Uber Shows How To Break Crony Capitalism

The taxi medallion scam is one of the worst examples of crony capitalism.  Uber (and some other app-driven services) are in the process of defeating the scam in New York and, apparently, in many other places as well.  It's about time.

The scam is simple.  A city issues a limited number of so-called "medallions," which convey exclusive rights to pick up passengers on the streets, and often at airports as well.  I have never heard anybody articulate a good rationale for why the number of medallions should be limited.  Fake rationales include preventing "destructive" competition (don't we have that in every industry?) and so-called environmental concerns (always articulated by those holding medallions whose only value lies in artificial scarcity). 

I have a long-time friend, call him R, who is head of one of those lenders that specialize in loans for the purchase of taxi medallions.  Twenty or so years ago I went for the first time to a fundraising event for a candidate for City office, and there was R.  Since then, I haven't been to many fundraising events for candidates for local offices, but at the few I have attended, somehow R was always there.  I can't say I was surprised when Bloomberg News reported last month that the medallion taxi industry had contributed over $500,000 to the campaign of Bill de Blasio for Mayor.  Probably, they contributed that amount or close to it to other candidates as well.  Other than the City employee unions and real estate interests, the taxi medallion guys have been right at the top of the political contribution heap.

Back when I first found out from R what business he was in (I think this was in the 90s), I expressed some very severe skepticism.  From there, the conversation went something like this:

R:  It's literally the best industry to lend in.  We have not had a single default in decades.

Me:  That will be true until the day that all the value suddenly disappears.  Basically, all the value comes from the artificial scarcity.  One day that will disappear, and the medallions will suddenly be worthless all at once.

R:  They've been saying that for decades.  Meanwhile we are diversifying to some degree.  

Since this was before this blog recorded all my thoughts, I don't have an official record of my prediction.  However, it is now rapidly coming true.

For the past few years, New York City taxi medallions have been trading for over $1 million each.  With over 13,000 medallions issued, this has represented a value of over $13 billion --a good measure also of the value of the inconvenience inflicted on people in neighborhoods where taxis have been systematically unavailable for decades due to the corrupt crony system.  But with the advent of Uber, the value of the medallions has suddenly plummeted. This article from CNN Money in July reports that the value of a medallion is off by some 40% from its peak just last year.

And that's if you can sell a medallion at all.  Many reports indicate that the market has gone dead as lenders have been spooked and refuse to lend. 

When the medallion market first started to plummet, de Blasio and his friends on the City Council (all takers of industry cash) floated several proposals to put the reins on Uber, including, for example, a limit on Uber licenses.  But when the reports started to come out about the unbelievable amounts of political contributions they had received from the medallion taxi industry, suddenly they were in a tough spot.  Turns out that our "progressive" Mayor and City Council would happily sell their outer-borough constituents down the river, inflicting them with $13 billion of inconvenience, and handing the $13 billion to a handful of cronies, in return for a paltry few million of political contributions.

The latest news is that de Blasio and the Council are refusing to help out their medallion-owning friends, so the medallion owners are now pinning their hopes on a litigation contending that existing law restricting non-medallion owners to only "pre-arranged travel" effectively outlaws the Uber model.  Good luck with that.  Of course de Blasio and the Council will gladly help out their medallion-owning friends as soon as nobody is looking; but it seems that people are going to be looking at this one, at least for a while.  Now, will anybody start to pay attention to, for example, the "green energy" scam?

Via: Manhattan Contrarian

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Uber's cheapest service significantly lowers drunken driving deaths in California, study finds

Ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft have new ammunition in their fight to operate in cities around the world -- a study that concludes they could save thousands of lives.

The upstart services have battled the organized taxi lobby and politicians for entry into new markets around the world, but have made their case based on claims that they create jobs and provide competition that benefits consumers. Now, Temple University researchers have released a study that shows the entry of Uber into markets in California between 2009 and 2014 tracks a drop of as high as 5.6 percent in drunken-driving deaths. 

"We looked at the entire state of California from 2009 to 2014," Sunil Wattal, who co-authored the study with fellow researcher Brad Greenwood, told FoxNews.com. "We wanted to demonstrate in a quantitative and robust manner the impact Uber has on drunk driving.

