Leaked Documents Suggests Uber Is 'Losing Millions' 206
New submitter DaneTerry88 points out an article about the financial state of Uber, poster child for the sharing economy. Documents leaked to Gawker seem to indicate the company is still far from profitable, despite its popularity. "They show operating losses of more than $100m (£65m) in the second quarter of 2014, albeit coupled with steady growth in revenue." Uber did not deny the leak, but pointed out they are still building the business, which requires a lot of investment. The company has been valued as high as $50 billion, and only a few days ago received a $100 million investment from Microsoft.
How does growth help? (Score:3)
There are two ways that I can see growth helping Uber:
1) They are expanding their locations; and using the profits of their existing locations to develop the new ones. At some point, they will stop growing, and the profits should increase.
2) If they are losing money in cities where they are well established, then by growing they will destroy the existing taxi industry; then they can raise rates dramatically and increase profits
The thing is, it's hard to see where Uber's costs are. They develop software, but that's a pretty small investment considering the hundreds of thousands of rides a day people take.
Re:How does growth help? (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing is, it's hard to see where Uber's costs are. They develop software, but that's a pretty small investment considering the hundreds of thousands of rides a day people take.
This is my question, i don't see how they are spending the money they are making as part of operational costs. While their model and implementation is interesting and novel and works, it isn't exactly one which requires a major investment, nor maintenance costs to run.
What exactly do they spend their money on?
Re:How does growth help? (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the Post, local lobbying registration records indicate the company hired private lobbyists in at least 50 US cities and states and has hired at least 161 people to lobby for its interests. In Sacramento alone, Uber spent $475,000 over five months to influence California lawmakers, the Post reports. [theverge.com]
And that was nearly a year ago. Promoting and defending their disruptive business model against entrenched interests requires a lot of legal help.
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What exactly do they spend their money on?
I'm guessing fines, lawsuits and other penalties.
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As another poster put it "hookers and blow".
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Isn't there an entire data back end to run? Whether they own and host it themselves or run it off EC2 or something, it still costs money.
And while working downtown, I walked past a building with signs on the door directing Uber drivers to a specific office suite, so I assume there's some kind of office presence where drivers sign up or something, and that must cost money in terms of people overhead and space rental.
Even though Uber doesn't want to follow most local taxi/limo specific rules, I think in a lo
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>it's hard to see where Uber's costs are
Lawyers
Of course they're losing money (Score:2, Insightful)
They keep breaking laws and having to pay out the ass in fines. Their model won't be profitable until they buy off enough lawmakers to get the regulations changed.
Re:Of course they're losing money (Score:5, Insightful)
The next round of Uber stories we'll be reading will involve their being named as co-defendants in wrongful death lawsuits involving unsafe vehicles. In my state, cabs and limos have to go through a state safety lane twice a year. Cab/chauffeur drivers have to have special training and licenses. And cab/limo companies carry PLENTY of liability insurance, and are pretty picky about who drives for them. Uber can try to hand-wave all of that, but sooner or later, huge jury payouts are going to run them into bankruptcy.
Re:Of course they're losing money (Score:4, Funny)
> and are pretty picky about who drives for them.
So why, when I get in a normal taxi, is it driven by a scary person who looks like DeNiro in Taxi Driver, but only speaks Somalian? Yet when I get get in an Uber or Lyft car, I get someone who speaks clear English and doesn't set off my serial killer sixth sense.
Uber is dead on arrival (Score:2)
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As soon as they automate driving...
So Uber is good for at least 20 years. ;)
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As soon as they automate driving...
So Uber is good for at least 20 years. ;)
At least until after the Moller Air Car comes out.
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Uber is already dead. As soon as they automate driving do people really think that governments are going to allow private taxi companies to be run at a profit
Yes, because rich people will still want to use nicer cabs.
Re: Uber is dead on arrival (Score:3)
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Uber will only really take off when self-driving cars become mandatory.
They will really take off when renting an SDC becomes cheaper than owning a private car. Since private cars spend 96% of their time parked, that should happen very soon after SDCs become street legal.
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Cars lose most of their value from being driven not from just sitting parked.
Kind of. Cars lose roughly a third of their value when you "drive them off the lot", but that's true even if they are delivered to your doorstep. It's not the act of driving the car, it's actually the act of buying it. This is less true for vehicles which have transferrable warranties. [autotrader.com], which is most of them, but by the time a vehicle is sold most or all of its warranty is generally expired anyway — especially now, when the age of the U.S. fleet is at an all-time high.
