Comments by "L.W. Paradis" (@l.w.paradis2108) on "AskProfWolff: Uber, Lyft: Profits Vs. Labor Law Protections" video.

Exactly. WHAT profits? When they went public, they had to declare they cannot foresee profitability under their current business model at this point.
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@4toes1nose You may be right that they are using "creative" characterization to the hilt, but I suggest you look into their capital structure. If their insiders, creditors, and boards of directors are fine with these schemes, there is no reason why they can't be billionaires while they claim no profits. Dollar hegemony plays a role as well.
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@Larpy McLarperstein Free markets have always devolved into capitalist concentrations of monopoly power that operate anti-democratically. Look up all the stuff Adam Smith warned us against, because he saw it as potentially undermining the operation of free markets -- the rentier class, for starters. It's a checklist of what we have now. Or, look at what John Locke thought about the privatization of "the commons." Every economic thinker who endorsed democracy posited some form of collective ownership and collective control of certain essential means of production. Today, the only thing not subject to privatization is the air we breathe.
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@Larpy McLarperstein Just a small question: don't you think it's odd that they have the means to spend so much on a massive advertising effort, when they don't make a profit? When Uber stock went public, they forthrightly declared that they do not make a profit, and they do not foresee that they ever will make a profit under their present business model. Well, the SEC requires honest IPO documents, so . . . P. S. In the classic theory of foreign trade, look up the term "dumping."
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@Larpy McLarperstein I'm not your comrade. As for the rest of your rant, it's not clear what you mean. Do you know?
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@Larpy McLarperstein Corporations are a form of doing business that absolves principals and agents from ever having to take personal responsibility for decisions they make in the course of doing business. That is why Tony Hayward got no clawback after the BP well exploded. That is why a doctor or a lawyer cannot use the corporate form to avoid having to take personal responsibility for his decisions. Corporations, and the privileges and immunities such entities provide to their principals and agents, are creatures of the state. So, when you juxtapose "individuals" (a natural kind) and "corporations" (dependent for its existence on the state) in your definition, it's kind-of funny.
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@Larpy McLarperstein No. I went to school at Paris IV. And then law school here. I've never heard of the stuff you mention. Are those real schools?
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@Larpy McLarperstein P. S. Paris IV was very big on ancient Greek philosophy and language when I went. Don't know about now. James Baldwin was still alive back then. The James Baldwin, who, in an autobiographical work in his moment of most extreme anguish, quoted . . . Socrates. "The unexamined life is not worth living." You don't learn about that stuff, do you?
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@Larpy McLarperstein Looked up "larp." I've never played a video game, much less . . . Is this what happens to you after you have to give up "recreational" drugs?
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