> Current laws, for example, include a tax that goes directly to the Javits Convention Center — a place scant numbers of New Yorkers have ever visited.
> “Why are they entitled to a cut?” he asks.
The hotels may pay the tax, but I believe the idea behind this sort of arrangement is that they would take this into account when pricing rooms. So effectively, out of towners pay the tax when they get a hotel room. Even if you ignore the other benefits the city and its businesses get from out of towners passing through, the question being asked here is: why does money paid by out of towners go into something that benefits out of towners?
Of course I agree with others that this story is at least embellished, too much of this guy's history seems like goofy fantasy. (Paying homeless people to purchase iPad 2 for export, really?) So this question being asked probably reflects the author more than it does the interview subject.
> “Why are they entitled to a cut?” he asks.
The hotels may pay the tax, but I believe the idea behind this sort of arrangement is that they would take this into account when pricing rooms. So effectively, out of towners pay the tax when they get a hotel room. Even if you ignore the other benefits the city and its businesses get from out of towners passing through, the question being asked here is: why does money paid by out of towners go into something that benefits out of towners?
Of course I agree with others that this story is at least embellished, too much of this guy's history seems like goofy fantasy. (Paying homeless people to purchase iPad 2 for export, really?) So this question being asked probably reflects the author more than it does the interview subject.