Also, letting a car just sit will
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Except I don't want to be in someone else's car. Or let someone else in my car. I want to fit my child seats and leave them fitted. I want to have my shit in the boot that I like to carry just in case. The cost differential would have to be HUGE to make me not have my own vehicle, self drive or otherwise. As it is my car costs me $225 per week total cost. That includes everything from fuel to insurance to the financing costs and is based on 500km a week for a $50k car. A pool car would have to be und
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You're spending almost $1000/month on a car and don't think that it would be possible for a service to make that cheaper? I bike most places and take taxis everywhere else and spend a fraction of that - even taking a taxi with a human driver to and from work every day and would be cheaper than you're spending.
He's showing a total cost of $0.45/km. You can get Taxis for a fraction of that?
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You're spending almost $1000/month on a car and don't think that it would be possible for a service to make that cheaper? I bike most places and take taxis everywhere else and spend a fraction of that - even taking a taxi with a human driver to and from work every day and would be cheaper than you're spending. 500km/week puts you well outside the normal range for drivers, even in the US where the cities are carefully designed so that places people want to be are as far away from where people are as possible.
Just do the math. It is quite obvious that Taxi Service is far and away more expensive for all but the most infrequent of drivers. I drive around 10,000 miles per year, which is less than most people drive. Taxis are relatively cheap in my market, only $2 per mile. So I would have to spend $20,000 per year on my car for breakeven. Using the government's mileage rate, I pay $5,750. By my own estimates, it is a little more. I paid $39,000 for the car, I will probably sell it in 10 years for $5,000. That's $3
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They will really take off when renting an SDC becomes cheaper than owning a private car. Since private cars spend 96% of their time parked, that should happen very soon after SDCs become street legal.
Driving all the time may not reduce the cost as much as some may thing because it also increases the maintenance cost rate and shortens the life of the vehicle in proportion, an offset to sharing savings. Depreciation losses are most significant early in a car's ownership cycle.
SDCs would destroy Uber's business model (Score:3)
Your comment makes no sense. Uber will only really take off when self-driving cars become mandatory.
SDCs would destroy Uber's business model.
Their entire business model is predicated on "not a taxi company, a rideshare Schelling Point company".
If they owned their own SDCs, they would immediately *actually* be a taxi company; it's the fact that they do *NOT* own a fleet of cars that makes their contracted drivers contractors, rather than employees.
It also means that the could afford to drop $1.6M to boot every taxi cab in Paris, making the hated "taxi cab traffic slowdowns" go away for a week, and gaining
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Yeah, everything is going to be automated in the near future! Idiot.
No, it's true. I read it on Slashdot.
Seems strange to me (Score:2)
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They're subsidizing the fares to gain market share. Customers are currently charged less than drivers are paid, so Uber's cut is negative. This makes it easier to grow because it lets them offer more aggressive pricing to customers, undercutting taxi fares, while still paying drivers high enough rates to rapidly grow their pool of drivers.
Their hope is that long-term they will gain enough market power to raise fares and/or pay drivers less.
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They're subsidizing the fares to gain market share. Customers are currently charged less than drivers are paid, so Uber's cut is negative. This makes it easier to grow because it lets them offer more aggressive pricing to customers, undercutting taxi fares, while still paying drivers high enough rates to rapidly grow their pool of drivers.
There was the story that in China, "drivers" ask their mates, friends and family to book drives, which they never perform. So mom books a drive, pays $10 to Uber, which pays $12 to the driver, and then the driver and his mom split the $2 profit, with no actual driving ever happening.
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Nice arbitrage play! Seems like it'd be a little tricky to get away with, since Uber's app phones home with locations for them to track the progress of the trip. You'd have to run the app in a rooted phone that's running some kind of route-planning simulator, with enough nondeterminism that it looks realistic. But probably not impossible.
Sharing economy? Really? (Score:3)
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You already have the ability to share your car, even drive friends for money. This is not at stake here.
No, that is at stake here. The question is whether you're allowed to change your route for a consideration.
What we really want is true competition in the taxi sector.
No, that is a side-effect of what we really want; the right to use our vehicles as we see fit, and the right to collect money as we see fit.
