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'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

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Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#41

Post by iliketosleep »

The underlying issue is that these VC backed companies break the law to gain a business advantage and face no real consequences, especially if they are successful. But if individuals and small companies attempt to break these very same laws they get crushed.

It's almost as though if you've been to Stanford and are backed by well-connected VC's, you're able to recklessly break the law in the name of "disruptive" technology. But I wouldn't place the blame on these people. It's the whole system, which appears to be getting exponentially more rotten as each day passes.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#42

Post by CaptainZapp »

troupe wrote: post #25
CaptainZapp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about those thousands of Enron employees who lost their life savings because they "gambled" on the fact that their retirement savings will be invested responsibly? I don't think his idea was such a massive gamble when he paid that money for the medallion. You can argue about the system as such. But I don't think his idea was unreasonable.

Who were they trusting to responsibly invest it other than themselves? I thought the people who lost were the ones who had it all invested in Enron. I'm not aware of any financial advisor who would consider this responsibly invested.

Look up 401K. Which were mostly invested into Enron shares.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#43

Post by zackkatz »

I found the best quote from the article to be the last:

> “Horses in Central Park are regulated,” he pointed out. “There’s 150 of them. They make a great living there, the guys on the horse and buggies. Say Uber comes in and says, ‘We want to bring in Uber horses. And we want to add 100,000.’ And let’s see how the market will handle it. We know what’s going to happen. No one will make money. They’re all around Central Park. And now no one can go anywhere because there are now 100,000 horses in Central Park. It would be considered madness to do that. They wouldn’t do it. Yet when it comes to the yellow cab industry, for 50 years all we could have was 13,000 cabs, and then within a year or two we’re going to add 100,000. Let’s see how the market works on that! We know how the market works.”

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#44

Post by rwc »

huffmsa wrote: post #27
refurb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I actually feel bad for medallion owners, even if the medallion system is a bad one. The gov't sets ups a system, tells you the rules and says "if you buy an expensive medallion, you can drive a cab and make a living". The value of the medallion is purely based on the gov't promise to maintain the system. So you buy one (or many) and a few years later someone does a work around and the gov't says "oh we…

Yes, it's purely based on artificial scarcity. Which historical never lasts. PanAm went bust because they banked on price fixed airline tickets. USPS benefited from national mail logistics only being available to government level endeavors. DeBeers is about to get crushed by artificial diamonds which are both cheaper and "better diamonds" than the massive stockpile they've accumulated. The rocket industry has long la…

Lobbyist dinners are low on a politician's list, particularly because at the federal level ethics rules have become so ridiculous about what elected officials and staff can accept as gifts.

Much more interesting to a politician is supporting the policies of well-organized trade/association groups that have the power, through their PACs or membership, to invest the resources necessary to make a difference in a campaign.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#45

Post by fergie »

gambiting wrote: post #3

I was mostly agreeing with the article until this part: "His medallion, once worth $1.1 million, had plummeted in value to $180,000. The dramatic drop in the value of the medallion, which he had hoped to lease for $3,000 a month or sell to finance his retirement, wiped out his economic security. He faced financial ruin and poverty. And he was not alone." The medalions are stupid and shouldn't exist. Relying on their…

There are many good reasons to licence taxi(driver)s, and cap their number. For example:

- to keep traffic down

- to ensure a minimum standard of vehicle

- to ensure safe, well-trained and responsible taxi drivers.

- to ensure a fair level of income

- etc.

However the main problem with the medallion system is that they can be traded, speculated on, and used to extract "rent" from workers further down the chain. This benefits nobody.

Surely there could be a happy middle way between the libertarian nightmare, banned-in-half-of-Europe Uber model; and the old-skool union cartel medallion model.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#46

Post by eeZah7Ux »

huffmsa wrote: post #27
refurb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I actually feel bad for medallion owners, even if the medallion system is a bad one. The gov't sets ups a system, tells you the rules and says "if you buy an expensive medallion, you can drive a cab and make a living". The value of the medallion is purely based on the gov't promise to maintain the system. So you buy one (or many) and a few years later someone does a work around and the gov't says "oh we…

Yes, it's purely based on artificial scarcity. Which historical never lasts. PanAm went bust because they banked on price fixed airline tickets. USPS benefited from national mail logistics only being available to government level endeavors. DeBeers is about to get crushed by artificial diamonds which are both cheaper and "better diamonds" than the massive stockpile they've accumulated. The rocket industry has long la…

> it's purely based on artificial scarcity. Which historical never lasts.

Never? Money are based on artificial scarcity as well.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#47

Post by icedchai »

adrianN wrote: post #2

> His medallion, once worth $1.1 million Wow. Why not sell the medallion immediately and retire to some place with low cost of living instead of working 12 hour night shifts and never seeing your spouse because she works the day shift?

Probably because he was paying it off, one monthly payment at a time?

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#48

Post by Agebor »

bbddg wrote: post #37
Agebor wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the value just diffuses in the whole economy, ending up in investments in countless industries. Instead you can keep it in stocks of companies you believe in, like startups and interesting moonshots. It all ends up with the question - do you want the economy to decide where to focus the value (the diffusion) or do you want to decide yourself? But if you have this amount of money in the first place, you are stati…

I think you need a citation for that last point. This is the exact logic that got us the 2008 crash.

Perhaps, but also most of technological progress in recent centuries. It's a shame humans have a bias for negativity.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#49

Post by chrischen »

gambiting wrote: post #3

I was mostly agreeing with the article until this part: "His medallion, once worth $1.1 million, had plummeted in value to $180,000. The dramatic drop in the value of the medallion, which he had hoped to lease for $3,000 a month or sell to finance his retirement, wiped out his economic security. He faced financial ruin and poverty. And he was not alone." The medalions are stupid and shouldn't exist. Relying on their…

I agree the medallion system is stupid, however the reason for them to exist makes sense. They are used to control the supply of Taxis so streets aren't flooded, however cities should be auctioning the licenses rather than selling off one-time rights. If that were the case Taxi startups like Uber may have started their business with compliance by simply bidding for licenses (in theory if they operate more efficiently they could outbid), but instead because of the rent-seeking medallion system a 1.1 million dollar medallion per car would simply be prohibitive to new entrants.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#50

Post by JumpCrisscross »

prepend wrote: post #26
gambiting wrote: post #3

I was mostly agreeing with the article until this part: "His medallion, once worth $1.1 million, had plummeted in value to $180,000. The dramatic drop in the value of the medallion, which he had hoped to lease for $3,000 a month or sell to finance his retirement, wiped out his economic security. He faced financial ruin and poverty. And he was not alone." The medalions are stupid and shouldn't exist. Relying on their…

It also seems like leasing a 1.1M asset for 36k/year is poor retirement planning. 3.2% pre tax won’t ler you live that well. Seems like an odd emotional link. That we’re supposed to support this person’s edge retirement plan by making hailing cabs suck for users. What if someone invested in Exxon. Spent $1.1M and was relying on the dividend yield (4.6% btw- http://www.dividend.com/dividend-stocks/basic-materials/majo…

> 3.2% pre tax won’t ler you live that well

It also means the medallion yields a paltry 0.11 percentage points more than a 30-year Treasury [1]. Which means one is judging it to be just a tad bit riskier than the U.S. government. And safer than Apple [2]. And Stanford [3]. And MIT [4].

[1] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i...

[2] http://finra-markets.morningstar.com/BondCenter/BondDetail.j...

[3] http://finra-markets.morningstar.com/BondCenter/BondDetail.j...

[4] http://finra-markets.morningstar.com/BondCenter/BondDetail.j...

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