"We found that UberX actually reduced drunk-driving related fatalities," Wattal added.

"We found that UberX actually reduced drunk-driving related fatalities."

- Sunil Wattal, Temple University

Using data from the California Highway Commission, the researchers found that UberX, the company's least expensive service, significantly reduced the number of alcohol-related motor vehicle deaths throughout the state -- with the greatest impact in the larger cities.

He noted, however, that no such link was found with Uber Black, the company's highest priced service, consisting of commercially registered and insured livery vehicles -- typically a black SUV or luxury sedan with a significant markup over traditional taxicabs.

The researchers theorized that the Uber Black's higher cost and lower accessibility might explain why it does not provide the same benefit as the no-frills version of Uber.

"Economically, results indicate that the entrance of Uber X results in a 3.6 percent to 5.6 percent decrease in the rate of motor vehicle homicides per quarter in the state of California," the two concluded. "With more than 1,000 deaths occurring in California due to alcohol-related car crashes every year, this represents a substantial opportunity to improve public welfare and save lives."

Matt McKenna, an Uber spokesman, said the Temple University study only bolsters similar data previously collected by Uber and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), the nation’s largest nonprofit working to protect people from drunken driving and underage drinking.

"The results of this study complement research we released earlier this year with MADD that showed that the introduction of reliable and affordable transportation options like Uber are having a meaningful impact on the rates of drunk driving crashes in California," McKenna told FoxNews.com Tuesday.

Uber and MADD studied the service's impact in several major U.S. cities. Their report found that in Miami, for instance, Uber ridership peaks at the same time as historical drunken-driving related crashes. In Seattle, Uber's entry into the market was associated with a 10 percent decrease in DUI arrests, according to the report, and in Pittsburgh, the demand for Uber spikes right around the times bars close. The report also looked at traditional taxi services, claiming that taxi supply in Austin decreases when people most want rides, and when DUI arrests are most common.

Taxi cab associations, however, take issue with the study that is being used to bolster support for Uber -- claiming traditional taxi services have long helped to reduce drunken driving, while also adhering to important safety procedures.

"UberX is absolutely their most controversial product," said Dave Sutton of the group, "Who's Driving You?" -- a public safety campaign formed on behalf of the Taxi, Limousine & Paratransit Association (TLPA).

"It’s been roundly criticized for its lack of insurance and lack of rigorous criminal background checks on drivers," Sutton said of UberX.

"It should be obvious to all involved that Uber is a taxi service, and taxi service is an extension of public transportation," he told FoxNews.com. "If you have passengers relying on this service to avoid dangerous activity, such as drunk driving, then the service itself should be adhering to the best safety practices and UberX is not."

To use Uber, passengers must first create an account with the service through the app on their iPhone or Android device -- which includes the customer's name, mobile number, email, language and billing information. After logging in with a username and password, the passenger selects his or her vehicle preference -- for instance, a black car, which can seat up to four people, or an SUV, which can seat up to six. The customer then marks the pick-up location on a map with a pin and the driver uses the phone holder's coordinates to arrive at the location. The cost of the ride depends on the time and distance. During certain peak times -- like New Year's Eve -- Uber enacts what it calls "surge pricing."

"The ease of Uber is just amazing," said Colleen Sheehey-Church, president of MADD, who praised the technology of the ride-sharing service and said the Temple University study "backs up everything we have already said."

"The study does show that easier and cheaper options will have an impact," Sheehey-Church told FoxNews.com. "We’re looking to change behavior and when a person has thought about it in advance, if they have easy access with a smartphone to do one click, it's the best thing for them to do to get home safely."

Sheehey-Church, whose teenage son was killed at the hands of a drunk and drugged driver, said she also advocates traditional taxi services as well as public transportation. 

Via: Fox News

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UBER AND THE DEMOCRATS’ OLD WAYS

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton doesn’t get it. Obama administration Labor Secretary Thomas Perez doesn’t get it. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio doesn’t seem to get it, either, as he only reluctantly reversed a bad decision on the matter.