What's at stake, is at what scale people should be allowed to share their car until the service should be officially registered, with all benefits and responsibilities, especially for Uber.
Not really. What's at stake is the very existence of car insurance and health insurance companies. If things are mandated, they really ought to be provided at cost. Anything else is slavery; I am legally obligated to make money to support someone else's profit. The
The men in grey suits are upset (Score:3, Interesting)
Even the business plan should simply read we don't really know and even then the plan will change. Love Uber or hate uber we must all admit that it is shaking things up. I recently took a normal taxi in my city from the airport for the "standard" $55 plus a tip. I took uber back to the airport for $32 and no tip. But also at the airport I asked the first driver what the charge was and he said, "Standard charge $75 same as everyone else." except that he was a "Limo" driver. So the first taxi driver in my new city lied to me and tried pulling a fast one. With Uber this sort of crap is massively curtailed.
So on this issue get back to me when uber has finished growing; if at that point they still don't have profits then it might not actually be an uber good business model.
Re:The men in grey suits are upset (Score:4, Funny)
But when you are in a gold rush you don't spend time making detailed maps, building beautiful camps for the miners, setting up a day care, and otherwise making everything perfect. You yell "Charge!" and run at the enemy with your sword waving above your head.
Uh, what? Were you a speechwriter for George Bush or something? Talk about disconnects... *shakes head as if to clear it*
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This latest scam valuation (Microsoft buying 0.2% of the company at 100 million while actually getting a side deal of Uber implemented on its Phones and Cortana) is just another scam from them.
BUSINESSES ARE A SCAM TO EXCHANGE GOODS AND SERVICES FOR MONEY! WAKE UP SHEEPLE!
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I don't know about your area, but where I live, all licensed cabs have the driver's name, license number and a complaint phone or qr code on the dashboard. You can use these to complain to either the company or the municipal regulator. Here, both accept complaints online.
I've only been overcharged once, a couple of years ago, when I was asked to pay two times the amount I usually pay on a certain course. Interestingly, that was also the amount displayed on the meter. Since I travel that route quite often I
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I don't know about your area
My guess is your area is not Paris, France. Good luck trying to report a taxi in Paris.
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I haven't don't this in Paris, but Brussels has a website for this. All you need to do is to keep your receipt printout (which sometimes you need to ask for) and that has the information for you to file the complaint.
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... Starbucks, who created a pseudo-coffee-language such that customers could control every detail of the coffee they ordered.
Does that now include, "Stop burning the fucking beans!"?
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Does that now include, "Stop burning the fucking beans!"?
Of course not. Starbucks learned from McDonalds that if you burn the coffee during the roast, if you burn it again during the hold, nobody can tell. They're not going to change that EVAR because if they did, you would know when they fucked up making and/or storing the coffee and their business model can't sustain that. If you notice that their coffee is shit, they go tits up.
Of course they are (Score:2)
Isn't this normal? (Score:2)
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No. Only if you are in Silly Valley running a "milk the investor" scam.
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Isn't it standard to post losses for 2-3 years before you become profitable.
Uber has been in operation since 2010. Therefore they have had 5 years to post a profit.
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Well, then it sucks for them.
Only for the investors. The founders can sell their overvalued shares.
Re: Isn't this normal? (Score:2)
Rule of thumb is to expect 3 years without any influx of outside cash. In most businesses this translates to profit. There are exceptions.
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So apparently if you don't post profits immediately, you are a failed company? Isn't it standard to post losses for 2-3 years before you become profitable. Well, 3 years in California. After 3 you cant write off the losses from your company anymore.
Why would you incorporate in California when you can incorporate in Delaware?
Lawsuits? (Score:4, Insightful)
Uber's just like Amazon. They'll keep getting money because if they can clear their hurdles (for Uber it's legal, or Amazon it's just killing brick n mortar) they'll be insanely profitable. If you're a billionaire investor then you can afford to wait it out.
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> while forcing them to act as employees in all respects (can't work for anyone else, work when we say or we fire you, use our phone, etc, etc)
I don't drive for Uber, but as I understand it drivers can set their own hours? Or am I wrong?
If you turn down too many rides (Score:2)
Uber isn't the sharing economy, it's the desper
Re: If you turn down too many rides (Score:2)
They only send you rides when you're working. They're not phoning you up during dinner and telling you to go pick somebody up.
