11 ms·

I'm left wondering... so what? The "personal transportation" market has massively changed. Whether it's for the better or worse simply doesn't matter. Veter

by basseq 9y ago

I'm left wondering... so what? The "personal transportation" market has massively changed. Whether it's for the better or worse simply doesn't matter. Veteran Chicago cabbie John Aikins,67, who is facing foreclosure on two medallions for which he owes more than $330,0000, said he has little hope that the industry can be saved. "It feels like the city is just watching us collapse," Aikins said. "Right now, there are a few people, the elderly and some others who refuse to take Uber because they are uncomfortable with it, that keep us going. But how many of those people are out there to sustain us?" Chicago, by way of example, does not "owe" the cab industry anything. And, in fact, likely needs to make their own changes to manage the quickly-depreciating medallion model. The government in no way insured that medallions would be a winning business investment. And, harshly, those defaults (on the secondary market, no less) likely won't have much economic impact. I'm firmly behind Judge Richard Posner: "Were the old deemed to have a constitutional right to preclude the entry of the new into the markets of the old, economic progress might grind to a halt."

basseq 9y ago
Second thought: The medallions give "the exclusive right to pick up passengers who hail them on the street". But that's just happening as much. But even "the elderly" are likely not going outside (in Chicago) and sticking their hand out. They're being dispatched, where you wouldn't need a medallion in the first place (right?).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- monksy 9y ago
  > "the elderly" They are. There are many active elderly people in Chicago.
greglindahl 9y ago
Google [bank taxi medallion exposure] and you'll discover a few banks that are going to go under. Not a significant problem in the big picture, but it is still a problem for more than just medallion owners.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  Good riddance. Taxi medallions are a market in rent-seeking, investing in it should mean you lose your shirt.
  - Neliquat 9y ago
    So a cab driver who wants to drive (legally!) for a living deserves to be broke because of the system they are forced into? That is pretty heartless. These are honest people who many times took a loan to secure their familys future, and you think they should lose their shirt? Do some reflection dude.
  - pravda 9y ago
    I do feel a little bit of schadenfreude at the predicament of NYCs biggest medallion speculator: http://pix11.com/2017/06/07/nyc-taxi-king-accused-of-failing-to-pay-5-million-in-taxes-intended-for-mta-improvements/ http://pix11.com/2017/06/07/nyc-taxi-king-accused-of-failing... Now some medallion owners are trying to get gov't money to bail them out: https://www.scribd.com/document/346690906/Letter-to-Governor-Cuomo-on-Taxis#from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/346690906/Letter-to-Governor...
tstactplsignore 9y ago
>Whether it's for the better or worse simply doesn't matter Yikes- I have only a little sympathy for the taxi industry, but it is very scary that you do not believe we should be concerned with whether market forces improve society or not. I think it is extremely important to the vast majority of people that any enormous change in transportation occurs for the benefit of society - the ideology that capitalism is an end into itself is extreme and fringe, and we shouldn't be afraid to call it out as such.
- sharemywin 9y ago
  As much as I'd like to agree with you, calling it "fringe" might unfortunately underestimate the number of people that support.
- bitJericho 9y ago
  We'll see what you think of the cab industry when uber raises their prices by 3 times in order to become profitable, after the cabbies all gone.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    As long as Lyft is around, they can't.
    - incongruity 9y ago
      You're right. There are no markets in which a few dominant players capture significant profits because there are only a few dominant players who exploit barriers to entry or network effects to stay on top... Except pharma, telecom, energy, airlines and one or two others...
      - cortesoft 9y ago
        Other than pharma, you just mentioned 3 industries that have very low margins. They aren't making a ton of money on their monopolies.
ams6110 9y ago
Please don't quote by indenting. It's unreadable on mobile.
djsumdog 9y ago
That man took out a loan for a medallion, with the idea that he should be able to sell it once he retires. The medallion is now worthless. If Chicago cares about the cabbies, individual owners should be paid dollar for dollar the value of those medallions, even if no one else will buy them in the future. (Does Chicago buy back the medallions, or do you have to have to sell them to someone else? Is the 300,000 the market value he paid to someone else, or is that what the city charges?) The US government bailed out the banks in 2008, and all those people at the top got to keep their millions while so many people lost their homes (mostly due to fraud). These people watched their industry change while being locked into a sinking ship .. unable to do anything about it. These people need a bailout.
- wizu 9y ago
  > If Chicago cares about the cabbies That's the thing though, they don't. And why would they? These cabbies made a bet that the medallion would not lose value until they sold it, and they lost that bet. How is this different from any other small-time business going bankrupt?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - unethical_ban 9y ago