In fact, generally, in a somewhat surprising reversal, many so-called Democratic “progressives” want to protect the old ways. But there are exceptions, like Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who worked with Uber to create a legal framework in his state; Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who says that hailing a cab has provided some of his most humiliating moments; and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), a Brooklynite who during Uber’s recent showdown with de Blasio said, in essence, “What’s wrong with a little competition?”

On the other hand, Republicans, who are accused occasionally of supporting “crony capitalism,” have embraced the new way and have been eager to let in new businesses to compete. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican presidential hopeful, gets it. One of the chapters in his recent book is titled, “Making America Safe for Uber.”

The new way is the “sharing” or “gig” economy of Uber, Lyft, Airbnb and others. Republican politicians seem more open to embracing these new businesses and new jobs, and the freedom of citizens to contract with each other.  

Spurred by unions, powerful bureaucracies, a lack of personal experience, and perhaps a more favorable view of regulation, many Democrats want to ban, restrict, and tax these services.

A politician’s position on Uber is a proxy for how in touch they are with their community. De Blasio obviously had no idea how people move around his city. And Clinton likely hasn’t driven a car in decades. What all politicians should start seeing is why it is both bad policy and bad politics to jump in aggressively and try to ban or heavily burden these services. 

It’s bad policy because the transportation services are not just for upper-class urban dwellers. In fact, as a college president recently discovered while moonlighting as an Uber driver, these services are an important alternative for the working poor with limited public transportation options. They also don’t discriminate against minorities, the way many taxi drivers do.

Meanwhile, the home-sharing phenomenon created by Airbnb brings needed cash (and sometimes a cure for loneliness) for homeowners while allowing locales to attract additional visitors.

All this economic activity adds to reportable income and benefits both the public coffers and the economy.

My personal experiences with these services are almost all positive. My brother makes his mortgage payments on his Hawaii home only thanks to Airbnb. (He pays the same local taxes as a hotel.) My family is visiting Manhattan for a few days in August, and by using Airbnb we can have a reasonably priced separate room for the kids. (Try finding a Manhattan two-bedroom hotel room for less than $1,000 a day.)

I travel a lot for business and rely on Uber. I find ride hailing service drivers better. They have clean, smoke-free cars; they don't talk on the phone while driving; and our rating of each other after the drive ensures we both are courteous and safe. It is simply better than the typical cab experience. Plus, it is great competition.

In July, I took an Uber from Denver to Aspen for $240, less than half the cost of any timely alternative. It was scenic and fun, and I connected with the driver. Compare that to my United Airlines experience for that reverse route months earlier, when I paid double what I paid Uber, plus got hit with $250 in excess-baggage fees and was told a two-day-old policy barred me from checking my bags to another airline. (Thus, I missed my connecting Delta flight.) Yes, Uber was a great substitute for United.

It’s bad politics to oppose these services as they delight millions of average Americans. Moreover, they contribute to the financial well-being of tens of thousands of Americans who rely on them for supplemental income. For 84 percent of Lyft drivers, it’s not a full-time job. Uber likely has similar numbers.  

Some “progressives” are uncomfortable and argue that these drivers and homeowners are somehow worse off without government intervention. They want regulation going beyond safety, background screening, and insurance. They want union-like regulation for home-sharing and employee-related regulations and benefits for Uber and Lyft drivers.

Talk about imposing the nanny state on consenting adults. Having taken scores of Uber or Lyft rides, I have yet to meet a driver who says they want the government determining their employment status.

So, if Democratic politicians want to dig in their heels in fealty to unions and unnecessarily burden these services, Republicans can make inroads on many traditional Democratic constituencies. I can't wait to see the platforms of both parties leading up to their conventions. I predict that Republicans will embrace the sharing economy and that Democrats will try to, but add a lot of ifs, ands, or buts.

Via: American Spectator

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Millennials Can Rescue Cities from Their Leftist Rulers

Most American cities have been ruled by left-wingers for decades, and a good case can be made that this has contributed mightily to their decline. Of course, this has done no favors for groups — minorities, the poor, blue-collar workers — that urban progressives count as loyal political allies.

