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The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

blog.priceonomics.com

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Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#71

Post by seanalltogether »

mech4bg wrote: post #66
seanalltogether wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've brought this up in another thread, but over in the UK, due to a lack of property taxes, its possible to purchase a home, yet stil have to pay a yearly ground rent to a private party. The cost to own land in nothing, so there's little incentive to ever sell it, and instead lease it out. People may complain about property taxes in the USA, but it prevents this very practice from happening. It would be better for e…

We don't have yearly property taxes in Australia, just council rates which are usually around 0.2% of the house valuation (which is much lower than in the US AFAIK). However we don't have the split land/house purchasing like in the UK (or it's not very common at least) - I wonder why?

The UK is the type of place where every last square inch of land has been claimed and defended several times over. Australia likely has plenty of land that no one is in a hurry to claim.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#72

Post by untog »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #48
DanBC wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they lower fares by not getting insurance and not maintaining their vehicles it's probably a bad thing.

Wouldn't requiring them to carry insurance and maintain their vehicles still be better than government-granted monopolies?

Yes, but it's considerably harder to enforce.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#73

Post by untog »

mathattack wrote: post #61

Taxis seem to keep their status by being a very focused interest group. In NYC there are never enough. Why not just sell more medallions? I don't buy the "There's too much traffic" argument. Or why not sell regional ones? Try getting a taxi in Harlem. The city's approach has been to look the other way on private cars. I would rather see Bloomberg allow disrupters to break the system. What's he have to lose? He can't…

In NYC there are never enough.

Depends very much on where you are in the city. Aside from shift changeover periods, I'd say that there are plenty of cabs in Manhattan. In the outer boroughs, less so- Bloomberg proposed a plan to allow 'green cabs' that could pick up passengers in the outer boroughs only. It was swiftly beaten in the courts by the taxi industry.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#74

Post by untog »

brador wrote: post #25

Taxi drivers significantly under report earnings for tax purposes. They always claim close to minimum wage. You'll find the same in every cash business.

Taxis (in New York at least) are definitely not cash businesses these days. A lot pay by card.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#75

Post by argumentum »

vacri wrote: post #58
argumentum wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

long-term government practice that is seen as good I've never heard of one, asides from the practices that define government itself (laws, courts, police, voting, congress etc), but these are more necessary than good .

Separation of Powers isn't necessary for government, but it is a good practice, for example. Would anyone serious call that obsolete?

I agree, it's a good practice, intended to prevent government from assuming a whole bunch of bad practices that (unopposed) it tends to assume. But to take your point to the extreme, democracy, courts, etc are also therefore not necessary functions of government.

I'd argue that they are necessary components of a good government. All the best parts of government limit the scope of government .. that says something.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#76

Post by gwern »

JackFr wrote: post #53
chaz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of origins, I think there's still an important role for city governments to manage the number of cars on the street. NPR Planet Money did a story about the effect of NYC's planned +2,000 cabs (in additional to the existing 13,200) will have on the city: shorter wait times, but longer drive times for everyone. If the story is correct, more deregulation with more cars on the street without other measures (su…

It's far from obvious that demand has outstripped supply. The population of Manhattan was significantly higher in 1937 than it is now 1.9 million vs. 1.6 million. On a population basis it would seem that we would need fewer rather than more cabs. What drives the demand for cabs is the the price of a ride versus the alternative. If the regulated fare is low relative to subways & buses and the overall price level, cabs…

> It's far from obvious that demand has outstripped supply. The population of Manhattan was significantly higher in 1937 than it is now 1.9 million vs. 1.6 million. On a population basis it would seem that we would need fewer rather than more cabs.

Wrong population number, in the case of Manhattan where real estate prices are so high that 'number of people officially living there' becomes the wrong metric, and the right one begins to look like 'number of people physically present on the island each day', which is closer to 4 million people: http://wagner.nyu.edu/rudincenter/publications/dynamic_pop_m... (Significantly higher than 1.6 million!) And these commuters are also much more likely to need transportation - like taxis - for obvious reasons.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#77

Post by tsotha »

superuser2 wrote: post #67
NoPiece wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say, "it's dishonest to pretend that regulation is strictly driven by parasitic behavior," but I was just quoting directly from the nyc.gov site that explains that's exactly why those regulations came to be. You can argue separately for safety regulations, but that's not why NY started to regulate cabs - it was protecting an existing industry from competition. Also, put yourself in the 1935 mindset - was there ev…

> it was protecting an existing industry from competition Otherwise known as "keeping people employed at a living wage." When the market decides that human labor is worth nothing, it's irresponsible not to contradict it. I will agree that medallions should have gone away after the crisis, but it wasn't "parasitic" at the time.

>Otherwise known as "keeping people employed at a living wage."

Or, stated differently, keeping some people employed at above-market wages and others unemployed with no wages at all.

>When the market decides that human labor is worth nothing, it's irresponsible not to contradict it.

If that ever happens we'll know regulation is needed.

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#78

Post by detst »

zimbu668 wrote: post #57
seanalltogether wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've brought this up in another thread, but over in the UK, due to a lack of property taxes, its possible to purchase a home, yet stil have to pay a yearly ground rent to a private party. The cost to own land in nothing, so there's little incentive to ever sell it, and instead lease it out. People may complain about property taxes in the USA, but it prevents this very practice from happening. It would be better for e…

Ground rent exists in the US as well. Baltimore has a lot of it, maybe Philly as well. A few years ago people were losing their houses over $30/yr bills from someone who found their great-great-grandpa had the ground rent title on whatever property.

"Baltimore's arcane system of ground rents, widely viewed as a harmless vestige of colonial law, is increasingly being used by some investors to seize homes or extract large fees from people who often are ignorant of the loosely regulated process, an investigation by The Sun has found."

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-te.bz.groundrent10d...

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#79

Post by argumentum »

larrys wrote: post #59
pg wrote: post #2

Structurally this practice is a lot like the preindustrial precursor of taxation, when governments would sell monopolies on the import or production of things in exchange for a lump sum. When obsolete government practices persist, they tend to be pretty sinister.

"When obsolete government practices persist, they tend to be pretty sinister." How might you propose to compensate people who, in good faith, bought taxi medallions (a legal practice)? (Or do you feel that's not necessary?)

How might you propose to compensate people who, in good faith, bought taxi medallions

I'm sure the following question was asked many times to abolitionists:

How might you propose to compensate people who, in good faith, bought other people

Re: The Tyranny of Taxi Medallions

#80

Post by enjo »

argumentum wrote: post #50
seanalltogether wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've brought this up in another thread, but over in the UK, due to a lack of property taxes, its possible to purchase a home, yet stil have to pay a yearly ground rent to a private party. The cost to own land in nothing, so there's little incentive to ever sell it, and instead lease it out. People may complain about property taxes in the USA, but it prevents this very practice from happening. It would be better for e…

I don't understand .. why would you purchase a home without the land it rests on? In a free market, perhaps there is some lower price where you would do this, but there is also a higher price where you could purchase the land as well.

People buy Condo's all the time. Also, in the United States, you very often give up mineral rights. So you may own the "ground" your home is on, but you don't own whatever comes out of it.
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