    Sure. Next thing, the Treasury immediately stops honoring $20 bills. Hey, what chumps we were, accepting cash! The analogy holds: A city government had a system where a good had artificial scarcity and intrinsic value from stable government policy. Then, it suddenly changed. I'm all for ride-hailing changing our public transit dynamic, but I can't fault the players of the old system too much for saying "What the hell about my retirement, my end of life?"
    - averagewall 9y ago
      I don't think the city stopped honoring anything or changed any rules. The medallion buyers were just speculating and didn't see the future well. No different from people who buy property for retirement then there's a recession and the surrounding population declines and it becomes worthless. Investment is gambling. Everyone knows that. You're supposed to diversify. Humble wage earners don't have that problem. Drivers who rent medallions don't have that problem. Only the risk taking ones who took loans for something that might lose value do.
GnarfGnarf 9y ago
I take your point. However there is one case where traditional cab companies provide a benefit. When a city issues permits for the lucrative airport business to one specific cab company, it is with the understanding that there will be cars waiting for passengers around the clock, even during unprofitable times of the day. If the cab business becomes a free-for-all, there will be no one waiting at the airport at 3:00 AM. Granted, there isn't a lot of traffic at certain times, but the public interest is best served when there are always cabs available.
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  In this example, you are asking for the cab companies to calculate an average fare which will allow them to operate at a loss during the night. The cab company is taking the risk that their assumptions about how much to charge during the day will offset their losses at night. However, for this scenario, why does a cab company need to take on this risk? Why is the risk of not having a cab at a cheap price not borne by the person who needs it at 3AM? This seems like a problem that is sufficiently solved by the market, where cabs will charge appropriate pricing to make it worth their while, and if another company finds they can correctly price their fares so that they can offer the same pricing day and night, then customers will choose them.
  - GnarfGnarf 9y ago
    The municipal government mandates that the company who wins the bid for the airport franchise, is committed to always having a cab at the airport. The public good is served above the expediencies of corporate profit.
- WCityMike 9y ago
  At least in Chicago, public transit options exist.
- wand3r 9y ago
  So the "benefit" was instead of allowing people to notify them in advance; the daytime market subsidized cars waiting mostly idle at 3am.
gehwartzen 9y ago
How did Uber get around not having to buy medallions for their drivers? What prevented someone from operating a for profit ride program even before Uber without a medallion?
- clock_tower 9y ago
  Uber broke the taxi laws and dared regulators to stop them -- and they mostly won that dare. (Remember all that talk about disruption?)
  - gehwartzen 9y ago
    Couldn't medallion holders then sue whomever issues them since they aren't enforcing the rules/terms under which they were originally sold?
    - clock_tower 9y ago
      I'd guess that they probably could.
    - criddell 9y ago
      They did and the 7th circuit ruled that the businesses were different enough that they can be regulated differently. The supreme court declined to hear the case, so that's how it was left. It's the last two paragraphs of the article.
  - sanswork 9y ago
    Uber generally didn't break taxi laws since most cities only give medallion owners monopoly over unbooked pickups. Uber generally broke car service laws by not requiring their drivers to have the local registrations.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > What prevented someone from operating a for profit ride program even before Uber without a medallion? Uber scaled fast while ignoring local regulations. Both parts are important. We've seen from e.g. Zenefits [1] that state regulators are powerful. Local regulators, on the other hand, are slower moving. Previously, a disruptor might assemble a few happy customers before the regulators slammed down on them. Uber's ability and willingness to scale fast changed that. By the time the local regulators were ready to slam down, entire cities of constituents wanted and liked the service. That changed the political calculus. Uber, and consumers, won. [1] https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/11/zenefits-fined-1-2-million-by-ny-regulator-for-unlicensed-insurance-sales/ https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/11/zenefits-fined-1-2-millio...
cmurf 9y ago
Chicago owes a fair and equal competing market and what they've done is permit two totally different regulatory paradigms to exist at the same time: conventional taxes, and new taxies, sometimes also called ride sharing which is obviously bullshit to get around being called a taxi and regulated as a taxi. Uber and Lyft rides are also investor subsidized, and that is likewise market distorting. The city of Chicago, like many other cities, simply doesn't know what to do. They lacked the knowledge and/or the courage to either regulate Uber and Lyft etc just like taxis; or end the taxi monopoly and take some role with handling the total collapse of the medallion market (partial buy back perhaps). But any of these meallion owners should investigate a hair cut negotiation with their lenders or talk to a bankruptcy attorney. There is no good reason for these people to be in debt on a useless asset. It's every bit as much their mistake to loan, as it was the lenders mistake to lend.
- sanswork 9y ago
  Almost all cities had a category of licensing for car services that were not taxis long before uber showed up. The only difference between uber and these other car services was the ease at finding a car.
- valuearb 9y ago
