> We're not talking about the smartest people here. Something that had a stable (and slowly rising) value for 100 years didn't seem like a gamble until the lobb

> We're not talking about the smartest people here. Something that had a stable (and slowly rising) value for 100 years didn't seem like a gamble until the lobbyists came in and convinced the lawmakers to allow unfair competition. This is not right. It was a bubble. Prices rose from ~$250K in 2001 to over $1.2 million in 2013 [1, 2]. That's a 13% growth rate. It was obviously a bubble. Yet people were jumping on it, taking out big loans to buy more medallions. It had to burst at some point. Uber was the trigger, but this had to blow up at some point. The sooner the better. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-taxi-medallion-king/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-taxi-medallion-king/ [2] http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/march_2013_medallion_transfers.pdf http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/march_2013_medalli...