"Turning down a ride" happens when you say "hello Uber I'd like a passenger .... No, not that one."
Don't trust this "news" (Score:2)
>Documents leaked to Gawker
Into the trash it goes
At this point why? (Score:2)
What are they spending on? (Score:2)
They build an app to hook up drivers with riders, and then they take a cut of the fare.
The drivers shoulder the large CapEx costs of buying a car and the OpEx costs of maintaining it.
So what is Uber spending their money on? Lawyers and lobbyists?
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Minsky (Score:2)
"...over a protracted period of good times, capitalist economies tend to move from a financial structure dominated by hedge finance units to a structure in which there is large weight to units engaged in speculative and Ponzi finance. Furthermore, if an economy with a sizeable body of speculative financial units is in an inflationary state, and the authorities attempt to exorcise inflation by monetary constraint, then speculative units will become Ponzi units and the net worth of previously Ponzi units will
Re:Amazon... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The big difference is that Amazon has pretty obvious infrastructure investments, what does Uber have?
They have access to practically free capital. With a market cap of $40B, they would be insane to slow down and cash in. Profits are irrelevant, at least for now. They need to get a lot bigger, and fast, to satisfy their investors, and keep the gravy coming.
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Oh yes they are immune, because it's all done over the internet.
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I've got a theory that the people behind Uber are the lawyers. Pickup a fight with every government and Uber has to bring their legal team in a very high billing rates to resolve the issue. Uber will never make money but the lawyers will be billing for ever.
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With a market cap of $40B... Profits are irrelevant....
I know, right?!?!
Not only are profits irrelevant, the fact that there is not one share of Uber stock available for trade on any exchange is also irrelevant!
That's the thing about the "market cap" metric...stocks have to actually be traded (high volumes preferred) before the number means anything.
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The big difference is that Amazon has pretty obvious infrastructure investments, what does Uber have? Aerons, hookers & blow?
Announcing the new Uber delivery service... The Trifecta Package. Will the limited supply of hookers & blow create surge pricing on Friday nights?
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I heard they get their hookers and blow from 'friends' of cabbies. Cabbies who respect their privacy... :)
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They've already shown they can grow profits regularly
[citation needed] with real, independently audited financial reports. What we see in TFA is exactly the opposite.
where they are allowed to operate
And where's that? They've been sued, fined and banned in all large markets. I know some detail about Uber pricing in two locations, and in both, the difference between the Uber taxi and all other taxis in both markets is just a little less than the difference between what taxi companies and individual licensed taxi drivers pay in license fees, insurance and taxes. That's it. Once they are require
Re: Uber has huge infrastructure investments (Score:2)
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And where's that? They've been sued, fined and banned in all large markets.
And then continued to operate, and eventually win back approval to operate, in many. Just as I said...
the difference between the Uber taxi and all other taxis in both markets is just a little less
Never really used taxis have you? The price difference may be little, but the quality is huge. That's in terms of drivers, in terms of cars, in terms of where the damn things are, in terms of ACTUALLY SHOWING THE FUCK UP, etc. etc.
I can s
Re:Uber has huge infrastructure investments (Score:5, Informative)
Who rated this tripe Insightful?
Uber has a ton of infrastructure investment - it's mostly been clearing the way for the company to exist, legally speaking. They've already shown they can grow profits regularly where they are allowed to operate, so that is a way bigger deal than people are allowing for.
Not quite sure how they can be "growing profits" if the company is not yet operating in the black to start with.
User's infrastructure was MUCH HARDER to build out than Amazon's, which is just code and servers... Uber had to deal with real people - and not just people, but government officials.
"Amazon is just code and servers" -- I'll remember that next time the I hear about their sprawling warehouses [wikipedia.org] around the world. And I guess they were able to begin operations in all those places without talking to a single government official, right? Not to mention the ~150,000 people they employ [statista.com] -- directly with W-2's, not as "contractors" as Uber likes to use to skirt many employment regulations. And that drone thing? [slashdot.org] Nah, FAA just preemptively mailed them their blessing for testing -- no interaction on Amazon's part needed there.
Employee chart in case not working. (Score:2)
In case anyone can't see that employment chart, here is a screenshot of it [imgur.com].
Re: Uber has huge infrastructure investments (Score:2)
Re: Uber has huge infrastructure investments (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the biggest difference is that Amazon didn't have to fight a retail mafia/guild on their way to the top.
