4 ms·

How would you feel if you paid quarter of a million euros for your taxi licence (maybe by mortgaging your property or going heavily into debt) only to be underc

by ig1 13y ago

How would you feel if you paid quarter of a million euros for your taxi licence (maybe by mortgaging your property or going heavily into debt) only to be undercut by illegal taxi drivers who didn't bother to get licensed and didn't follow regulations ? Obviously it's not an excuse for violence, but it's important to remember there are always multiple sides to any argument.

icebraining 13y ago
I'd be pretty pissed at the guys who forced me to pay a quarter of a million euros.
trigger 13y ago
This is exactly what happened here in Ireland in 2000. The market was deregulated overnight and there was a flood of new taxis on the roads. Needless to say existing taxi drivers weren't very happy as a lot of them had paid around €100,000 for their license. They were effectively worthless after deregulation. All this was great news for consumers of course. Before deregulation it was practically impossible to get a taxi in Dublin on weekend nights. I can recall queuing for hours in the cold and wet for the privilege of being dropped home. The taxi drivers mightn't like deregulation but you can't hold the general public to ransom by operating a closed market. Of course the government should have handled the whole thing better by doing some sort of deal with the drivers who'd paid so much for licences thinking it was a long term investment.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
Because the system is broken and people are heavily invested in the current system and it being broken... What? What's the logical conclusion to that sentence in your mind? Should we keep on running the war on drugs because there are so many people who make a living off of it? Should we maintain copyright law the way it is today because companies have invested so heavily in it? Should we maintain software patent law the way it is because some folks have spent billions acquiring patent portfolios?
- EliAndrewC 13y ago
  There are a lot of middle-ground options, such as "buying back" taxi medallions before opening the floodgates and letting anyone run a taxi. This is obviously a tricky approach for a lot of reasons, but certainly there's a middle ground between "taxi medallions forever" and "all taxi medallions are worthless overnight".
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    Having a competing service like uber is actually precisely that middle ground, since taxi medallions are not worthless overnight.
rodelrod 13y ago
Was there a good reason to have allowed the licenses be traded in the open market? This is what has driven their values to these outrageous levels.
- brohee 13y ago
  Because if they weren't traded openly, they'd be traded on a black market anyway.
nraynaud 13y ago
that's why they added 1000 licences, to deflate slowly the market. The are going from 17000 to 18000 licences. The market got corrupted by artificial scarcity, it has to go back to a normal level, those who speculated will have to pay for it, as they are part of the problem. They know it and that's why they are so violent, they have no hope.

by ig1 13y ago

icebraining 13y ago

I'd be pretty pissed at the guys who forced me to pay a quarter of a million euros.

trigger 13y ago

This is exactly what happened here in Ireland in 2000. The market was deregulated overnight and there was a flood of new taxis on the roads. Needless to say existing taxi drivers weren't very happy as a lot of them had paid around €100,000 for their license. They were effectively worthless after deregulation. All this was great news for consumers of course. Before deregulation it was practically impossible to get a taxi in Dublin on weekend nights. I can recall queuing for hours in the cold and wet for the privilege of being dropped home. The taxi drivers mightn't like deregulation but you can't hold the general public to ransom by operating a closed market. Of course the government should have handled the whole thing better by doing some sort of deal with the drivers who'd paid so much for licences thinking it was a long term investment.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

Because the system is broken and people are heavily invested in the current system and it being broken... What? What's the logical conclusion to that sentence in your mind? Should we keep on running the war on drugs because there are so many people who make a living off of it? Should we maintain copyright law the way it is today because companies have invested so heavily in it? Should we maintain software patent law the way it is because some folks have spent billions acquiring patent portfolios?

EliAndrewC 13y ago
There are a lot of middle-ground options, such as "buying back" taxi medallions before opening the floodgates and letting anyone run a taxi. This is obviously a tricky approach for a lot of reasons, but certainly there's a middle ground between "taxi medallions forever" and "all taxi medallions are worthless overnight".
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  Having a competing service like uber is actually precisely that middle ground, since taxi medallions are not worthless overnight.

rodelrod 13y ago

Was there a good reason to have allowed the licenses be traded in the open market? This is what has driven their values to these outrageous levels.

brohee 13y ago
Because if they weren't traded openly, they'd be traded on a black market anyway.

nraynaud 13y ago

that's why they added 1000 licences, to deflate slowly the market. The are going from 17000 to 18000 licences. The market got corrupted by artificial scarcity, it has to go back to a normal level, those who speculated will have to pay for it, as they are part of the problem. They know it and that's why they are so violent, they have no hope.