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The article does explain how they inflated the prices, they sold them to each other at increasingly higher prices, which kept bumping up the recorded last sale
by exhilaration 7y ago
The article does explain how they inflated the prices, they sold them to each other at increasingly higher prices, which kept bumping up the recorded last sale price. At the risk of violating HN rules, I have to say that you didn't read the article.
- bko 7y agoI doubt that would make sense financially. Prior to 2017, there was a 5% transfer tax on medallion sales [0]. I believe they would also have to pay either a capital gains tax or treat the gains from the sale as income. It would be a very expensive strategy to get a paper uptick in the last recorded sale price that you may or may not benefit from. And there are all sorts of other regulations that manipulate the market and distort sales. For instance prior to 2017 owners of single medallions were limited to selling to someone who doesn’t already own one [0]. The sales from one member to another could have just been a family business arrangement where one group of individuals brings in another business partner. Instead of some bizarre conspiracy theory about unnamed group of individuals that can manipulate prices, lure just the right speculators at the very peak and move on, why can't it just be that there are some speculators that did well and others that entered too late and lost out? Why does everything have to be viewed as a victim/victimizer paradigm? [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-much-is-a-nyc-taxi-medallion-worth-these-days/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-much-is-a-nyc-taxi-medallio...