Yes they did. And still are. The government is still trying to establish some sort of nationwide sales tax, and individual states have made Amazon collect sales tax if they have a presence in the state. But that is all just obeying existing laws. Uber is facing the same thing, having to obey existing laws. It is not the taxi companies trying to keep Uber down. It is the municipalities insisting that Uber's taxi service complies with the same laws and regulations as every other taxi service.
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Who rated this tripe Insightful?
People who understand Uber, Taxi, and the markets. Who rated you up? Why it's the same band of Uber haters that roam the internet everywhere trying to trash them online, never understanding why people like and use Uber and how Uber continues to expand.
I don't even care about the moderation, I'm just sorry for you guys that are so fixated on some small quibble with Uber now you cannot see the long game. Such poor predictive skills will eventually hurt you in other ways.
Not
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There's only one Uber.
Using profitability in one market to distract the ship taking on water is an excuse for C-levels trying to calm investors. And are those profits growing in markets where everything is locked up and stable legally/politically? Or are these areas where Uber is just sneaking under the radar still?
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>There's only one Uber.
But I used Lyft last night.
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My point to the AC was that Uber is a single company for all its markets -- It's not possible for an investor to only put their capital in one areas of Uber where they are making profits -- so it doesn't matter how the health of a single area is. They're investing in the whole enchilada so it's the profitability of the whole company that counts..
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Uber has a ton of infrastructure investment
In what way? Uber doesn't buy their drivers' cars, they don't buy their drviers' commercial insurance or practically anything else. What is all this infrastructure you mention?
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And you know why? Because they sell sex toys [youtube.com].
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I disagree. Amazon's stock price is much too high right now, being driven so by extreme speculation. It's current selling for more than 21 times book value [barchart.com]. It's a very poor investment over the long term - the next time the market goes bear the price will drop like a brick unless by some miracle they have increased their assets by about 20 times and profitability by about 1000 times (read: Good Luck With That). Investing in it in the short term is a game of musical chairs - somebody is going to be stuck
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That has to be one of the stupidest reasons to boycott a company that I've ever heard. Do you also boycott Disneyland because of their no selfie sick policy?
I'm very pro gun-control but to be fair to the OP if he's licensed to carry a gun and regularly does so then it's Uber boycotting him.
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"if he's licensed to carry a gun and regularly does so then it's Uber boycotting him."
I'm sure that when the Earps went to enforce the no-gun rule in Tombstone, the McLaurys cried out, "We're being boycotted!".
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And I don't blame them, can't exactly tell good guys from the bad at a glance. I'd place the safety of my drivers ahead of his desire to pack heat any day.
My first thought was that wouldn't help since a bad guy would simply violate the no-gun policy, but I don't think that's quite right.
The bad-guy passenger is probably going to give off some signs. The no-gun policy gives the driver a legitimate pretext say something like "I was wondering about that bulge in your pocket, you know we have a no-guns policy" while he still has some control over the situation.
A more cynical reason line of thinking is that while an unarmed driver getting robbed and killed is trag
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The bad-guy passenger is probably going to give off some signs
Sometimes you can spot a crazy a mile off. And sometimes, psychopaths look just like anyone else. Usually you find out when they say something completely out of not left field, but some field that doesn't even actually exist.
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The bad-guy passenger is probably going to give off some signs
Sometimes you can spot a crazy a mile off. And sometimes, psychopaths look just like anyone else. Usually you find out when they say something completely out of not left field, but some field that doesn't even actually exist.
But the people who demand the carry their guns wherever they go don't understand that they are crazy. So they can't control their own own crazy vibe because they don't know to try.
Re: Anti 2A policy hurt them (Score:4, Insightful)
But the people who demand the carry their guns wherever they go don't understand that they are crazy.
You don't understand that many of those people are demonstrably not crazy; that many of them chose to carry because of clear and present threats from which law enforcement could not protect them.
It's too bad that you're so stuck in your mentality of "power is bad". I would rather make people better than disempower them. Seems like all we focus on is how to stop bad people from doing bad things, and not on making people better. So if we take away the guns, we will have less mass killings... but will we have less killings? Mass killings don't substantially change the percentage of people who die, and the USA doesn't even have the most mass killing deaths per capita in the world... we're about in the middle of the top ten. All taking carried weapons away from people achieves is making people helpless.
