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Good, it's about time we let some crappy things die. Bailing out the banks and GM got me furious many years ago. Imagine if the government stepped in and saved

Good, it's about time we let some crappy things die. Bailing out the banks and GM got me furious many years ago. Imagine if the government stepped in and saved Altavisa / Pets.com, and all the other dot-com boom companies? What good would that have done? Nothing. Let 'em burn and innovation will rise from the ashes.

dev360 9y ago
I've never been furious about Taxis before I heard of the medallion system in Chicago and New York.. Sounds like something the mob would cook up together with crooked politicians as an alternative source of revenue.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  > ...something the mob would cook up together with crooked politicians... It's Chicago. The crooked politicians are their own mob. Vice crime may be contracted out to the local gangs, but the rackets are kept strictly in-house. That way, when you want to buy a senate seat, there's no pesky middleman in the way to jack up prices. You can just go straight to the governor and hand him an envelope of cash under the table.
  - y_u_no_rust 9y ago
    Illinois is just more effective at catching and prosecuting criminals like that.
brianwawok 9y ago
+ 10000, the taxi system in chicago was _SO_BAD_ Can remember one case where I got a 5am ride to the airport. I suspect the guy was driving a friends cab, as his face did not match the registration. He blew through all stop signs we came across. There were no working seatbelts in the cab. I was literally afraid for my life. Oh and of course his credit card machine was broke, and he had no change, so I have to pay with 20s and get no change back.
- tptacek 9y ago
  I don't know how long ago this was, but cabs in Chicago are required to accept cards, and if they can't, you're not required to pay. I've had cab drivers claim they can't accept cards (response: "ok bye"), but never had them claim not to be able to make change. In both NYC and Chicago, you can call the cops over this, and they're very responsive (perhaps more so in NYC).
- switch007 9y ago
  In that situation, shouldn't you underpay but leave your name and address, suggesting he take it up with the council/police? Do local/federal laws permit that? I know what it's like though: I arrived late in to Spain once, I got ripped off as it should have been a fixed fare (I had lived in the city!), but it was late and night and was too tired to argue in Spanish.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    Yes in hindsight. But it was 5am and I was going on my honeymoon. Grandstanding to a can driver was low on my agenda...
gricardo99 9y ago
"Let'em burn" with respect to "the banks" has been researched and cited as exacerbating the great depression[1]. I know there are folks legitimately concerned with moral hazard, and genuinely believe letting it all burn down would have been the better approach. I'm just glad they weren't in charge when everything went into a tail spin. I think it would have been a LOT worse for everyone. The Automaker bailout, in hindsight, seems like it was the better call than letting them fail. If they had failed, the surviving ones would have acquired all the valuable scrap on a fire-sale, expanded to fill the void and you'd probably have more or less the same auto industry today. But in the interim, a lot of people would have lost their jobs. So that's a LOT worse for some, and I honestly can't tell who wins but on aggregate I assume it's a wash. 1 - https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great_depression https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great_depressio...
- maxerickson 9y ago
  I think there is a legitimate question about how long the status quo can keep being propped up though. It is interesting how angry people get about the bank bailouts though, as if it was narrowly targeted at the owners of the banks and not targeted at preserving the entire economy.
- zanny 9y ago
  Except the great depression happened without FDIC insurance. It wouldn't be pretty, but nobody would have been destitute from a banking collapse. There are many more regulations put in place since the 30s to safeguard against the extraordinary degree of damage a collapse can have like that. Instead of a trillion dollar bailout that went to rich coffers (and most of which was paid back) we could have just thrown the money, mixed, into VC to replace the dead banks (as investment stake, that the government could have sold back later and recouped the costs all the same) and unemployment protection to keep the people temporarily put out of work during the restructuring from destitution. In that scenario, the robber baron crooks that should have been in prison don't get to waft off on golden parachutes paid with tax money.
- hrez 9y ago
  That was due to run on the banks before FDIC. So, yes, there was no reason to be saddled with moral hazard instead of orderly dismantling. Look at Lehman, Wamu etc.

dev360 9y ago

I've never been furious about Taxis before I heard of the medallion system in Chicago and New York.. Sounds like something the mob would cook up together with crooked politicians as an alternative source of revenue.

logfromblammo 9y ago
> ...something the mob would cook up together with crooked politicians... It's Chicago. The crooked politicians are their own mob. Vice crime may be contracted out to the local gangs, but the rackets are kept strictly in-house. That way, when you want to buy a senate seat, there's no pesky middleman in the way to jack up prices. You can just go straight to the governor and hand him an envelope of cash under the table.
- y_u_no_rust 9y ago
  Illinois is just more effective at catching and prosecuting criminals like that.

brianwawok 9y ago

+ 10000, the taxi system in chicago was _SO_BAD_ Can remember one case where I got a 5am ride to the airport. I suspect the guy was driving a friends cab, as his face did not match the registration. He blew through all stop signs we came across. There were no working seatbelts in the cab. I was literally afraid for my life. Oh and of course his credit card machine was broke, and he had no change, so I have to pay with 20s and get no change back.

tptacek 9y ago
I don't know how long ago this was, but cabs in Chicago are required to accept cards, and if they can't, you're not required to pay. I've had cab drivers claim they can't accept cards (response: "ok bye"), but never had them claim not to be able to make change. In both NYC and Chicago, you can call the cops over this, and they're very responsive (perhaps more so in NYC).
switch007 9y ago
In that situation, shouldn't you underpay but leave your name and address, suggesting he take it up with the council/police? Do local/federal laws permit that? I know what it's like though: I arrived late in to Spain once, I got ripped off as it should have been a fixed fare (I had lived in the city!), but it was late and night and was too tired to argue in Spanish.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  Yes in hindsight. But it was 5am and I was going on my honeymoon. Grandstanding to a can driver was low on my agenda...

gricardo99 9y ago

"Let'em burn" with respect to "the banks" has been researched and cited as exacerbating the great depression[1]. I know there are folks legitimately concerned with moral hazard, and genuinely believe letting it all burn down would have been the better approach. I'm just glad they weren't in charge when everything went into a tail spin. I think it would have been a LOT worse for everyone. The Automaker bailout, in hindsight, seems like it was the better call than letting them fail. If they had failed, the surviving ones would have acquired all the valuable scrap on a fire-sale, expanded to fill the void and you'd probably have more or less the same auto industry today. But in the interim, a lot of people would have lost their jobs. So that's a LOT worse for some, and I honestly can't tell who wins but on aggregate I assume it's a wash. 1 - https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great_depression https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great_depressio...

maxerickson 9y ago
I think there is a legitimate question about how long the status quo can keep being propped up though. It is interesting how angry people get about the bank bailouts though, as if it was narrowly targeted at the owners of the banks and not targeted at preserving the entire economy.
zanny 9y ago
Except the great depression happened without FDIC insurance. It wouldn't be pretty, but nobody would have been destitute from a banking collapse. There are many more regulations put in place since the 30s to safeguard against the extraordinary degree of damage a collapse can have like that. Instead of a trillion dollar bailout that went to rich coffers (and most of which was paid back) we could have just thrown the money, mixed, into VC to replace the dead banks (as investment stake, that the government could have sold back later and recouped the costs all the same) and unemployment protection to keep the people temporarily put out of work during the restructuring from destitution. In that scenario, the robber baron crooks that should have been in prison don't get to waft off on golden parachutes paid with tax money.
hrez 9y ago
That was due to run on the banks before FDIC. So, yes, there was no reason to be saddled with moral hazard instead of orderly dismantling. Look at Lehman, Wamu etc.