Saturday, July 11, 2015

Sydney: the Amazing Lover For Sharing Economies

Antidote du jour. From ABC. I miss Sydney, although the Sydney I miss is the Sydney of 12 years ago 
Yves Smith of nakedcapitalism.com Fame

Success for a literary magazine: longevity, influence, readership, financial stability, imitators. But they all depend on offering the strange and new... Strange and Ecclectic MEdia Dragons
Uber and Airbnb: the legal and policy debate in NSW
Parliament NSW e-brief, July 2015. Airbnb and Uber are two platforms that have made their way to NSW in recent years, gathering considerable momentum with consumers. Their expansion has not come without detractors. 


FastCoExist, July 2015. The sharing economy meets renewable energy.



 
Uber fined $7.3 million for keeping info from California regulators Times Free Press. EM: “In theory this could cost Uber its license to operate in CA, but I expect a gaggle of high-paid ‘Uberlawyers’ to file whatever it takes in motions to prevent that.
roos in Queensland links

Less than a week after Opposition Leader Luke Foley called for NSW to embrace ride-sharing company Uber, the state government has moved to examine the future of the taxi industry.
*Media release


Finance Sector Heading for Uber-Moment
WEF  Some of the world’s largest finance-sector companies are reviewing their business models following the rapid growth of financial technology (“fintech”) entrants in the sector.


*Full report

Revenue & Customs plans to raise nearly £1bn of extra tax by 2021 using new sources of online data to track down small businesses that are under-declaring their sales.
Tax experts said that Apple, Amazon and Airbnb were likely to be among the app stores and platforms required to hand over data that will help HMRC identify tax-evading businesses. HMRC, which already obtains data from credit card companies, is also set to extend its powers to get data from payment providers such as PayPal, under the proposals that are set to become law next year.
Shared Civilisations and Taxation



THE CALL FOR broader protections for on-demand workers is getting louder. And some companies are listening. Shyp, a San Francisco-based startup that picks up, packages, and ships items on demand, said today that it’s converting its couriers from independent contractors to full-fledged employees. The move, announced in a blog post by CEO Kevin Gibbon, makes Shyp one of the few on-demand companies to boast a workforce made up entirely of employees. 

Shyp Makes Couriers Employees Before It’s Too Big to Change WIRED

Why Homejoy’s collapse is not a harbinger of doom for the on-demand economy WaPo.

Exclusive: Uber, Lyft face disability access questions from Massachusetts Reuters

 The Sunny Side of Greed New York Times (reslic). Alternate title: “Why you should love your new corporate overlords.” I trust NC readers will carpet bomb this piece in the NYT comments section...

A Sydney investor made a $500,000 profit on Saturday selling a crumbling church in Newtown just months after buying it. Built in 1943, title records show the church was bought by prominent developer Theo Onisforou in February this year for $2.01 million. On Saturday it sold under the hammer for $2.55 million. The property at 158 Australia Street was not the only Newtown warehouse Mr Onisforou added to his extensive property portfolio this year. Newtown

Several of China's largest state-run infrastructure groups will bid for a string of port and utility deals in Australia by year-end, reflecting the shift away from deals in the iron ore and coal sectors.
In the last year banking giant HSBC has arranged funding for two of the largest inbound Chinese investments into Australia: China Merchants Group, which teamed up with Hastings Funds Management in a $1.75 billion deal to secure a 98-year lease on the Port of Newcastle last year, and more recently China Communications Construction Company for its $1 billion acquisition of former Leighton subsidiary John Holland.
Sydney based money laundering HSBC says China buyers hunting Australian infrastructure assets


Corrupt money investigations
ABC, 4.7.15. We background a series of articles published by Fairfax Media that have uncovered a high level of corrupt money flowing into Australia.