Episode 54 - Free-Rider Friday - July 2015

NOTE - This episode was missing from the catalogue. It is eleven years old. We are posting it only in the interest of completeness. You can safely ignore unless you want to enjoy the trip to the past.   Ed's Topics Uber delivers a passport and launches a "De Blasio Feature" in New York City, which shows what your wait would be in the absence of Uber. How about Uber for flights? Cato Institute: One idea for how states could effectively end the federal income tax: Texas could refund everyone's federal income tax, and then increase the state sales tax. Effectively converting to a pure consumption tax. The CEO of the private company that makes WD-40 said: "Profit is the applause of doing good work and having engaged employees and that's what I'm most proud of." Jet.com plans to compete against Wal-Mart, Costco, Amazon, etc. by charging $50 per year, and sell everything at cost. Will this business model succeed? Ron's Topics American Enterprise Economist Kevin Hasset, says if you confiscate 100% of all after-tax US corporate profits, and redistribute them to wage earners, you would add roughly $7.50 per hour to wages. Compare this to the $15 minimum wage some cities have implemented, and you don't have to be an economist to predict what will happen to employment. Accenture will get rid of annual performance appraisals. Deloitte is doing the same thing, as reported in detail in the Harvard Business Review, which you can access here: Reinventing Performance Management.