The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King
bloomberg.com
The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King
#2I have no sympathy whatsoever. He still owes on loans taken to purchase medallions. If things get a little worse this lowlife is surely going to walk away from those loans. If I were uber I'd offer to buy them for the pennies they may soon be worth.
>>After breakfast, Freidman walks two blocks east to his temporary digs at Trump Park Avenue on 59th Street. (Sandra is occupying the $4.8 million master residence six blocks north.) After he retrieves a Chihuahua named Harry from upstairs—he signs his e-mails “Yes I Am a Dog Lover” or “adopt-a-pet.com”—the plan is to hop into his Ferrari and zip over to one of his several garages in Queens. Not that he wants that written: “Honestly, I would love the piece not to be about ‘We had breakfast at Cipriani, then we walked over to his Park Avenue apartment, then we got into his Ferrari.’
This pic says more than the article ever could: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-taxi-medallion-king/i...
Re: The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King
#3Burn baby burn.
Seriously.
If there's a paragon of entitlement, this guy is it.
Re: The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King
#4During the Depression, thousands of jobless men became taxi drivers. As a result, the number of cabs ballooned, and suddenly there weren’t enough passengers to scoop up. The industry became as hopelessly unprofitable as any other.
Is that really true? If so, what makes the cab business so different than every other business where limits aren't put on the number of sellers?
If there were too many cabs and it became unprofitable, then you'd expect the supply to dwindle until it was profitable for some.
The whole safety thing is a different regulatory issue. I could understand trying to keep passengers safe.
Re: The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King
#5I love characters like this! Makes me miss NY! (I was born and raised in Brooklyn.)
But Uber in NYC is so much better than dealing with taxis.
Re: The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King
#6Planet Money had an interesting episode about him recently: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/31/428157211/episo...
Re: The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King
#7During the Depression, thousands of jobless men became taxi drivers. As a result, the number of cabs ballooned, and suddenly there weren’t enough passengers to scoop up. The industry became as hopelessly unprofitable as any other. Is that really true? If so, what makes the cab business so different than every other business where limits aren't put on the number of sellers? If there were too many cabs and it became un…
Absent regulation, the cab business has very low barriers to entry. Other direct sales businesses with low barriers to entry such as street peddling, door-to-door sales, food trucks, etc. are also typically regulated or banned. Sales businesses which require renting/owning retail space have a much stiffer entry barrier and inherent limits on crowding, but many types of them are still regulated in various ways (liquor licenses, restaurant licenses, salon licenses ...).
Or in other words, cabs aren’t unique.
Re: The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King
#8During the Depression, thousands of jobless men became taxi drivers. As a result, the number of cabs ballooned, and suddenly there weren’t enough passengers to scoop up. The industry became as hopelessly unprofitable as any other. Is that really true? If so, what makes the cab business so different than every other business where limits aren't put on the number of sellers? If there were too many cabs and it became un…
Under normal circumstances, maybe. The Depression, though… there’s no jobs, so why not just get in your car and hope to get a lucky fare? You’ll make more cash than sitting in an unemployment line.
Re: The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King
#9Certainly a good object lesson in the bite of leverage over long periods of time. As in it's a very bad idea.
Re: The Struggles of New York City’s Taxi King
#10Rant: Uber's shitty navigation is as we speak taking me on a detour through south DC trying to get from foggy bottom to union station. Second time this week (last time it was a random detour to Virginia).
I use Uber all the time, of course, because it's so cheap, but people talking about self-driving Uber cars always makes me chuckle.