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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

#461

Post by JamesBarney »

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.…

First of all I doubt all of this money is going to the actual taxi drivers themselves. I would bet a large portion of it is going to taxi cab owners, and taxi companies.

Second of all the poor people in the U.S. that need money why select "taxi drivers" as the category to advantage?

I identify as a liberal. But of all the ways to help people, writing checks to taxi companies and hoping it filters down to taxi drivers is the silliest and most inefficient way I can think of to accomplish this goal. Instead just write checks to poor people. Who cares if they can't work because they used to be a manufacturer, a taxi driver, or just because they don't have the emotional/intellectual/social ability to compete in a 21st century workforce.

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

#462

Post by JoeAltmaier »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #415
shiven wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same darn argument as was used against the automobile when it started replacing horse drawn carriages (buggies) as the dominant mode of transport. "Oh, but think of the poor buggy horsewhip-makers! They will be deprived of their livelihood." Guess what? They adapted to the new reality and here we are, rehashing the age old argument for populist/crony politics. Change is always hard, sometimes unforgivingly s…

Actually some of those buggy-whip makes just died of starvation. Folks used to fight hard against mechanization (the word Sabotage is said to originate when workers in Japan hurled their wooden shoes called 'Sabo' into the looms to break them) because their fate was starvation and death.

This may be an unpopular observation, but it is nevertheless true.

http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook...

tl;dr: In 1832, one observer saw how the skilled hand weavers had lost their way and were reduced to starvation. “It is truly lamentable to behold so many thousands of men who formerly earned 20 to 30 shillings per week, now compelled to live on 5, 4, or even less”

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

#463

Post by mungoid »

I haven't read all 400-some comments, but in the several pages worth i read I haven't seen a single person mention looking out for their own welfare and keeping their future in their own hands. Just because a line of work has been around for decades doesnt mean it is always going to be a safe bet.

I've worked hard for the past 10 years to get to my middling-middle class income. Enough with my wife's to support our family. I could just be content with that and staying right here for the rest of my life, never wanting to do any more with myself, but I know things will change and i want to be prepared for it.

Maybe it's the brain wiring of a software developer, but I refuse to become complacent with where I am at. I already know I wouldn't last another 10 years if I don't regularly adapt, learn new technologies, stay current.

I think in a way, this isn't too much different than the housing bubble. Too many people thinking that everything is just going to keep going its steady pace forever and if anything bad does happen, someone will come to the rescue. I want to position myself so I don't need that rescuing.

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

#464

Post by BurningFrog »

ucarion wrote: post #206
BurningFrog wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxis are a dying industry, but taxi drivers are not adapting. How do you know? My impression is that most taxi drivers are very busy adapting. But I don't know either. Let's be clear: The people hardest hit by Uber/Lyft is taxi company owners . > Clearly, asking them to adapt overnight would be too demanding Uber has been around for half a decade. How many decades does it take?

> How do you know? My impression is that most taxi drivers are very busy adapting. But I don't know either. To be clear: I don't know either. I'm an outsider to this industry. I'm just offering arguments. > Let's be clear: The people hardest hit by Uber/Lyft is taxi company owners. I don't think this is true. They're losing the most money, but they have lots of money. Taxi drivers risk losing all their revenue, which…

"New York City cab medallions, which sold for as much as $1 million a year ago, now are priced at the $500K level, battered by competition from Uber, Lyft.

Some Independent owners, having paid upwards of $1 million, are “under water” by hundreds of thousands of dollars on the mortgages they owe on the medallions."

http://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/6471/2016-03-08/uber-ly...

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

#465

Post by thwarted »

CydeWeys wrote: post #421
icebraining wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my area, Uber is better because their drivers don't treat me like shit - and I'm not talking about being servile, but simply greeting me back and not ranting the whole way about how rides should be $20 minimum. Before Uber, I took a taxi only in emergencies, simply because it was more often than not an unpleasant experience. Their association is also corrupt as hell, so they can't even claim that over Uber.

I had an unpleasant Uber experience a few months ago where my driver illegally drove in a bike lane to make a right turn at a light, cutting off another car at the light that was legally trying to proceed right. The two drivers got into a verbal altercation that lasted for another light, and then my driver was ranting about it for the rest of the entire drive. I got the feeling that the Uber driver used to be a yello…

illegally drove in a bike lane to make a right turn at a light, cutting off another car at the light that was legally trying to proceed right

Diverging off-topic, and your account is light on specifics needed for this divergence...

http://pedalfortcollins.com/righthandturns/

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

#466

Post by jaredklewis »

angry-hacker wrote: post #286
bmon wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that cab companies aren't ripping you off already? In my area, you pay over twice the amount for a cab compared to uber.