Many Millennials are, so far, enrolled in this coalition but, if they’re paying attention, might be wondering why. On two key issues, the Left is unalterably out of step with most twentysomethings’ beliefs and interests.

First consider New York mayor Bill de Blasio’s recent attempt to defend his city’s taxicab cartel and stifle the fast-growing ride-sharing service Uber. His Honor lined up enough city-council votes to cap the size of Uber’s fleet (among other things) and then, while on a junket to Rome, went on a populist rant to justify his regulatory offensive, decreeing that “the people of our cities don’t like the notion of those who are particularly wealthy and powerful dictating terms to a government elected by the people.”

 Which turned out to be exactly backward. Uber and its (mostly Millennial) subscribers mounted a relentless PR counterattack, punching holes in the mayor’s assertions about the need for more regulations and making clear that they don’t like terms being dictated by the government. The chastened mayor backed off, promising to study the matter for a few months. In the unlikely event that this study is honest and objective, it would teach the mayor some very important lessons — foremost, that Millennials’ embrace of “Sharing Economy” firms like Uber does not merely make their lives easier and save them money. It helps save cities and, indeed, the planet.

Uber and its rival Lyft do not just bring competition (read: lower prices, better quality) to monopolistic markets. They exemplify a new kind of business that enables us to lighten our ecological footprints by making more-efficient use of our possessions. When we share otherwise-idle residential space (via Airbnb), tools (Open Shed), or clothing (Thredup), we squeeze more value out of the scarce resources used to create and maintain these goods. 

A nerdy economist might call this “efficiently amortizing fixed costs”; everyone else would just say it’s “being green.” And, in truth, this has always been a signal virtue of city life. When we cluster together in dense urban areas, we enjoy much lower costs per customer for our streets, water and power lines, and much else. Matthew Kahn has found that (after controlling for income and other influences on demand) the average suburbanite drives 31 percent more miles and consumes 58 percent more land, 49 percent more fuel oil, and 35 percent more electricity than the typical city dweller. 

Millennials are on board: A 2014 Nielsen survey found that almost two-thirds of the 77 million Americans aged 18 to 36 “prefer to live in the type of mixed-use communities found in urban centers,” and are currently living in such areas at a higher rate than any other age group.

Via: National Review

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ORTIZ: WORK ON WASHINGTON’S SCHEDULE, OR ELSE

Washington politicos who keep to a predictable, 9-to-5 schedule seem unwilling to accept that a huge portion of the American workforce not working this way. In our increasingly service-based economy, characterized by such jobs as yoga instructors, restaurant servers, and Uber drivers, the workday of previous generations is gradually becoming a relic of it.

In fact, nearly one-third of Americans work on the weekends, more than one-fourth work at night, and one-fifth work“nonstandard” hours.

But politicians and regulators, beholden to labor unions threatened by this new economy, are waging a full-fledged assault on job creators who don’t conform to their concept of “work.” Their latest front is the so-called “Schedules That Work Act,” recently introduced in Congress.

This bill places limits on “on-call” and “split-shift” work. It would also require employers to post work schedules two weeks early, accommodate most of their employees’ scheduling requests, and limit changes to the work schedule within 24 hours of a shift. If only employers could demand this type of reliability from their customers.

But with the exception of government jobs, staffing needs vary with customer demand, not employee convenience. Trying to mandate scheduling consistency would place yet another burden on American small businesses and hurt the very people it intends to help.

“On-call,” “split,” and last-minute shifts, for instance, are staples of many industries where consumer demand fluctuates throughout the day and week. They allow restaurateurs, for example, to respond to a surge in diners from, say, a concert finishing nearby, and allow for appropriate staffing when the restaurant is busiest (i.e. mealtimes).

Limiting these shifts would lead businesses to understaff, meaning a less enjoyable experience for both the customer and the employee. It would also mean that employees miss out on the last-minute shift opportunity they otherwise would not have had the chance to take. And, where previously an employee could have worked eight hours over a “split-shift,” under this bill they may only have the opportunity to work one of the lunch or dinner rushes.