  We should buy back medallions because these vultures overpaid for them and drove medallion prices into the stratosphere because of the ability to overcharge riders they gave? Medallions owners ripped off people in Chicago long enough. They should sow what they reaped.
dingo_bat 9y ago
Why is Veteran Chicago cabbie John Aikins not driving for Uber?
pyrale 9y ago
> Whether it's for the better or worse simply doesn't matter. I guess it matters to those upon which the worse is imposed. By that, I mean not only the taxi drivers. From an individual standpoint, those who get to drive for Uber are happy to get jobs, but looking at the problem at the scale of the workforce, replacing one jobless man and one well-paid man by one less paid man and a jobless man is a net loss.
- averagewall 9y ago
  Anything's a net loss if you choose the scope arbitrarily. It's not just two guys losing money. It's also the customers saving money and getting better service. If you see a taxi company as some kind of employer of last resort or an unemployment benefit without the shame, then perhaps it's a net loss, but why not just call a benefit a benefit and hand out cash to un/underemployed people. If you have to take a pound of flesh to prevent abuse, then have them break rocks or something to earn their payments.
FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
> I'm left wondering... so what? Well, ~10,000 people, mostly male, are going to be left not only unemployed, but heavily indebted. That combination cannot be good for social stability. If you are a resident of Chicago, you should care. This problem won't go quietly into the night. > The government in no way insured that medallions would be a winning business investment. People who recently took out loans to purchase a car to work for Uber are going to be facing the exact same problem if and when they roll out their autonomous fleet. That's around 200,000 nationwide. I care about these things because I want the society I live in to continue to be relatively peaceful. And America is certainly well equipped, there are as many guns are there are people. Situations like these are how bloody revolutions start. Everyone has fears about AI's running amok. I fear what people will do when AI's take their jobs.
- valuearb 9y ago
  This is bs. Entrepreneurs go bankrupt all the time, it's the "creative destruction" part of capitalism, risk and reward. And 10,000 people in the chicago would be a drop in the bucket. But it's not 10,000 people. Lots of those medallions are owned by businesses, and they leased the medallions to drivers. Most drivers can switch to Uber/Lyft if they have or want to buy their own cars, or get other jobs. Driving a cab wasn't lucrative, the owners of the medallions were the ones reaping the monopoly profits. The best part of the shattering of these monopolies was the lesson it gives others investing in government shielded businesses. Hopefully they will fear their own bankruptcies soon.
  - FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
    Your bias is causing you to come to some faulty conclusions. I did not quote the number of medallions given out by the city (which by the way is around 7000 [0]). I specifically stated the number of people employed as taxi drivers, which as of Dec 2016, is 9500. [1] > Most drivers can switch to Uber/Lyft if they have or want to buy their own cars, or get other jobs. Although some of them can probably use their primary car for Uber/Lyft, many of them will have to take out a loan/increase their debt to get a car they can use for ride-hailing. Perhaps you aren't aware, but losses in sub-prime auto loans have reached their highest levels since the 2008 financial crisis. Given that taxi drivers make on avg about $35,000, it's safe to assume that many only qualify for subprime and will add to this problem. And this is happening all across the country. To your other point, get another job: Doubtlessly some people will be able to retrain. Just as surely, a number of people will not be able to adapt. Being a driver is about as low skilled as labor gets, so there are hardly any where their previous experience can transfer. So what jobs? Retail > Driving a cab wasn't lucrative, the owners of the medallions were the ones reaping the monopoly profits. The best part of the shattering of these monopolies was the lesson it gives others investing in government shielded businesses. I don't really care about the superiority of dynamic startups vs government shielded monopolies and honestly I think the financialization/commodification of parts of the economy such that people make bets on things instead of contributing productive value is not a good thing. But I digress, I'm more concerned with the shattered pieces left over in the creative destruction. 9500 formerly employed people with little future job prospects. That is .2% of working adults. It's not a huge amount, but it's not a drop in the bucket, especiallly when the city is again raising taxes and these individuals are going to need government assistance. As us in the tech industry innovate and move forward, we aren't following the patterns of the past. When software eats industries, it destroys jobs a magnitude more than it creates. Let's be clear, coal isn't coming back and neither is manufacturing (BTW, the US is still the world's 2nd largest manufacturer and the leading advanced manufacturer, a fact that goes unnoticed) I personally don't find meaning or validation in life by having a job, but many do and UBI is a stopgap at best, but we really don't have any other solution at this point. That's what scares me....and people making rhetorical, ideological rants with no regards for facts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_States#Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_States#... [1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-chicago-taxi-driver-decline-met-20161214-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-chicago-taxi-driver-de...

by basseq 9y ago

basseq 9y ago

Second thought: The medallions give "the exclusive right to pick up passengers who hail them on the street". But that's just happening as much. But even "the elderly" are likely not going outside (in Chicago) and sticking their hand out. They're being dispatched, where you wouldn't need a medallion in the first place (right?).

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
monksy 9y ago
> "the elderly" They are. There are many active elderly people in Chicago.

greglindahl 9y ago

Google [bank taxi medallion exposure] and you'll discover a few banks that are going to go under. Not a significant problem in the big picture, but it is still a problem for more than just medallion owners.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago
Good riddance. Taxi medallions are a market in rent-seeking, investing in it should mean you lose your shirt.
- Neliquat 9y ago
  So a cab driver who wants to drive (legally!) for a living deserves to be broke because of the system they are forced into? That is pretty heartless. These are honest people who many times took a loan to secure their familys future, and you think they should lose their shirt? Do some reflection dude.
- pravda 9y ago
  I do feel a little bit of schadenfreude at the predicament of NYCs biggest medallion speculator: http://pix11.com/2017/06/07/nyc-taxi-king-accused-of-failing-to-pay-5-million-in-taxes-intended-for-mta-improvements/ http://pix11.com/2017/06/07/nyc-taxi-king-accused-of-failing... Now some medallion owners are trying to get gov't money to bail them out: https://www.scribd.com/document/346690906/Letter-to-Governor-Cuomo-on-Taxis#from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/346690906/Letter-to-Governor...

