With taxi medallions going for around $700,000 each its no wonder the mayors big contributors want to freeze out UBER.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-25/returning-2706-past-40-years-best-performing-yellow-asset
Returning 2706% In The Past 40 Years, The Best Performing “Yellow” Asset Is...
Owning a medallion has been a winning trade that even the NY hedge fund managers who likely take several cab trips a day would covet. At the beginning of the Financial Crisis in January 2007, an “Individual” medallion went for $414,000 and a “Corporate” version for $522,000. Now, the numbers are $1.05 million (July 2013 “Individual”) and $1.32 million (last trade for a “Corporate” medallion, May 2013). That is an average return of 153% over the last six and a half years.
Marty Zweig used to feature his “fleet/seat” ratio where he compared the cost of a taxi medallion to the cost of a seat on the NYSE. This ratio showed when Wall Street was over-booming and the price of an exchange seat was becoming highly speculative.