philrapo

A common zoning distinction is that a bed & breakfast is a private home where the host lives in the home. If the host does not live there, many cities/towns would then consider it a hotel and subject it to different rules.

I think a lot of the arm waving about airbnb is because of the latter situation. I don't think many people seem to have issues with renting out a spare room.

Prominently displayed in large font on page 1 of the Goldman research report on Tesla:

"Goldman Sachs does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decision."

(I put this in the reply to a child, but I felt it was relevant enough to reply directly to the parent.)

You are conflating the investment banker and the equity research analyst, which have legally mandated information sharing firewalls. Also this potential conflict is clearly and openly disclosed, e.g. "This company publishes research and also seeks to do investment banking business with Tesla".

Further, Goldman conducted a secondary share offering for Tesla as recently as summer 2015, so it was exceedingly obvious to anyone who makes investment decisions based on the research that this conflict exists.

I have worked at several wall street firms and also worked for firms in silicon valley, and I frankly noticed more numerous and blatant conflict of interest situations in silicon valley.

EDIT/UPDATE: Prominently displayed in large font on page 1 of the Goldman research report on Tesla:

"Goldman Sachs does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decision."

A different rational response could be to raise parking ticket prices.

I live in NYC. Parking here is so expensive that paying for a parking ticket (if you happen to get caught parking illegally) is cheaper than paying for the parking garage!

A monthly parking garage in my neighborhood (west village, manhattan) can cost $700-800. Parking on the street is not a perfect substitute, but I can get 10-12 parking tickets a month before the cost of parking illegally exceeds the cost of paying for garage space!

"I think this means building something on the internet, but not using AOL"

Levered people, whether rich or poor, are the ones who are forced to sell. There are always some over levered folks from both ends of the economic spectrum.

As long as you can make your monthly payments, you'll never be forced to sell.

Broadly speaking, investment banks perform two roles:

1) Act as advisors in financial transactions. You expect them to have your best interest in mind here. That's the core reason you are paying them -- to give you good advice and look out for you.

2) Act as brokers when you want to buy or sell something. Sometimes it's hard to find buyers or sellers for your particular transaction. Imagine trying to sell a hotel... or a 10% stake in Tesla... or a few million barrels of oil. You might not know anyone who has interest in that, but you still want to buy or sell. An investment bank can help broker a transaction. In this case, you're (implicitly or expicitly) paying for liquidity, i.e. access to their relationships with buyers and sellers around the world. The service being provided is arranging a buyer(seller) for your transaction. (The service is not about providing advice in your best interest).

There are certainly examples of shady dealings in role #1 above.

But in role #2, a customer of an investment bank generally understands that the service is matching buyers/sellers, and you don't rely on the investment bank to do your diligence. You're not paying for advice in this case.

It's like if your real estate agent was representing both the buyer and the seller, and you know they get compensated only if a transaction occurs. of course you expect that they are doing everything in their power to get everyone to transact.

Is there any reason you can't fly subsonic over land, then accelerate to supersonic over the ocean?