Too few hours is already a major problem for many American employees. There are 2.2 million employees in the country who receive 35 or fewer hours a week but who would like to work more. This bill would only exacerbate this trend.

Regarding the bill’s requirement to accommodate employees’ scheduling requests: The overwhelming majority of employers already attempt to do this. But guaranteeing them is not always possible. If such a mandate were passed, it would turn the scheduling process into a glorified logic problem, where employers try to match up which employees can work which hours and which days based on their countless scheduling conditions.

It’s not difficult to see who would be most hurt by such a mandate: those with the most onerous scheduling requests. Why provide job opportunities to employees whose scheduling demands create big headaches? In other words, like so many of the recently proposed workplace regulations ostensibly created to protect employees from the new economy, this bill would hurt the very people it is trying to help.

Alfredo Ortiz is CEO and President of Job Creators Network

Via: Breitbart

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Uber Valued at More Than $50 Billion

ENLARGE

Uber’s fast rise to $50 billion reflects its aggressive global expansion into more than 300 cities and growing popularity ferrying millions of riders daily. PHOTO: ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Uber Technologies Inc. has completed a new round of funding that values the five-year-old ride-hailing company at close to $51 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, equaling Facebook Inc.’s record for a private, venture-backed startup.

Uber raised close to $1 billion in the round, one of the people said, bringing the San Francisco company’s total funding to more than $5 billion. Uber had briefed investors on a plan to raise between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in the round, The Wall Street Journal reported in May.

Via: Wall Street Journal

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HILLARY’S ‘PROGRESSIVE’ DEMISE

Under her deathly leadership a term loses all meaning and direction.

Barack Obama is the most “Progressive” of recent, and perhaps of all, American presidents. Indeed he is the only recent Democratic president rightly characterized as “Progressive” rather than just liberal.

But with massive increases in government debt and food stamp use, declines in labor force participation, the impending insolvency of the Social Security Disability Fund, relentless unemployment among African-Americans and deteriorating race relations, and by far the worst economic “recovery” in modern American history, one has to ask (in the sarcastic style of my Jewish grandma), “This is progress?!?”

It’s not just that things aren’t going well. It’s that they’re going particularly badly for those whom Progressives claim to care about most (the poor, minorities, the “working class”) while the rich get richer (in itself not a bad thing) and large companies succeed while small companies struggle and new business formation stagnates — a terrible situation in an economy that relies on small and new companies for job growth.

Conservatives have long fretted over Democrats controlling the political lexicon, causing words to mean — Humpty Dumpty style — what liberals say they mean, but we have consistently failed in changing the literal terms of the debate.

Following on Barack Obama’s dismal performance, Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and campaign offer the best opportunity in memory for Americans to reconsider the true meaning of the most fundamental word in the left’s rhetorical arsenal: Progressive.

Mrs. Clinton has yet to propose a truly new idea. Each of her few policy positions are regurgitations of populist pabulum that offer nothing innovative, nothing for Americans to get excited about, no hope to improve the lives of people anywhere on the income spectrum, and no future for our nation. In short, she is a perfect Progressive.

Hillary’s biggest “new” idea is to massively increase the capital gains tax rates and holding period for those Americans in the top income bracket — couples earning over $464,850 per year and individuals earning over $413,200 — creating six tax brackets with holding periods up to six years and confiscatory rates up to a jaw-dropping 43.8 percent.

Bloomberg and even the New York Times have trashed the plan as doing nothing more than making the tax code more complicated while not furthering Hillary’s stated goal of causing corporations and investors to become less short-term focused.

Beyond the feckless political pandering — can you smell Hillary’s fear of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren? — and economic idiocy of the plan, it’s remarkable that the wife of the man whose vaunted federal budget surplus occurred due to cutting the capital gains tax ratewould so aggressively champion the opposite policy.

Other Clintonian “progress” includes pandering to black voters about “voter suppression” through Voter ID laws even though a recent poll shows that more than three-quarters of Americans, including 58 percent of Democrats, continue to support having to show photo ID before voting. (Data are mixed about the actual impact of the laws on turnout among blacks and other voting groups.)

