don't agree with the "signals" thing, but you didn't make an argument against it, you just got huffy.
There's a huge labor shortage in the software industry, but we seem to be doing just fine. Simply pointing out that the shortage exists does not automatically imply that it's relevant or even useful to correct.
If you will not acknowledge that this course of action could well increase the class divide, or that widening said divide is bad for everyone, there's not much to be done.
(As an aside, why again is it undesirable to simply help them get running water and schools in their own countries?)
More concise explanation of the signal bit: the notion that we can get reliable factual signals out of the current situation does not work, because we can cherry pick any action (or lack thereof) and ascribe to it motivations at whim. Better?
If you will not acknowledge that this course of action could well increase the class divide, or that widening said divide is bad for everyone, there's not much to be done.
Could you justify this claim? Or is this simply an axiom of yours?
(As an aside, why again is it undesirable to simply help them get running water and schools in their own countries?)
It's not. It's just not as cost effective. Building running water in India is not under our control, nor is it free. Allowing people to live and work in the US has a negative cost - we benefit from their labor, and they benefit from our consistent water supply.
I think those benefits outweigh any liberal angst created by increased inequality (within US borders) and decreased global inequality.
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.businessinsider.com/conservative-legislators-are-...
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.
How about, instead, you act morally, refuse to vote, and focus on making your startup successful via non-coercive means.
Surely at least people working in tech should know that there are more than 2 parties to vote for?
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.
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).
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.
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.
Right, but especially in the legislature, a cohesive group can pretty much take over one of the two big parties (1994 Gingrich, 2010 Tea Party).
Parties also can implode and die (Whigs, Federalists, ...)
I consider voting for a third party to be more influential. When any third party gets any significant tracion, the two major parties start revising their platform to bring in those third party voters. Instead of pushing forward the status quo and giving the main parties more confidence in their stance, you're causing them to think more about what they might change.
I still (maybe ignorantly) vote for the candidate, not the party, which is why I couldn't see myself voting for that 3rd party that you are insinuating. Once they have a viable candidate, I may. I hope that day comes soon.
Surely intelligent people working in tech should know that voting for a third party in the US is the same as not voting at all.
Surely you are not so innumerate to think that your vote has a discernible impact whether voting for a major party or a third party.
Actually, someone should move hundreds (or thousands?) of tech entrepreneurs or smart tech-startup employees to NV, especially if those entrepreneurs could be politically active.
NV is a battleground state with a fairly small population, so even 500 votes with a common agenda would get national candidate attention in the 2016 race. That's probably the most effective way to influence Presidential politics. It does require a year or two to plan ahead, but NV is not a horrible place for some kinds of business, either.
I for one look forward to our new shoe-retailing overlords.
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...
[3]: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/11/white-house-blame...
[4]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/sopa-obama-donors-h...
[5]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/01/16/obama-sa...
[6]: http://boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html
[7]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/31/afact_subcontractor_...
[8]: http://macdailynews.com/2011/09/16/obama-signs-first-to-file...
> 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.
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.
Actually, these are some really great articles. Thanks for sharing. I think the administration has been late on some or most issues but it appears that these issues aren't even on Romney's radar. I've been following the software patent issue and still believe Obama is better positioned to make the right long term decision.
Do you feel as though IP does not have any place in technology? Curious to here your take.
Dont know if I would agree with you about the of cycle dud candidate. I see your point, just seems like the polls show that this wont be a landslide. I think (thought?) Romney had a realistic chance at winning.
As for the off cycle dud candidate, its a mixed bag. Reagan was obviously strong in 1984. Clinton had certainly been through his battles by the 1996 election. The massive loss of the House in 1994 had left him wandering in the wilderness for awhile.
But Bush Jr was vulnerable in 2004. Hell he probably only won in 2000 because Gore himself was a dud candidate. Anyway, two things contributed to the 2004 reelection: John Kerry being an out-of-touch dandy and playboy and the gay marriage referenda (which were a call-to-arms to the religious right).
This time around Obama is vulnerable too. A lot of people are disenchanted him over, for example, Iraq (still going on). Look at the difference in rhetoric between Obama the candidate and Obama the president. World of difference.
My view is you need to understand that each party understands who their bases are.
The Republican base is the religious right, corporations and the wealthy.
The Democrat base is unions, the poor, African-Americans and... trial lawyers [1]. It's why you see the Democrats fight, for example, tort reform [2] [3] [4].
Lawyers love patents, which is why you'll never see patent reform from the Democratic Party. Things is, big corporations love them too so you'll never see it from the Republican Party either. But at least patents may hurt companies enough to notice at some point. A lot of tech companies are against software patents.
Personally, I am 100% against software patents in any form. The idea, to paraphrase John Carmack, that I can write a program and then someone else can independently write that same program and violate any number of my patents is horrifying. The fact that any given smartphone may contain and/or violate hundreds if not thousands of patents tells you the system is broken.
Patents are intended to protect innovation but it seems clear it does the opposite. Patents on aviation in the early 20th century left the US unable to build planes when it entered World War One, to the point that it had to buy them from France and Congress needed to intervene [5].
[1]: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202473540921&Tria...
[2]: http://voices.yahoo.com/democrats-against-tort-reform-regard...
[3]: http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/obamacare-and-n...
[4]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230383020457744...
[5]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wright_brothers_patent_war
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.
Single-issue voting is bad for democracy.