Castanza

But it wasn’t all from the first round, which is my point. Even if it was only a few months later for round 2. The fact is he did this with at most 3m funding, no public usage, 350m in rev and no profit. Did he know he had something special? Probably, but that doesn’t matter. There were dozens if not hundreds of tech companies who thought they had something special. But most ended up going to zero (1999 after all). Tax evasion is wrong. But tax avoidance is expected no? We don’t have all the details yet, and I’m not sure that .001 number is even verified yet. But PayPal definitely wasn’t worth 60m at the time he bought and put shares in a self directed Ira. There was an HSA thread on here a year ago where everyone was talking about how you can save your receipts and pay out of pocket up front. Then when you reach collection age you can show proof of receipts and instead of using the HSA “in the spirit it was intended” you basically used it as a triple tax advantage retirement account. Everyone “games” the system as much as they can with every investment vehicle.

Did he break a law? Not sure he did. Maybe the IRS should be slashed an simpler tax codes should be put in place. People are just mad because he gamed the system. Reminds me of Kerry Packer situation. "It’s a wildly inappropriate use of the Roth IRA, even if it’s legal,” said Steve Wamhoff, the director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and a former tax policy analyst for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. “With no total limit on IRA accumulations, the government forgoes millions in tax revenue.” Whats inappropriate is the amount of money we give to the government every year so they can waste it.

Without hindsight bias what was it worth at the time? - He put it in his Roth in 1999 - 3m of seed funding 1999 June - Email service available to public inOctober 1999 - 1999 total revenue was 350k - PayPal didn’t go public till 2002 Company could have been a zero. There was no guarantee of success. I think at the time the he put the shares in the Roth it wasn’t worth much. Not sure how you can legislate on hindsight valuation. I can’t find an initial share count or valuation, but it’s likely it was a penny stock no? 350k rev and 3m in funding? We also only know the year which he put the shares in the Roth.

Good for Thiel, hope he keeps it all. It’s been 30 years….the IRS missed it and that’s on them imo. People (government and salty investors) only care when someone “wins”. Look at all the shit Roaring Kitty went through when there was absolutely nothing questionable. Meanwhile we have Nancy Pelosi with better timing than the Sports Almanac equipped Biff from Back to the Future…silence….govt printing billions of dollars and handing it out….silence

More NTDOY and APTS

Agreed and it seems pretty damn cheap to me. 2.5x book 20x. FB is cheap and it’s trading at what 7.5x book 30x? Same with NTDOY.

$SONY and $NTDOY thanks @maplevalue edit: $PSTH

Is it just me or does the search function for tickers not work?

I can't tell if Charlie is embracing communism or simply wants the SEC to finally do its job. MUNGER: A wise regulator-- BUFFETT: We could just start-- MUNGER: But a wise regulator stops this stuff before it starts. BUFFETT: It’s very hard to stop though-- MUNGER: What, yeah, what interests me in this is that the communist Chinese behave the way I am talking in favor of. And our own wonderful free enterprise economy is letting all these crazy people go to this gross excess. People who are avoiding it are the communist Chinese. They step in preemptively to stop speculation.

VZ

If you’re approaching this bet from the angle of a favorable court ruling then I think the time to exit is here. You could t have had a more favorable SCOTUS to rule in a constitutional manner. They basically said they recognize the unconstitutional structure yet they can’t do anything about it. The SCOTUS and expected ruling were the main reason I entered this trade a few weeks ago. It’s a small position so I’ll probably let it ride, but if I had any significant portion of my portfolio in this I would most definitely cut ties and chase yields elsewhere. 5-10 more years of flatlining sounds terrible. I’d rather put it in BTI or MO and chase dividend yields hoping to get it back over the long term. There are a multitude of bets with optionality out there that are far less risky imo. As Parsad said….shit changes. A lesson has been learned and I’ll apply it moving forward.

LOL wow what a hack of a job hit piece. Not worth reading past the first sentence. Mark Joseph Stern….you sir are a pos “journalist” “dislodge from the treasury” ”scheme backfired” “claw back billions” “previous arrangements”

added some VZ

Sandra Thompson "Thompson has served as deputy director of the Division of Housing Mission and Goals since 2013. As the deputy director, Thompson oversaw FHFA’s housing and regulatory policy, capital policy, financial analysis, fair lending and all mission activities for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks."

How is Schwab’s mobile app?

Some interesting commentary

One ahs a barrier to entry and a moat while the other doesn't

How much in damages do shareholders think they would get vs just exiting c-ship and seeing where the stock ends up? To me (late entry) I'd rather just see an exit strategy.

Yeah, but Lamberth said he was waiting for the Collins case decision.

Read the post wrong....just speculation

Agreed! Had good risk vs reward for such a short timeframe.

I recognized the decision at hand and was hoping to hold this a few weeks and get out with a fist full of cash....Looks like I'm holding for the grandkids

That was fast https://www.housingwire.com/articles/biden-to-replace-fhfa-director-mark-calabria-today/

Thanks I'll take a look

Emily - all their content is gone