Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Insurance Money isn’t Free”.
Let me ask you this Luke, how much more advanced would networking and infotech info technology be if there were literally no Bad actors? If all the effort that we put into security and mitigation could just go into engineering, a better product that is more functional for the user, it could be a whole new world. I legitly think like Humanity would be wildly more advanced, but it’s also just like it’s just so, fundamentally, not how it works, like the amount of people that would have to get new jobs, because having Bad actors means that you need good actors to counter it right. If there’s people trying to attack something, you need people who are working to defend something, and this has existed forever right, you go from like hey, let’s make a stronger door or add a lock to it or whatever to network security systems. It’S all the same type of stuff. It’S all the same type of people on both sides.
It’S just different technological levels like it’s the there’s the that old quote, that I like a lot where, like, if you’re into software um you’re, probably going to want physical locks on your house and, if you’re, into like physical stuff, like mechanics or whatever, you’re, probably going To want like electronic locks on your house, it’s just because, like what the thing that you know is the thing that seems scarier to you, but they’re, both screwed like it’s just you can get through whatever security is realistically, if they really want to get in they’ll. Just break a window yeah like there’s, there’s always a way around it in some way. I don’t know this is probably something I shouldn’t talk about on a podcast, but I am notoriously bad about locking my doors, oh you’re, notoriously bad about a lot of security, stuff. Yeah, like I’m just realistically, I actually, I made a conscious effort to stop locking the door of my car like 10 years ago. You know why I think I remember this because I had my window broken twice in the span of like six weeks and they would go in and like take stuff and then realistically all they took was like you know, 50 bucks or a hundred bucks worth of Stuff and I’m left with a 300 Bill to replace a window, I’m sitting here going it just take it don’t break my window, and I just I just left my car unlocked. That’S it I’m like I’m done sorry, someone didn’t float plane chat named King Hippo said sis admin. Here I have dumb locks a thermostat and everything is not iot. Yeah yeah sounds great. There you go there’s places in. I think it was La. I watched a little mini dock on it, where people leave all the windows down in their car and they leave the glove box open and they leave their like center console open and everything because they’re just like, please, I don’t have anything for you to steal.
I even saw there was there was somebody who had one of their back seats down, so you could see into their trunk that there’s nothing so they’re like don’t break into my trunk. Please uh dangerous myth. San Francisco got it okay, yeah dangerous mythbuster says: don’t you have glass coverage on your insurance? Okay. Insurance is one of those things like like tax write-offs that I feel like so many people misunderstand yeah. Insurance is not free money.
So often, especially with a small claim – and I I three hundred dollars in the in in the realm of insurance – is a very, very small claim – a small claim is going to cost you more in your deductible and your increased insurance premiums than just paying for it Out of pocket, it is bad you you just it just cost you that money or going through your insurance means a it’ll, probably take longer and B it’ll cost you even more money. There is no free lunch. I’M sorry! I have to just kind of be the one to break that to you, but it’s the same thing with something like a uh like a like a business write-off right like a tax, a tax write-off, you’ll see it you’ll, see people say: okay, like uh, you know What, let’s pick one of my favorite billionaires to pick on um, Mr Elon Musk? Okay, so he’ll donate? What was it like? 2 billion in Tesla shares, or something like that? I only read the headlines. So don’t whatever take this for the ignorant rant that it is.
The point is whether he donates something or Bezos donates, something or whatever else you’ll see a lot of people go yeah. They only did it so they could get a tax deduction tax write-off. It doesn’t even cost no tax right, that’s not how tax write-offs work. Yes, when you make a attack able donation, you’re right, you don’t have to pay income tax on that amount right, but you did.
You did actually donate the amount. That is money that you could have kept and paid income tax on, but but you would have still kept a lot of it. It’S it’s it! It’S it’s not like that, completely wipes out whatever you know, generosity or or green, washing or you know, whatever, whatever it is, that they’re trying to do my favorite one is when people respond to what you just said with like. Oh then, then they just did it to get into a lower tax bracket and then I’m like.
Oh no, that’s not fair! Here’S another conference. No, that’s not how that works. Marginal tax rates, which, as far as I know, are in use in Canada, the US uh Britain, like like most of the developed world, uh your your tax percentage of your income um. It goes up as you make more, but it only applies to that income.
That’S over that threshold, so, whatever income you made, that brings you down into a lower tax bracket that income would have been taxed at the same rate, regardless of how much you made over that or not um, and it’s so it’s like the same way like I’ll. Like I’ll I’ll talk in a video or something about how we spent a thousand dollars on this fancy desk for something or whatever it is, and you’ll see these people popping out of the woodwork going yeah, but it’s a tax write-off. He can write it off. I still spent a thousand a thousand dollars.
It’S not just like free money. Yeah, you don’t pay income tax on money that you didn’t make. If that was the case, just buy the most expensive thing in every opportunity, and it would. I would just it would be a write-off yeah just before just be a write-off right. It’S free money, yeah yeah.
So I don’t know man, nice, discount, yeah, good, like yeah, but but it’s not free and but and it’s also way more complicated than people think like, for example, okay, uh. Let’S say this camera that you guys are looking at us through uh. That’S I don’t uh.
What’S a what’s a c whatever that is worth Dan, do you have any idea, uh a few grand three, maybe four sure something something yeah that okay, whatever so so that camera um when we buy it, we actually don’t get to write off the whole thing. Did you know that no amortization? Oh, so you do it over time. We only get to write, even though that year, so let’s say we bought it in the year 2020. Okay, if we spent three thousand dollars that year, that is three thousand dollars. We didn’t make. Guess what this is hilarious, I get to pay income tax on, like 80 percent of that three thousand dollars that I literally didn’t make and don’t even have and then the next year I get a small deduction from income and the year after that, another small deduction And so on, and so on and so forth.
So no writing things off a does not mean free money and B. You don’t even get the benefit of it right away, which is wild to me, especially for really big Investments like when we’ve done things um like build new sets, or you know, build out areas of the building. That are six figures. You know like over. A hundred thousand dollars the fact that I pay income tax on the majority of that, even though I didn’t like get, I didn’t make that money like at the on the balance sheet at the end of the year. I actually didn’t make that money is wild to me.
I’M sorry! I just have this on the mind, because I was talking to Yvonne about it yesterday, um and like there was some. I know what it was so because of some complication with um. The way that our media Productions are classified, we have to amortize labor costs, because the final media production is considered an asset yeah. So, as far as I can tell, we are literally the only industry where we can have someone hired okay and if we pay them ten thousand dollars over the span of some period of time, like the the majority of it, is still considered income for the company.
Even though that money was passed directly through to an employee and then we have to write it down because over time, because the the video that’s online is going to make money over time, that’s your idea! That’S that’s the idea behind it and when it comes to traditional media, that’s and the kind of Ip that a company like a Disney, for example, might own. That’S a reasonable assumption. You’Re, like four views that your Evergreen video is going to get in in three years. From now isn’t really that impactful yeah, I’m like super pissed off about that? That’S pretty annoying like very, very, very much .