Of course if you pander to blacks, you have to pander to women as well. Hillary does that in the most predictable fashion, tweeting out the threadbare but mythical “outrage of so many women still earning less than men on the job.”

Hillary is also calling for the installation of half a billion new solar panels in the United States. No matter your view on the merits of solar power (you can count me among the skeptics regarding its value for utility-scale power generation), if this is what counts as innovative policy Mrs. Clinton must have a truly stunted imagination.

In a politically boneheaded statement given Clinton’s need for Silicon Valley’s checkbooks and millennials’ votes, she whines about “the on-demand or so-called ‘gig economy’… raising hard questions about workplace protections.” Actually, Hillary, it doesn’t raise any such hard questions and your union-driven crocodile tears don’t mask the anti-progress nature of your complaints.

Her comment related particularly to ride-sharing service Uber, which received another thinly veiled threat from Clinton: “I’ll crack down on bosses who exploit employees by mischaracterizing them as contractors…” No, Hillary, it’s fairly simple: I own a car. I want to give someone a ride to make a few extra bucks. I don’t need your “protection” and I’m not — and don’t want to be — an employee.

Hillary might offer us even more “progress” if she would answer more questions. But she’s a political greased pig, refusing to take a position on issues ranging from the Keystone XL pipeline, the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade treaty, and repealing Obamacare’s medical device tax.

When Hillary Clinton deigns to answer a question, or during one of her remarkably robotic and somnolent teleprompter speeches, she offers hackneyed and harmful policy prescriptions that, even if you’re of a moderately liberal mindset, must strike you as utterly uninspiring and representing anything but “progress.” In trying to be everything to everybody, she’s turning into nothing for anybody.

Soul-crushing big-government policies are, to coin a phrase, failed policies of the past. What’s really new — in the sense that it was abandoned long ago by American politicians of both major parties — is freedom. Freedom-based policies derive from trusting (as Progressives manifestly do not) that Americans are, can be, and prefer to be self-reliant and smart enough to make important and often difficult choices about our own lives and businesses without being nudged, much less shoved, by the Nanny State. More freedom… that would be real progress.

So why do conservatives, who are proposing creative, cost-saving, and freedom-enhancing solutions to a wide range of vexing public policy issues from poverty to education to health care to transportation funding, allow the regressive, bossy, mindless and uncreative left to maintain the mantle of “progressive”? I wish I knew.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign gives Republican candidates an opportunity to ask voters a simple question: If “Progressives” are lying about the very name of their movement, what else are they lying about? The answer, of course, is “nearly everything.”

Via: American Spectator

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How Uber and Small Dollar Lending are Disrupting the Status Quo

Economics always finds a way. Especially in America where the entire system is founded on creatively providing needs to the society at large in hopes of profit. We’ve been doing just that since our inception. And basically, government has been meddling in that thing of beauty since that very moment as well.

Create a better mouse trap. We’ve all heard it. Companies like Uber and Lyft have done just that to the age old taxi-cab industry. These upstarts used the abundance of cars in America and combined it with new technology – app based – and voila an entire new way to get around is born. This new way is embraced by the public, at least the millennials, and everyone wins, except the people clinging to the old ways. The taxi industry hasn’t enjoyed having competition so rather than change with the times an illicit partnership with government has been created to crush their newfound competitors.

Government knows best. Hillary Clinton and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s have launched an attack on what is being called the “sharing economy” exemplified by companies like Uber and Lyft. This is a classic example of the abuse of power in government. Politicians rooted in the old power structure found in the incestuous relationship between government and big industry are desperate to stop this change. Big industry and political power go hand in hand.

The old power structure means political support. It means campaign contributions. It means power for those in the established order. With new companies filling grass roots needs, like Uber and Lyft, there are no company bosses to ask for political contributions. There are no union bosses to demand endorsements from. And without the need for a “medallion” or other government regulatory stamp of approval, corporations no longer need to beg bureaucrats for permission to do business. Uber and Lyft represent a decentralization of power.