tstactplsignore 9y ago

>Whether it's for the better or worse simply doesn't matter Yikes- I have only a little sympathy for the taxi industry, but it is very scary that you do not believe we should be concerned with whether market forces improve society or not. I think it is extremely important to the vast majority of people that any enormous change in transportation occurs for the benefit of society - the ideology that capitalism is an end into itself is extreme and fringe, and we shouldn't be afraid to call it out as such.

sharemywin 9y ago
As much as I'd like to agree with you, calling it "fringe" might unfortunately underestimate the number of people that support.
bitJericho 9y ago
We'll see what you think of the cab industry when uber raises their prices by 3 times in order to become profitable, after the cabbies all gone.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  As long as Lyft is around, they can't.
  - incongruity 9y ago
    You're right. There are no markets in which a few dominant players capture significant profits because there are only a few dominant players who exploit barriers to entry or network effects to stay on top... Except pharma, telecom, energy, airlines and one or two others...
    - cortesoft 9y ago
      Other than pharma, you just mentioned 3 industries that have very low margins. They aren't making a ton of money on their monopolies.

ams6110 9y ago

Please don't quote by indenting. It's unreadable on mobile.

djsumdog 9y ago

That man took out a loan for a medallion, with the idea that he should be able to sell it once he retires. The medallion is now worthless. If Chicago cares about the cabbies, individual owners should be paid dollar for dollar the value of those medallions, even if no one else will buy them in the future. (Does Chicago buy back the medallions, or do you have to have to sell them to someone else? Is the 300,000 the market value he paid to someone else, or is that what the city charges?) The US government bailed out the banks in 2008, and all those people at the top got to keep their millions while so many people lost their homes (mostly due to fraud). These people watched their industry change while being locked into a sinking ship .. unable to do anything about it. These people need a bailout.

wizu 9y ago
> If Chicago cares about the cabbies That's the thing though, they don't. And why would they? These cabbies made a bet that the medallion would not lose value until they sold it, and they lost that bet. How is this different from any other small-time business going bankrupt?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- unethical_ban 9y ago
  Sure. Next thing, the Treasury immediately stops honoring $20 bills. Hey, what chumps we were, accepting cash! The analogy holds: A city government had a system where a good had artificial scarcity and intrinsic value from stable government policy. Then, it suddenly changed. I'm all for ride-hailing changing our public transit dynamic, but I can't fault the players of the old system too much for saying "What the hell about my retirement, my end of life?"
  - averagewall 9y ago
    I don't think the city stopped honoring anything or changed any rules. The medallion buyers were just speculating and didn't see the future well. No different from people who buy property for retirement then there's a recession and the surrounding population declines and it becomes worthless. Investment is gambling. Everyone knows that. You're supposed to diversify. Humble wage earners don't have that problem. Drivers who rent medallions don't have that problem. Only the risk taking ones who took loans for something that might lose value do.

GnarfGnarf 9y ago

I take your point. However there is one case where traditional cab companies provide a benefit. When a city issues permits for the lucrative airport business to one specific cab company, it is with the understanding that there will be cars waiting for passengers around the clock, even during unprofitable times of the day. If the cab business becomes a free-for-all, there will be no one waiting at the airport at 3:00 AM. Granted, there isn't a lot of traffic at certain times, but the public interest is best served when there are always cabs available.

