Competition or monopoly control: the rise of Uber

A headline from an article in the Daily Signal, a right-wing blog: 

Ride Sharing: Cab Drivers Hate It, Entrepreneurs Love It. 

This headline is self-contradictory.  If cab drivers aren't entrepreneurs, who is? Cab drivers dislike the competition from well-financed, unethical companies because they are just scraping by as it is.

A quote from the same article: 

Ever wonder why taxis are run-down and unclean and drivers can be terrifyingly bad? Lack of competition is at least part of the answer. 

Nope. Never wondered. Because these guys (taxi drivers) are my neighbors here in Alexandria, VA. They are struggling to ear a living in their adopted country, speak little English, and learned to drive without learning basic rules of the road.

Ever notice how, to a conservative, more competition is the answer to every problem? Taxis are an example of too much competition, at least in Washington, DC. The number one competitor of the taxi is the private automobile, but there are also car rentals, zip cars, hotel limousines, and mass transportation.

The need for competition, according to the writers at the Daily Signal, is limited to working-class businesses, however. 

States have licensing requirements for all manner of occupations, from barbers to florists to interior decorators. Sometimes those regimes actually make entering a field without a license a crime, which can lead to outlandish SWAT-style raids during which people get arrested for “barbering without a license.”

The article and its right-wing authors do not mention that the primary and most expensive regulation of professions is not of working class but of upper class workers.  The monopoly privileges enjoyed by doctors and lawyers (among others) result in huge incomes for those on the inside and jail sentences for those on the outside who would like to get a piece of the pie. But I digress.

What taxis need in Washington DC is more regulation. The drivers need to achieve basic competency in English. They need to know where things are and the best ways to get there. And they need to understand the rules of the road in America. A little common courtesy would be helpful, too.

Oh, yeah, they would need to be guaranteed a wage, and not the current starvation wage, but a livable wage, the kind they could get with a strong union.

Maybe then I will use taxis again.

The Rise of Uber

Uber is a corporation that is taking over the market now served by taxis. It uses the same strong-arm tactics used by ENRON--lying, cheating, and stealing. These are apparently the acceptable modes for competition in Capitalist America these days.

My problem with Uber is this. They are taking over a market where there is already little profit to be made. Taxi drivers work for a minimum wage, or even less. Uber will probably drive all other competition from the market, using its capitalization of over $1.5 billion. This amount of capital is like taking an uzi to kill a fly.

The inevitable result will be an ENRON-style failure. Uber will operate at a loss until it buries its competition. At that point, it will raise rates until it looks profitable on paper. Its marketing department and flacks in the financial press will hype the company as the next Amazon. After its original backers make a fortune by selling shares in an IPO, it will be discovered that all the profits were illusory and the company will collapse, leaving the taxi business worse than it is today. 

Check that. At least in DC, it can't be any worse than it is today. Fortunately, there is an excellent subway system that will take you to the airport. That is hardly the case in other cities where Uber is trying to take over the market.

Washington, D.C. pushes bogus marijuana decriminalization bill

Anyone who's seen a Fox “News” program knows how they work. One talking head reads a news story and the others comment on it, using the most violent distortions of the truth. For instance, one might say, 89 percent of the persons arrested for simple possession of marijuana in the District of Columbia are African-Americans or another minority. Then the Fox commentator says, I wonder why that is? And another one goes into a long-winded reply about how that's the way people are.


Or, on another occasion, someone might read a news item that indicates that marijuana is neither addictive nor harmful. It is certainly not a gateway drug to anything except entanglement in the prison system. Then the other Fox commentator says, surely we can't let this dangerous drug be distributed to our children. Another Fox commentator says, certainly we can't permit this dangerous drug to be legalized.


This sort of comedy show is very popular on Fox. Firmly held opinions of the status-quo are endlessly repeated, no matter how discredited those ideas have been. But these little falsehoods were repeated in DC City Council Chambers last Thursday, October 24, 2013, where the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety was holding hearings on the “decriminalization” of marijuana. The ring master for this farce was Tommy Wells, who I understand is running for mayor. It was Councilman Wells's responsibility to see that witnesses were truthful and all points of view were considered. Unfortunately, Wells did not do that. Instead, he permitted reams of falsehoods to be entered into the record.


Take, for example, the study by Washington Lawyers' committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. This careful study, based entirely on records of the Metropolitan Police Department, showed that 89 percent of arrests made in DC for simple possession were African-Americans. What did Wells say about this disparity in treatment of different races by the police department? He asked the witnesses for the Lawyers' Committee what could be the reason for this startling figure.


Let me make this clear. Wells did not ask the representative of the Mayor, Andrew Fois, how the police intended to fix this problem. No, Wells acted as if it wasn't a problem. Then he sat and listened while Fois explained how decriminalization would work. Mere possession would be legal, but not using the drug on the street. But possession itself would be illegal in City Parks and near schools.


Possession for sale, of course, would still be illegal. Councilman Marion Barry asked how much marijuana a person would have to have before he could be arrested for intent to sell.


Andrew Fois: Oh, any amount.
Barry: Even a single joint?
Fois: Yes.
Barry: So if you had a single joint in your pocket you could be arrested for intent to sell?


At this point one of Fois's deputies jumped in to rescue his boss from the blind alley he had wandered into. “Oh, no,” he said. “There would have to be some other evidence.” What the other evidence might be was not revealed.


When my turn came to testify, I asked the court why they were not considering total legalization. David Rosso has introduced a bill to that effect. It seemed to me inevitable that marijuana would be legalized eventually. Why not now?


Wells got a little hot under the collar. I suppose he was angry at me for disrupting his dog and pony show, where official witnesses lined up to tell Wells what a great guy he was, and what a great job the police are doing, busting 40,000 African-Americans a year, mostly for nothing at all, and how we really can't legalize marijuana right now because, as Wells explained

1. The Congress might do something if we did.
   
2. