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Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

reuters.com

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Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#381

Post by emodendroket »

jwallaceparker wrote: post #311

You and a friend are stranded on an island. You both spend all your working hours catching fish by hand in order to eat. You use some leisure time to build a fishing rod, which enables just one of you to catch enough fish to feed you both. It would be foolish to destroy the fishing rod to preserve both your jobs as fishermen. One of you would fish and the other would do something else, like build shelter and cut fire…

For this analogy to work the ridesharing services would need to give taxi companies a lot more than a nickel a ride.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#382

Post by appleflaxen »

When obsolete industries / models / methods become replaced by something better, the best thing that can happen at a macro level is to have them phased out as smoothly as possible. If that smoothness can also be fast, then you will maximize your economic productivity as well.

So this decision is exactly the opposite of what you want... you are going to prolong the inevitable with a market-distorting subsidy.

It would be much better to tax Uber and require the funds go to taxi cab retraining scholarships, so that people who couldn't make a living driving a cab anymore have another option. Better yet: send them to customer service school, so that they can work as an Uber driver if they wish to do so.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#383

Post by bennesvig »

ricw wrote: post #93

This is unbelievable. Never have I used a more corrupt and unfriendly taxi service as the one in Boston / Cambridge. And they are supposed to be subsidised?! I have 1) been driven round crazy detours to up my cost 2) been forced to drive a detour because the card machine was broken and they only accepted cash 3) been turned down because my destination wasn't far enough 4) been shouted at because I was watching the fr…

The card machine probably wasn't broken. A lot of taxis have told me the card machine was broken until I said I would only pay via a card. Then it magically worked again. I assume this is because they pocket some of the cash.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#384

Post by empath75 »

rev_bird wrote: post #2

This is a pretty surreal move: >The law says the money will help taxi businesses to adopt "new technologies and advanced service, safety and operational capabilities" and to support workforce development... [Larry Meister, manager of the Boston area's Independent Taxi Operator's Association] said the money could go toward improving a smartphone app his association has started using, or to other big needs. I'm not an…

This is one reason why we need basic income, to protect people who get 'innovated' out of work through no real fault of their own. So we don't have to subsidize failing businesses just to protect workers. This is not something that's just going to go away if we bury our heads in the sand.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#385

Post by empath75 »

rev_bird wrote: post #2

This is a pretty surreal move: >The law says the money will help taxi businesses to adopt "new technologies and advanced service, safety and operational capabilities" and to support workforce development... [Larry Meister, manager of the Boston area's Independent Taxi Operator's Association] said the money could go toward improving a smartphone app his association has started using, or to other big needs. I'm not an…

This is one reason why we need basic income, to protect people who get 'innovated' out of work through no real fault of their own. So we don't have to subsidize failing businesses just to protect workers. This is not something that's just going to go away if we bury our heads in the sand.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#386

Post by algorias »

fnj wrote: post #324
erklik wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some sort of basic income or a welfare scheme. As someone else mentioned, Australian's out of job get paid $300 or $400 depending on how many kids you have etc and how much savings. This allows the government to make sure that everyone out of a job doesn't go homeless but its not enough to be comfortable so people don't become dependent on it. ( Some people do become dependent on it, its not a 100% unfortunately )

Comfortable? Exactly how does $1200 per month come anywhere near paying housing, food, and clothing even for one single person?

I think you misread

    but its not (enough to be comfortable)
as

    but its (not enough) to be comfortable

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#387

Post by chmaynard »

> "They've been breaking the law," said Larry Meister of the Independent Taxi Operators Association.

If so, then the duty of government is to enforce the law (presumably with fines or prosecution). Imposing a new tax is another matter. It's amusing that a Republican governor supports a new tax of any kind.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#389

Post by mac01021 »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #14
rev_bird wrote: post #2

This is a pretty surreal move: >The law says the money will help taxi businesses to adopt "new technologies and advanced service, safety and operational capabilities" and to support workforce development... [Larry Meister, manager of the Boston area's Independent Taxi Operator's Association] said the money could go toward improving a smartphone app his association has started using, or to other big needs. I'm not an…

I mostly agree with you, and I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you 2 weeks ago, but I just read a book ("Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank) that makes some interesting points about how liberals have shifted from representing working people to representing professionals, and to worshiping innovation. While free trade and disruptive technology is good for the professional class, it inherently increases inequality.…

Sure, taxi drivers will be in trouble some day (maybe soonish, but picking up a person on a busy street seems like a hard problem) when their jobs are actually automated away by autonomous.

In the meantime, though, the issue is not one of jobs lost to automation. And I'm left with a lot of questions (some because I don't live in the city):

- If people prefer Uber/Lyft to taxis, then why don't the taxi drivers just become Uber drivers?

- Have the taxi services not yet made a ride-hailing app that you can use to summon them? Why not? They do it in China. If they did, would they be able to compete perfectly well with Uber/Lyft?

- If you used used the CallaCab app to summon a taxi from a traditional livery service which side of this new Massachusetts law would the transaction fall on?

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