[lbo-talk] Kill The Medallions

Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
Wed May 20 19:17:09 PDT 2015


On 5/20/15 9:18 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:


> You could argue that restricting the number of medallions could be good for drivers, by limiting competition. What sucks is that the parasite owners get most of the monopoly profits.

Yes. In fact, for any number of reasons, limiting the number of licenses (not necessarily medallions) might make good policy sense. But for example, a license might have a fixed lifetime -- a year, five years, whatever -- and the city could auction off the new ones as they were issued, thus capturing the capital value of the asset. The only noteworthy effect of the existing system is to create a particularly odious rentier/speculator class.

Everybody should meet a medallion broker at least once.

--

A conquering race, in the place of that conquest, is rarely amiable; the conquerors pay less obviously than the conquered, but perhaps in time they pay even more heavily, in the loss of the humane qualities.



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