I'm really glad for you that you don't have any serious, immediately, life threatening problems. That's great! A lot of people are not in your situation. While I don't carry my pistol, I bought a handgun to function as a nightstand weapon so that if my alcoholic, out of control father showed up at my house again and escalated from threats to violence, that I could protect myself and my lady. He told me repeatedly how many ways he knew how to kill someone with his bare hands etc., to the point that I feared him. And he was completely out of control, and quite dangerous. My family has a history of violence, in which I have never been involved. One of my brothers stabbed the other one in the neck, for example.
I'm glad your life is so functional. But other people are trying to make the best of a dysfunctional situation, and you think they're crazy. Maybe it's a crazy world. Nobody should ever have to fear injury or death at the hands of their own parents. And there's lots of people whose problems are way the fuck worse than mine. And you are sitting on top of a very tall, very secure ivory tower, and pissing on the people beneath you. You don't get a medal.
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Can't leave the house without a gun.
Some people have a legitimate reason to be concerned about leaving the house unarmed. Not me, thankfully, but some people, in some situations. Calling the cops for protection is an idiot's game, most of the time. Going armed is as reasonable as anything else in a situation where you've been threatened with violence. It's better than nothing.
I bought a gun for protection at home because of a specific individual to whom I was related. Calling the cops on him would have been fruitless. If that individual had b
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Can't leave the house without a gun.
If the government would do it's job of keeping people from mugging and murdering innocent people, then we wouldn't need to carry a gun. However, we still should since the second amendment is not about protecting you from criminals, that is just a happy byproduct. It is actually intended to protect you from the government. Fortunately, the government has a lot of people on its side who would like to see guns taken away from citizens, so that the government will not have to worry about the people getting tog
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If illegal immigration is really what you're worried about then you can 100% fix it by having open borders.
If you don't support open borders, then illegal immigration must not be what you are worried about. It must be immigration.
That's fine and dandy, but don't hide your xenophobia behind the law.
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If illegal immigration is really what you're worried about then you can 100% fix it by having open borders.
You could also use your argument for murder. If we made murder legal, then we wouldn't have a murder problem anymore.
If you don't support open borders, then illegal immigration must not be what you are worried about. It must be immigration.
That's fine and dandy, but don't hide your xenophobia behind the law.
Don't put words in people's mouth. If GP says he doesn't like illegal immigration, then he doesn't like illegal immigration. He may not care at all about legal immigration. I know I don't. Legal immigrants contribute to the society. Illegal immigrants are a drain from society. I am married to a legal immigrant, but I am against illegal immigration.
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You're full of shit. Not a single country on the fucking planet has "open borders".
HAHAhahahaHAHAhahaha... *catches breath, wipes tear from eye*
Thanks, I really needed that.
BTW, JSYK, I can get on a train right now here in Stockholm, travel through about a *dozen* countries, and *never* show a passport. Cheers.
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Can I fly over from asia with no passport check?
Nope.
You don't have open borders.
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I, on the other hand, will gladly pay more for products and services performed by legal residents of the U.S. I will pay more at restaurants that don't use illegal aliens, I will tend to my own lawn or hire an American to do it, and I will pay more for food grown and harvested by Americans.
citation needed.
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Uber is stealing jobs from real employees that have benefits. It is good that their Republican-style "everyone is a contractor with no rights and no benefits" model is failing. No responsible society should ever allow this sort of thing to happen.
Republican style? I would say Uber is Libertarian "to hell with rules" attitude.
Of course, having recently been extremely f*cked by a company that I was an employee of, I am more in favor of being a contractor anyway. I will do my own benefits and insurance (which I always did on my own anyway because it was cheaper). If I don't like the way a company is treating me, I'll walk. If I work over 40 hours, I get paid for it.
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You've never been a taxi driver, have you? At least in the US, they are usually treated as independent contractors and do not usually get any benefits.
Not that I have any love for Über - I honk they need to start playing by the same rules taxis/limos have to.
Re: (Score:2)
They are a privately held company, if you post a profit, you're doing it wrong.
I was pretty chuffed that my wife's business posted a $300 loss the year before last. Not by design. It just worked out that way. Last year the rules it turned LLC) required us to pay to pay an accountant so we're paying a professional to deliver a tax efficient loss.