This kind of seismic shift hits politicians where it hurts, the pocket book. It’s no accident that the mayor of New York tried to limit Uber, despite its vast popularity with the cities residents. As the New York Post noted, blocking Uber means helping the city’s yellow cab monopoly, which “donated more than $550,000 to de Blasio’s mayoral campaign.”

The transportation industry is not the only industry where politicians believe they know better than the public. 12 million Americans, for example, use small dollar short-term lending to help solve their financial problems in times of need. These short-term loans are also known as, “Payday Loans”. Many of the people who use a payday loan could never qualify for a loan from a bank. Most banks are not in the business of lending people $250, $500 or even $1000 to just make ends meet. The risks are too high and the potential for default is too great. The payday loan industry discovered a need amongst society and is fulfilling very nicely thank you.

Americans actually need this service, no matter if the big banking industry or politicians want them to have it or not. When working class Americans have an unexpected expense, a car repair perhaps, they often need a small infusion of capital to make ends meet. These loans are designed to be paid in a week or a month and are statistically being paid back on time from a wide demographic of users actually building their credit history.

Instead of embracing new concepts like the short term loan industry, or Uber and Lyft, these brash new entrepreneurial pioneers have endured constant attack by politicians and establishment industry. It becomes obvious when you see the pattern from politicians. You don’t have to be in the smoky back room to know whose bed they are in. When politicians side with big business repeatedly over the exciting new companies fulfilling a need in society, it is obvious those politicians are the problem.

Steve C. Sherman is a writer, radio commentator and former Iowa House Republican candidate

Via: Human Events

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California’s Uber Hunt

The way things are going, Uber may soon face a court challenge in California over its failure to use an umlaut. The popular ridesharing startup has already been hit by an administrative law judge’s recommendation that the company pay $7.3 million in damages and suspend operation in the state. At issue: Uber’s alleged failure to provide the California Public Utilities Commission with internal data about how many customers with service animals or wheelchairs Uber drivers serve, along with time, location and fare data.

This decision came just a month after the California Labor Commission redefined the app-based ride-hailing service’s business model. In that case, San Francisco Uber driver Barbara Ann Berwick demanded that the company reimburse $4,000 worth of expenses. The commission ruled that Berwick, a transsexual who previously operated a phone sex business — Linda’s Lip Service — was a full-time-equivalent employee during four months of sporadic driving for Uber. (Berwick, now a financial consultant, expressed disappointment with the money an Uber driver makes.) The decision directly threatens Uber’s business model, in which drivers sign up as independent contractors with a minimum of the fuss and paperwork associated with modern hiring, choose their own hours, and are clearly remunerated on a piecework basis.

Last week, a U.S. district judge in San Francisco allowed a group of cab companies to proceed with a false-advertising lawsuit against Uber. The same judge also greenlit a suit against Uber claiming that it spammed potential drivers with recruitment text messages. That suit was dismissed when electronic records showed that one of the plaintiffs had begun pursuing the company herself.

Notably, complaints about Uber typically aren’t coming from customers, and even among the firm’s drivers, crusades like Berwick’s are rare. In fact, what’s striking about the various campaigns against ride-sharing is their reliance on paperwork and credentialing instead of outcomes. The CPUC, for example, doesn’t assert that Uber is harming actual handicapped people, only that the company has failed to produce paperwork that proves the absence of harm. Similarly, the cab companies’ speech-related lawsuit — which focuses on safety claims made in Uber ads — does not claim that traditional taxis are safer than Uber rides. The plaintiffs assert instead that cab drivers are subjected to more paperwork than Uber drivers.

The anti-Uber campaign’s reluctance to assess outcomes is understandable, given the public’s strong revealed preference for the company. Interest groups can complain, but drivers and customers continue to vote for Uber with their time and money. In a free country or a sane state, a clear market decision in favor of a business would be the end of the discussion. But Uber is increasingly under pressure to furnish evidence that its model works in theory as well as in practice.