And what do you think happens when they have the monopoly and/or VC's start wanting their money back?

If uber gets a monopoly and is charging too much, another company like Google, Apple, or whoever will start offering ride sharing, to get a slice of the pie.

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

#467

Post by stephenr »

maverick_iceman wrote: post #459
stephenr wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument is basically: the law says X must happen. X doesn't happen, so laws are inherently bad. Why are Americans so uniquely able to have terrible implementations of things and just treat the idea in general as the fault, not the implementation.

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” ― Milton Friedman

So your defence of this uniquely American behaviour, is a quote, by an American. Congratulations, you've just won the Internet award for redundant commentary.

The U.S. is alone in the way it does a lot of things, which they claim are impossible/impractical, while a large percentage of the rest of the developed world, just does them.

- Gun Control

- Health Care

- The Metric system

- A political system that isn't completely corrupted and driven by money. A couple of million (dollars/pounds) is sort of average spending for a political party to spend on TV adverts for an election in Australia/UK. The US parties/candidates are expected to spend 4.4 BILLION dollars on adverts for this year's election. [1] [2] [3]

1: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-24/election-campaign-adve...

2: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-35687956

3: http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/19/432759...

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

#468

Post by throwawaymsft »

visarga wrote: post #250
ptaipale wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good to care about taxi drivers, but not because they are taxi drivers. Go back >200 years. In England, Spinning Jennies replaced weavers, and there were luddites who tried to resist, but the solution was not to start subsidizing weavers; and not even a specific tax to weaving machines to provide for the weavers specifically; the solution was to slowly build a social security system, and not just for master weav…

> putting a burden on something productive just because it is better What aspect of Uber is better than a regular taxi? I can hail taxis from my phone just as well. They take me to the destination. I think Uber found a way to subsidize their fleet with drivers own cars and not pay some taxes to the state which the regular taxi drivers have to pay. Maybe I am missing something...

You've never taken an Uber. For your own market education try it sometime.

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

#469

Post by TeMPOraL »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #448
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. Its part of the 'enclosure' trend going on for 300 years. When folks can't live independent of capitalist job-seeking, they are essentially wage-slaves. Used to be you could just trap a brace of rabbits for the pot, weave your own cloth, wait for a better paying job. Society changed. This is why I favor a GBI - its reinstating the idea of the 'commons' where folks could say no to low-paying jobs.

Why can't you still do that? From what I can tell, land in Detroit or Appalachia is pretty cheap - nothing prevents you from trapping rabbits or weaving your own cloth there. The reason people don't do this is that as wealth has increased, being a wage slave or welfare queen (the modern equivalent seems to be disability fraud king) has become vastly more attractive.

> The reason people don't do this is that as wealth has increased, being a wage slave or welfare queen (the modern equivalent seems to be disability fraud king) has become vastly more attractive.

Sure. Participating in the economy gives you access to the things this economy produces, which in the last century started to be really pretty cool. Why people don't move? I suspect that by the time people get in a bad enough situation to consider a move, they can no longer afford it. Secondly, trapping rabbits and waving your own cloth are both specialist, learned skills, which in the past were taught to the children as they grew. Again, for a typical westerner desperate enough to go primal, a city is much better bet than a wilderness - in cities, high-quality safe food tends to be concentrated in well-marked areas, and it's easier to get access to it than to hunt down an animal.

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

#470

Post by throwawaymsft »

rubidium wrote: post #436
Houshalter wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is a basic income, paid for by taking the rich and middle class. Not a basic income limited to taxi owners, paid for by taxing their competitors. Perhaps subsidies for schools and technical training so people can get better jobs easier. This doesn't benefit poor people. Maybe a small handful of them. But it just raises the cost of transportation, a service the poor depend on as well.

Universal basic income is just communism 2.0. It's adapted for the sensitivities of the American middle and upper classes, who want to help the poor but only by giving money to make the problem go away. Fundamental premise of UBI is everything is justly the property of the state. The state determines who should get what. Throw in a little capitalism and a little "I want to keep my upper-middle class life" and you get…

How does giving everyone a monthly tax rebate (essentially a negative income tax) change who owns the means of production?
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