On 5/20/15 9:17 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> On May 20, 2015, at 5:56 PM, Michael Smith <mjs at smithbowen.net> wrote:
>>
>> I wonder what the income stream from a medallion is, and what proportion
>> of the sale price it accounts for. I have no idea what the answer might
>> be, and no idea where to find out.
>
> Excellent questions. I wonder if the Taxi Workers union knows. I tried to get a comment out of them about Uber for my Nation piece but they never got back to me.
>
The paper that Sean posted a link to said that in 1986 the average profit per shift -- accruing, presumably, to the medallion owner -- was $57 per shift. If a shift is eight hours and there are three of them a day, that's a cool $62,000 and change a year, at a time when the medallion only cost around $100,000. Not a bad return on the investment.
Even if the profit per shift hadn't increased at all by 2008, when the price was $450,000, the annual return on investment would still be almost 14%. Still not bad, and it doesn't include the appreciation in the value of the medallion itself, if any. Perhaps taxi medallions are actually undervalued. Due, perhaps, to the necessity of dealing with a medallion broker.
--
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.