Comments (3) For the past month, I’ve been trying to find evidence of any benefits earned by states which have enacted an Advertising-Nexus Tax Law (“Amazon Tax”). Even after appealing for help from many sources, I’ve failed to identify any benefit. Except for New York, no states have collected any additional sales taxes due to these laws, which have reduced the states’ income-tax revenue and jobs.
Comments Off on Perverse Incentives “Perverse incentives” is a phrase I seem to use quite often, lately. We create (or accept) the perverse incentives that create the perverse outcomes we detest. Read more »
Comments Off on Dot.Con (John Cassidy): Worthless February 10, 2002 — Late last year, I read a truly awful book: Stephan Paternot’s A Very Public Offering, a poorly-written account of the rise and fall of TheGlobe.com. The company has consistently been cited by critics as one of the worst/best examples of absurd internet-stock mania, but this book by the company’s founder offered no real apologies, and provided very little insight. I don’t blame Paternot, a young man who was willingly manipulated by “market makers,” and who clearly is not a professional writer.
But John Cassidy can make no such excuses for Dot.Con: The Greatest Story Ever Sold. Cassidy offers no insight, and even fails to identify the “con” promised by the book’s title. And his sloppy writing, riddled with factual and typographical errors, insures that the book can’t be accepted even as a “digest” of the events he reports. Read more »
(October 26, 2001) I read a great book today, cover-to-cover, and I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wonders what really happened in the dot-com explosion and collapse. Indeed, I’d recommend it to anyone who is interested in business; heck, I recommend it to anyone, period.
The book is called “Dot.Bomb ” (beware, it’s one of two books released this fall with the same title). The full title is “Dot.Bomb: My Days and Nights at an Internet Goliath,” by J. David Kuo. (I decided to buy the book after reading a brief comment about it in the fall issue of Brill’s Content magazine.) Read more »
Comments Off on E-Commerce Business: Focus, Focus, Focus October 29, 2001 — Last week, when I read the book Dot.Bomb (by J. David Kuo), one amusing recurring theme was quite familiar. It seemed that every few pages, Kuo’s CEO would “announce” (or another employee would “suggest”) a drastic new direction for Value America, which was started as an internet retailer. Read more »
Comments Off on Blown to Bits (Evans & Wurster) (December 28, 1999) You must read this book, “Blown to Bits.”
I rarely recommend books to others. Read more »
Comments Off on Thoughts on Priceline.com and LastMinuteTravel.com December 11, 1999 — Priceline.com claims to offer a unique, useful, consumer-helpful “angle” on travel. I find it useless. Read more »
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