Posted on 02/16/2017 2:14:42 PM PST by dynachrome
Sandy Spanos is only 58, but now she could lose her house and be unable to pay for treatment for her cancer, which she was diagnosed with two years ago because the reform will leave her and her husband in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.
Mrs. Spanos invested in three taxi licenses so she could enter retirement comfortably with a good superannuation, but she said it has all been ripped from her.
“What did I do wrong?” She asked news.com.au.
The Victorian government wants to deregulate the taxi industry by abolishing taxi licenses and introducing a single registration for taxis, hire cars and ride-share services like Uber.
Taxi licenses cost cabbies $500,000 and it’s seen as an investment that will later help fund retirement.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Burts typo in original headline
I’m of the opinion that regulatory or legal changes that cause financial harm are just as much of a “taking” as property taken under eminent domain, therefore individuals damaged must be made whole. I realize this is in Australia and so their legal and regulatory regime will likely operate under different realities, but the principal still stands.
Taxi licenses are a pretty shaky investment.
Almost as shaky as trading in your silver and gold for a bunch of zeroes and ones masquerading as money.
Prices dropped half a mil in NYC.
You bought a few years ago, you got ####ed.
That’s why you don’t buy THREE of anything that expensive.
She forgot to look up “diversify”
booo hooo the government wont allow your monopoly to continue.
Send your tears to Ma Bell!
‘individuals damaged must be made whole”
by the taxpayers, as the feral gov’t has no money
I have never heard of a legitimate reason why taxi licences should cost upwards of a million dollars. If you are arguing safety, then that is best handled with yearly inspections and payment for those. Also, ownership of the medallion is separate from the license to drive, so it has nothing to do with drivers’ skills.
Federal, state and local governments are taxpayer supported entities, yes. Hopefully, outraged taxpayers will penalize stupid behavior and cut off funding to entities causing financial harm to private citizens. Hopefully. Given past reality, that’s a pretty thin hope, but hope springs eternal.
“What did I do wrong?” She asked news.com.au.
...
She made a bad investment.
My take is that it was all about bribes and kickbacks
Still, if the government required you to buy a half-million dollar license, and then after you bought it, started letting other people operate for free, they have treated you unfairly. There should be some compensation.
This has been a kind of mafia thing, where medallions or licenses were limited specifically to eliminate competition. Its good to see this come to an end. The free market is a wonderful thing.
I drove a cab a billion years ago, near Boston, and medallions were strictly limited, and went for 6 figures back then. You could drive for a company, but couldn’t go gypsy without your own mediallion.
It’s a perfect example of a government controlled market, and completely artificial, so, of course it fails.
“I have never heard of a legitimate reason why taxi licences should cost upwards of a million dollars.”
It is an artificial monopoly created by government for the enrichment of government. The legitimacy is, they can.
You don't buy the licence from the government, you buy it from another driver. There are losers and winner within the market itself.
Its an artificial market. Cities fix the number available...which happens to create value out of thin air that can be sold off by corrupt government officials.
Some counties in California do the same with building permits.
The US does the same with peanuts
Its a longstanding tradition with corrupt gubmint officials.
The government probably only charges a few hundred bucks...then people start using the artificially constrained market to their advantage, and ‘flip’’ the medallion.
The last one holding the bag loses - think Florida housing bubble.
Estimates of 15.5 million trucks operate in the U.S.. Of this figure 2 million are tractor trailers. It is an estimated over 3.5 million truck drivers in the U.S. Of that one in nine are independent, a majority of which are owner operators. source
Due to technology, an ugly intractable mess is surging at us.
“What did I do wrong?”
ANSWER:
1) You put all your eggs in one basket instead of diversifying.
2) You stupidly leveraged this insanely risky strategy.
3) You invested in a corrupt, rent-seeking scheme that was only profitable due to an artificial scarcity created by government fiat.
“What did I do wrong?” She asked news.com.au.
She bought a government enforced monopoly. The government changed its mind.
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