[–] RabidRaccoon 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago (edited ago)
Well it depends. If you're some random wannabe taxi driver and you bought a medallion because it was the only way you could operate, I sympathize.
On the other hand reading this
http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/06/06/how-much-do-boston-taxi-medallions-cost-2/
Not only has the archaic, city-sanctioned monopoly managed to survive 80 years, along the way it’s made multimillionaires out of individuals like Eddie Tutunjian, owner of 384 medallions and the Boston Cab garage.
Tutunjian, as of October 2013, effectively controlled 21 percent of Boston's billion-dollar taxi industry, which uberX is now threatening to make extinct. At least, that's the logical chain of thought.
The more pickups uberX drivers make, the less fares Boston cabbies collect, the less valuable medallions become.
Last March, a month after uberX launched, the Boston Business Journal estimated the purchase price for a medallion at $500,000 to $600,000. A year later, what's the going rate for a Boston taxi medallion? The answer: $700,000.
"The market dictates a medallion's value," Donna Blythe-Shaw, a spokesperson with the BTDA told BostInno in phone a call. But $700,000, now? In 2014? When ridesharing services like uberX are cutting into cab companies’ revenues?
This appears to be the case, if the figures in the image above are accurate. The figures were published by an independent taxi industry monthly newspaper, Carriage News (which costs just $2 a month for a subscription) and sent to BostInno by Blythe-Shaw.
Uber debuted a beta version of its uberX service to Boston users in February 2013. Almost a year-and-a-half later, uberX is the established industry choice among consumers. But, as recently as February 26, 2014, medallions have been trading at prices as high as $700,000.
Equating medallion ownership to residential real estate, Blythe-Shaw explained, the monthly "mortgage rate" for one $700,000 medallion is $4,000 – or $48,000 per year.
Most medallion owners collect rent from shift drivers, who pay upwards of $500 per week – translation: $24,000 per year – just to drive a taxi. Owner-drivers – medallion owners who drive a taxi they've purchased – have it worse.
I don't sympathize with someone who bought up 384 medallions, rented them out and used the rent to buy more of them. That is literally rent seeking behaviour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking#Description
Rent-seeking is an attempt to obtain economic rent (i.e., the portion of income paid to a factor of production in excess of that which is needed to keep it employed in its current use) by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth. Rent-seeking implies extraction of uncompensated value from others without making any contribution to productivity. The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a feudal lord who installs a chain across a river that flows through his land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee (or rent of the section of the river for a few minutes) to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector. The lord has made no improvements to the river and is helping nobody in any way, directly or indirectly, except himself. All he is doing is finding a way to make money from something that used to be free.[5]
I.e. it seems like if you abolished the medallion system all that would happen to most drivers is that they'd stop paying rent to someone like Mr Tutunjian.
You sympathize with people for buying something they lobbied to make requirement that now puts them at a massive disadvantage because that thing they lobbied to have made mandatory is also expensive as fuck and so they cannot compete which was the intention of the thing that they wanted?
Yeah that random eastern European guy who moved to the US a year and a half ago definitely lobbied 50 years ago to require 45% of his work time go into paying off the company he works for, just to be able to drive the cab.
People get so blinded by rhetoric they forget that they shouldn't be mad at people who are just as much victims of the system as anyone else.
I really do sympathize with the taxi drivers who are struggling to find work in an economy with few places for unskilled labor. Cab driving is a classic low-skill job that provided a decent living for immigrants. They got a license, learned the roads, and could make some consistent money. Now they are frustrated that uber execs are making huge profits by sliding around the rules that they basically were told they had to follow.
They don't know what to do, they don't have a strong union like they do in Europe or the police/fire/teachers unions. They struggle to keep up with the technology required to actually be an uber driver -- because if you want to drive for Uber in a place like NYC, be prepared to drive for 3 companies (lyft, uber, Gett), and have 2-3 modern smart phones to manage the apps.
The last NYC uber I was in, the guy had 2 smart phones, 2 tablets, and a built in car GPS. He took me to the airport, and said it was really the best way to get consistent deals.
[–] theoldguy ago
Some politician didn't stay bought if competition doesn't need a medallion. Maybe the cabbies should play Uber drivers with their personal cars for awhile to dilute the profits of the existing Uber drivers.
[–] White_Raven 1 point 1 point 2 points (+2|-1) ago
I am sick of this country. Politicians aren't supposed to be for hire.
[–] epsilona01 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
To be fair, it's a large portion of the world in which you can buy off politicians.