lotsofpulp 9y ago
In this example, you are asking for the cab companies to calculate an average fare which will allow them to operate at a loss during the night. The cab company is taking the risk that their assumptions about how much to charge during the day will offset their losses at night. However, for this scenario, why does a cab company need to take on this risk? Why is the risk of not having a cab at a cheap price not borne by the person who needs it at 3AM? This seems like a problem that is sufficiently solved by the market, where cabs will charge appropriate pricing to make it worth their while, and if another company finds they can correctly price their fares so that they can offer the same pricing day and night, then customers will choose them.
- GnarfGnarf 9y ago
  The municipal government mandates that the company who wins the bid for the airport franchise, is committed to always having a cab at the airport. The public good is served above the expediencies of corporate profit.
WCityMike 9y ago
At least in Chicago, public transit options exist.
wand3r 9y ago
So the "benefit" was instead of allowing people to notify them in advance; the daytime market subsidized cars waiting mostly idle at 3am.

gehwartzen 9y ago

How did Uber get around not having to buy medallions for their drivers? What prevented someone from operating a for profit ride program even before Uber without a medallion?

clock_tower 9y ago
Uber broke the taxi laws and dared regulators to stop them -- and they mostly won that dare. (Remember all that talk about disruption?)
- gehwartzen 9y ago
  Couldn't medallion holders then sue whomever issues them since they aren't enforcing the rules/terms under which they were originally sold?
  - clock_tower 9y ago
    I'd guess that they probably could.
  - criddell 9y ago
    They did and the 7th circuit ruled that the businesses were different enough that they can be regulated differently. The supreme court declined to hear the case, so that's how it was left. It's the last two paragraphs of the article.
- sanswork 9y ago
  Uber generally didn't break taxi laws since most cities only give medallion owners monopoly over unbooked pickups. Uber generally broke car service laws by not requiring their drivers to have the local registrations.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> What prevented someone from operating a for profit ride program even before Uber without a medallion? Uber scaled fast while ignoring local regulations. Both parts are important. We've seen from e.g. Zenefits [1] that state regulators are powerful. Local regulators, on the other hand, are slower moving. Previously, a disruptor might assemble a few happy customers before the regulators slammed down on them. Uber's ability and willingness to scale fast changed that. By the time the local regulators were ready to slam down, entire cities of constituents wanted and liked the service. That changed the political calculus. Uber, and consumers, won. [1] https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/11/zenefits-fined-1-2-million-by-ny-regulator-for-unlicensed-insurance-sales/ https://venturebeat.com/2017/04/11/zenefits-fined-1-2-millio...

cmurf 9y ago

Chicago owes a fair and equal competing market and what they've done is permit two totally different regulatory paradigms to exist at the same time: conventional taxes, and new taxies, sometimes also called ride sharing which is obviously bullshit to get around being called a taxi and regulated as a taxi. Uber and Lyft rides are also investor subsidized, and that is likewise market distorting. The city of Chicago, like many other cities, simply doesn't know what to do. They lacked the knowledge and/or the courage to either regulate Uber and Lyft etc just like taxis; or end the taxi monopoly and take some role with handling the total collapse of the medallion market (partial buy back perhaps). But any of these meallion owners should investigate a hair cut negotiation with their lenders or talk to a bankruptcy attorney. There is no good reason for these people to be in debt on a useless asset. It's every bit as much their mistake to loan, as it was the lenders mistake to lend.

sanswork 9y ago
Almost all cities had a category of licensing for car services that were not taxis long before uber showed up. The only difference between uber and these other car services was the ease at finding a car.
valuearb 9y ago
We should buy back medallions because these vultures overpaid for them and drove medallion prices into the stratosphere because of the ability to overcharge riders they gave? Medallions owners ripped off people in Chicago long enough. They should sow what they reaped.

dingo_bat 9y ago

Why is Veteran Chicago cabbie John Aikins not driving for Uber?

pyrale 9y ago

> Whether it's for the better or worse simply doesn't matter. I guess it matters to those upon which the worse is imposed. By that, I mean not only the taxi drivers. From an individual standpoint, those who get to drive for Uber are happy to get jobs, but looking at the problem at the scale of the workforce, replacing one jobless man and one well-paid man by one less paid man and a jobless man is a net loss.

averagewall 9y ago
Anything's a net loss if you choose the scope arbitrarily. It's not just two guys losing money. It's also the customers saving money and getting better service. If you see a taxi company as some kind of employer of last resort or an unemployment benefit without the shame, then perhaps it's a net loss, but why not just call a benefit a benefit and hand out cash to un/underemployed people. If you have to take a pound of flesh to prevent abuse, then have them break rocks or something to earn their payments.

FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago

> I'm left wondering... so what? Well, ~10,000 people, mostly male, are going to be left not only unemployed, but heavily indebted. That combination cannot be good for social stability. If you are a resident of Chicago, you should care. This problem won't go quietly into the night. > The government in no way insured that medallions would be a winning business investment. People who recently took out loans to purchase a car to work for Uber are going to be facing the exact same problem if and when they roll out their autonomous fleet. That's around 200,000 nationwide. I care about these things because I want the society I live in to continue to be relatively peaceful. And America is certainly well equipped, there are as many guns are there are people. Situations like these are how bloody revolutions start. Everyone has fears about AI's running amok. I fear what people will do when AI's take their jobs.

valuearb 9y ago
This is bs. Entrepreneurs go bankrupt all the time, it's the "creative destruction" part of capitalism, risk and reward. And 10,000 people in the chicago would be a drop in the bucket. But it's not 10,000 people. Lots of those medallions are owned by businesses, and they leased the medallions to drivers. Most drivers can switch to Uber/Lyft if they have or want to buy their own cars, or get other jobs. Driving a cab wasn't lucrative, the owners of the medallions were the ones reaping the monopoly profits. The best part of the shattering of these monopolies was the lesson it gives others investing in government shielded businesses. Hopefully they will fear their own bankruptcies soon.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
  Your bias is causing you to come to some faulty conclusions. I did not quote the number of medallions given out by the city (which by the way is around 7000 [0]). I specifically stated the number of people employed as taxi drivers, which as of Dec 2016, is 9500. [1] > Most drivers can switch to Uber/Lyft if they have or want to buy their own cars, or get other jobs. Although some of them can probably use their primary car for Uber/Lyft, many of them will have to take out a loan/increase their debt to get a car they can use for ride-hailing. Perhaps you aren't aware, but losses in sub-prime auto loans have reached their highest levels since the 2008 financial crisis. Given that taxi drivers make on avg about $35,000, it's safe to assume that many only qualify for subprime and will add to this problem. And this is happening all across the country. To your other point, get another job: Doubtlessly some people will be able to retrain. Just as surely, a number of people will not be able to adapt. Being a driver is about as low skilled as labor gets, so there are hardly any where their previous experience can transfer. So what jobs? Retail > Driving a cab wasn't lucrative, the owners of the medallions were the ones reaping the monopoly profits. The best part of the shattering of these monopolies was the lesson it gives others investing in government shielded businesses. I don't really care about the superiority of dynamic startups vs government shielded monopolies and honestly I think the financialization/commodification of parts of the economy such that people make bets on things instead of contributing productive value is not a good thing. But I digress, I'm more concerned with the shattered pieces left over in the creative destruction. 9500 formerly employed people with little future job prospects. That is .2% of working adults. It's not a huge amount, but it's not a drop in the bucket, especiallly when the city is again raising taxes and these individuals are going to need government assistance. As us in the tech industry innovate and move forward, we aren't following the patterns of the past. When software eats industries, it destroys jobs a magnitude more than it creates. Let's be clear, coal isn't coming back and neither is manufacturing (BTW, the US is still the world's 2nd largest manufacturer and the leading advanced manufacturer, a fact that goes unnoticed) I personally don't find meaning or validation in life by having a job, but many do and UBI is a stopgap at best, but we really don't have any other solution at this point. That's what scares me....and people making rhetorical, ideological rants with no regards for facts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_States#Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_States#... [1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-chicago-taxi-driver-decline-met-20161214-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-chicago-taxi-driver-de...