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It accelerated a shift from W2 employment to 1099. 1099 employment has all the cons of self employment (unlimited liability, cruel double taxation, unpredictable pay, and quarterly tax payments) without any of the pros of working for an employer (benefits, better tax rate, eligibility for unemployment, etc.)
1099s work every day in fear of not making as much as yesterday, saving enough to meet their exorbitant tax rates, and the possibility of getting kicked off the platform for no reason.
I hope uber, lyft, doordash, fluc, taskrabbit, and all the other overvalued "gig economy" companies go out of business and their owners go into poverty.
Unions sound pretty good about now. How much is the owner of Uber worth now ? Just a couple million, or in the billions yet, like the inventor of Paypal ? You know, that Elon Musk guy
I thought Uber is a mutual convenience company. It matches willing drivers with people who need a ride. Both benefit. The drivers don't have to do it but it's a way to pick up a few extra bucks. Taxi drivers naturally complain because they had the riders all to themselves before.
Cancer isn't voluntary. It's forced on people. People have no choice if they want it or not. It's a better analogy for monopolies or monopsonies.
It's a poor analogy where choice is available.
Yeah at first uber was started to provide more black car service then they got more into the " taxi " service .
I can see why taxi drivers would complain , but I'm sure a lot of taxi drivers have joined uber too.
The " if you can't beat them " join them strategy .
Sure Uber doesn't pay benefits in the official sense, but flexibility to work whenever someone wants .. Or to even take off a bunch of time and come back and still have a job , and a pay that is higher than they might work , and ability to work as much as they want aren't these all benefits ?
People sometimes seem to forget that benefits like health insurance can be bought too .
For some people giving up the benefits in exchange for more flexibility and possibly higher pay is a plus
If all these drivers had a better option why would they drive for uber? It doesn't make sense .
I've thought of driving for lyft or uber myself , it does sound like it was more lucrative in the past and pay was higher but I still like the idea of time flexibility and being able to work whenever and earn decent money .
I've heard them advertise on the radio. They try to make it sound so great. My only thoughts are... if an employer has to advertise, the job's probably not worth it! So many jobs are just scams.
Especially the "stay-at-home" garbage that we get posted on here a lot. Spam, spam, spam.
I"m not old school about technology...I love it, and I use the bejeezus out it. But we will look back in 50 years and know that the smartphone/wired life is what truly changed and lowered most of America's living standards.
If the yellow taxi industry dies than so be it. The drivers are smelly, incourteous animals to begin with who can barely speak English and drive even worse...
You miss the point entirely. The yellow taxi industry is a very reliable contributor to the election campaigns of politicians. THAT is why politicians fight to maintain the yellow taxi industry. IF UBER became a better, more reliable political campaign contributor than yellow taxis, politicians would flip to support them.
It is worth recalling why cities like New York established the taxi medallion system in the first place.
"During the Great Depression, New York had as many as 30,000 cab drivers. With more drivers than passengers, cab drivers were working longer hours which led to growing public concern over the maintenance and mechanical integrity of taxi vehicles. To resolve these issues, the city considered creating a taxi monopoly, but the plan was abandoned after New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker was accused of accepting a bribe from the Parmelee Company, the largest taxi company. In 1937, Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia signed the Haas Act which introduced official taxi licenses and the medallion system that remains in place today. The law limited the total number of cab licenses to 16,900, but the number dwindled to 11,787 licenses over the next six decades until 1996 when the TLC added 133 new licenses bringing the total to 11,920.[SIZE=2][18][/SIZE] Since 1996, more medallions have been added to the fleet bringing the total number of cab licenses to 13,237 as of 2009.[SIZE=2][19][/SIZE]"
The above is a nice piece of historical fiction. The economic forces at work from the 1800s forward are clear:
Corrupt politicians see the opportunity to create a protected monopoly or duopoly
Corrupt politicians auction those state-protected monopolies to the highest bidder
Corrupt politicians use campaign contributions as the measure of a private sector vendor's worth
... and the cycle continues. Just look at the campaign contributions to major politicians, and you see protected monopolies everywhere: public sector unions, private sector unions, government contractors, defense contractors, etc.
This had nothing to do with public concerns over maintenance -- clearly, the medallion system has not improved taxi maintenance. It has EVERYTHING to do with corrupt politicians looking for bribes from medallion companies, and those bribes occur in the form of campaign contributions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BugsyPal
...Licensed taxi drivers and or medallion owners feel NYC has thrown them under a bus.
As well they should. They bribed politicians, but the politicians didn't stay bribed.
Rising: Food Stamp Beneficiaries Exceed 45 Million for 50 Straight Months
Recipients outnumber population of Canada
9/8/15
"The number of beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps, has exceeded 45 million for 50 straight months, according to data released by the Department of Agriculture (USDA).
In June 2015, the latest month for which data is available, there were 45,510,153 beneficiaries of the food stamp program, an increase of 14,869 between May and June.
Beneficiaries of this program now exceed the population of Canada, which totals 34,834,841, according to a widely used source for such figures."
We have more Americans on Food Stamps then entire population of Canada.
This is disgrace.
Yes, this is a disgrace -- politicians moving the goal posts to ensure more and more people qualify to suck at the public teat, creating a massive disincentive to work, and creating a massive voting block of intentional underachievers. What a waste. Many -- perhaps most -- of those people could achieve great things if only there were an incentive to get off the public dole.
Yes, this is a disgrace -- politicians moving the goal posts to ensure more and more people qualify to suck at the public teat, creating a massive disincentive to work, and creating a massive voting block of intentional underachievers. What a waste. Many -- perhaps most -- of those people could achieve great things if only there were an incentive to get off the public dole.
Do you have the voting statistics for those on welfare or other govt assistance? I don't think snap benefits create a massive disincentive to work, I think this a gross exaggeration on your part
It looks like per the last census that as income rises so does voting participation and the same holds true for education level. I'd expect this to be the norm
Last edited by Lowexpectations; 09-14-2015 at 11:49 AM..
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