The company recently commissioned Los Angeles-based BOTEC Analysis to measure service in low-income neighborhoods — a market in which anecdotal evidence already suggests that Uber’s influence has been positive. BOTEC compared UberX with taxi services in Van Nuys as well as Central and East Los Angeles. The median wait time for an UberX ride in L.A. neighborhoods was five minutes and 52 seconds; for a taxi ride, it was 14 minutes and 33 seconds. The maximum recorded wait time for UberX was 20 minutes; for a cab, 57 minutes. Despite Uber’s widely maligned practice of “surge pricing” — a concession to the law of supply and demand that is for some reason considered outrageous — UberX also soundly beat traditional cabs on price, with a median cost per ride of $6.28, versus $15 for taxis. Surge pricing didn’t even produce a higher maximum price. UberX’s max cost per ride was $11.68, against $22 for cabs.

BOTEC is led by UCLA public policy professor Mark Kleiman, a thoroughly un-libertarian, good-government figure. Nevertheless, Uber opponents have dinged the study as free-market propaganda from the Uber central command. SHOULD YOU TRUST UBER’S BIG NEW UBER VS. CABS STUDY? New York asks. (Answer: a definite maybe.) Meantime, L.A. Weekly wonders, “Is Uber really being straight-up about its commitment to serve folks other than young, white professionals and party people?” But defenders of the taxi status quo face an even bigger hurdle: Uber’s very existence is an advertisement for the free market. It’s an obviously less-regulated initiative that has produced measurable, positive outcomes across a wide spectrum. No wonder people hate it so much.

Tim Cavanaugh (@bigtimcavanaugh) is a journalist and screenwriter who has covered California since the 1990s.

Via: California Poltical Review

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Uber is the perfect poster child for the Republican economic agenda

When Uber got into a big fight with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Republican candidates for president leaped to Uber's defense. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul have all praised the company. Ted Cruz has even compared himself to Uber.

Meanwhile, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton recently warned that the "on-demand, or so-called 'gig economy'" is "raising hard questions about workplace protections" — not an explicit reference to Uber but an allusion to a class of companies of which Uber is the largest and most prominent.

There's something a little bit backward about this, as Uber is most popular in big cities with less than universal car ownership and lots of Democratic voters. But that's part of the reason talking about Uber is good politics for Republicans. It could help the party appeal to young, urban professionals who lean toward Democrats on cultural grounds but might find things to like in the GOP's economic message. It helps to drive a wedge between Uber-using urban professionals and more traditional — or more deeply ideological — liberals who see Uber's "gig economy" model as a threat to worker rights.

Of course, Uber itself cares less about presidential politics than about local regulation, where things tend to be less partisan in practice. Some Republican officeholders have been hostile to Uber, while many Democratic ones have been supportive. When the rubber meets the road, ordinary interest-group politics wind up mattering more than ideological considerations. But that doesn't stop Uber from being a potent tool in national politics, serving as a symbol for liberal fears and conservative hopes.

Why Republican candidates love Uber

Marco Rubio points toward a sharing-economy future. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Innovative businesses being held back by outdated regulations is a favorite conservative theme. And Uber makes an ideal poster child for this message. Uber was enabled by the invention of smartphones, and it solved a concrete problem — slow and unreliable taxi service — that many people encountered in their regular lives.

Taxi companies and their allies in city government are cast as the villains in the Uber morality play, trying to impose burdensome and arbitrary requirements on a company that had invented a better way of doing things.

Republican candidates for president have talked about Uber a lot on the campaign trail.

Jeb Bush made a point of riding in an Uber earlier this month during a campaign stop in San Francisco. Marco Rubio has been touting Uber for over a year, and he tweeted in support of Uber during this week's confrontation with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Ted Cruz compared himself to Uber last December, saying he hoped to disrupt Washington in the same way Uber has disrupted the taxi business. Rand Paul tweeted in defense of Uber earlier this month, and Scott Walker signed Uber-friendly legislation in May.

It's natural for conservatives to side with a business fighting regulators, but the inclination to highlight this particular business has a lot to do with political demographics. Republican voters tend to be older and more rural than Democrats. Uber has a young and disproportionately urban customer base. If Republicans can turn Uber into a salient example of government regulation, it could broaden the GOP's demographic appeal without compromising on conservative principles.

Via: Vox

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