The New Law That Will Turn the Start-Up World Upside Down: Crowdfunding - Tim Rowe - Voices. Remember that special moment when we all realized that the Web was going to remake yard sales and auctions, but we didn’t know yet who was going to win?
(And then eBay left the rest in the dust?) Such a moment has come again, and with a choice prize: Investing in start-ups. The House has already passed crowdfunding legislation, by a whopping majority. The president supports it. Senators on both sides of the aisle (Merkley, Bennet, and Brown) have agreed on a version. What would this mean? Everybody likes the innovation and jobs that this could propel. Here’s how this is going to play out: Intermediaries (the future eBays of this space) will spring forward to handle the paperwork, do background checks on issuers (required), ensure that offerings are well described and enforce balanced investment terms. This could be big. Up next? How to Fund an American Police State. This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.
To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com. Click here to catch Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Salisbury discusses post-9/11 police “mission creep” in this country, or download it to your iPod here. At the height of the Occupy Wall Street evictions, it seemed as though some diminutive version of “shock and awe” had stumbled from Baghdad, Iraq, to Oakland, California.
American police forces had been “militarized,” many commentators worried, as though the firepower and callous tactics on display were anomalies, surprises bursting upon us from nowhere. About the Author Stephan Salisbury Stephan Salisbury is cultural writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Also by the Author Who is being killed by firearms, and in what numbers? There should have been no surprise. But why drone on? Farewell to Peaceful Private Life Can New York City ever be “secure”? What Isn’t for Sale? - Magazine. Market thinking so permeates our lives that we barely notice it anymore.
A leading philosopher sums up the hidden costs of a price-tag society. There are some things money can’t buy—but these days, not many. Almost everything is up for sale. For example: • A prison-cell upgrade: $90 a night. . • Access to the carpool lane while driving solo: $8. . • The services of an Indian surrogate mother: $8,000. . • The right to shoot an endangered black rhino: $250,000.
. • Your doctor’s cellphone number: $1,500 and up per year. . • The right to emit a metric ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: $10.50. . • The right to immigrate to the United States: $500,000. Not everyone can afford to buy these things. . • Sell space on your forehead to display commercial advertising: $10,000. . • Serve as a human guinea pig in a drug-safety trial for a pharmaceutical company: $7,500.
. • Fight in Somalia or Afghanistan for a private military contractor: up to $1,000 a day. Today, that faith is in question. Michael J.