You're assuming that 'proper public transport' would be efficient. That's not a guarantee, seeing as how these micro-buses can fulfill numerous transport needs in flexible fashions.

Of course, perhaps you have a different picture in mind than a typical system operating large buses on fixed routes and schedules.

I'll also note that I know it's not about the USA, but the USA is most of my experience, which is why I said so.

He's obviously not talking about freight, he's talking about passenger transportation. Since the US spans a continent, and has large ports on both coasts, and also because it produces a lot of raw materials for export (such as coal), it's no surprise it does a lot of freight hauling on railroads. But that doesn't help people who need to get somewhere. The days of hobos are long past.

That's the thing. It's not a proper 'bubble'. It's 'artificial property'. You literally hold 'nothing' real by owning a Taxi Medallion. One stroke of a pen by the government - whether by the regulatory body, legislature, or court, and your property is gone. *poof*. Worthless.

Which is why I mentioned that taxi companies are extremely protective of them.

This is, after all, the same country whose 28 mile road to the Olympics cost more than if they'd covered the whole road with gold medals two layers thick. ;)

Concerning this privatization, the only question that remains is, which friend of Putin is going to get to "buy" the space agency at a " fair market value" ;)

See, that's the problem. There is disagreement among large numbers of people on exactly what the definition of "fit parent" is, who gets to decide what that definition is, and how it is interpreted/implemented/enforced, and if government even has the power under the Constitution to be involved at all.

Strat

Hmm... so maybe eliminating a bunch of these parasites would actually help out a lot of other animals populations, including various endangered species (ones which we actually care about, like various mammals and birds)?

I wonder if there'd be any problems if fleas went away too.

OK, how about tapeworms? Is there any value to those?

Everything?
1. A smaller bus has better gas mileage.
2. A smaller bus can reach more areas
3. Unregulated driver is probably paid less(being paid more isn't a guarantee of improved quality)
4. A smaller bus is still efficient even with smaller loads.

We have a real problem in the USA that due to low ridership, many bus systems INCREASE the pollution on the roads, rather than decreasing it. Unless you have somewhere around 12-20 riders on a bus, it's not actually more efficient/less polluting than private autos.

The moment you create a medallion system where, by law or regulation, only a limited number of licenses are created you're deliberately creating artificial scarcity. Basic economics translates to that driving up prices.

The Taxi industry is a classic case of 'regulatory capture', where the regulations become less about protecting the consumer than favoring the existing players through a system of waivers and them just being able to adopt to the regulations gradually, while a new player has to go through a phone book of regulations, making trivial but still business killing violations extremely likely simply due to complexity.

NYC Taxi rules went far beyond basic safety.

Some areas are this way.

However, consider that the book value of NYC's medallions is well over ten billion dollars. You propose taking that artificial property away from them, or even significantly decreasing it's value, and you'll see hell.

The Taxi companies are very careful to court the local politicians to prevent that very occurrence.

That's the original argument behind places like NYC putting medallion systems in place. The idea is that by restricting the number of taxis, you get the following benefits:
1. People use taxis less, because there's just not enough supply. It means that they walk a little further, take the bus, or ride the subway.
2. Because there's not so much competition, Taxi drivers are guaranteed to make decent money and are able to afford all the regulation - things like car safety, age, equipment, etc...

That being said, I do believe that the system has degenerated too far into a protectionist system, where the idea is to protect the current players in the cab business, not customers.

Which is no longer the cheap transportation they can afford...

First, most cab drivers in NYC don't own a medallion. The cab company they're working for owns it and essentially rents it out to it's drivers. They also rent out the cab itself, but the cab is actually cheaper(rent wise) than the medallion. There's a limited number of 'owner-operator' medallions where one of the requirements is that the owner drive the cab for X hours/day on average, and they tend to be cheaper than the unrestricted ones.

Second, medallions, especially owner-operator ones, have generally appreciated in value sufficient that they're more often treated as part of the owner's retirement plan/investment than 'hope to break even'.

That's crashing right now, which kind of sucks for those that invested under the assumptions of the 'old system'.

"Please buy me! Won't someone please buy me?" How FUBAR is TWC that they're so ready to sell to someone, anyone? Either a) they had this in the pipeline before the Comcast deal fell through, in which case how many other deals are on standby?, or b) they brokered a major corporate sell deal entirely within the last month, presumably under immense pressure.

In my opinion, TWC is desperate to sell because there's an internal house of cards that's about to fall over. Someone needs to unload it quickly so that a pending spectacular failure will be on someone else's watch.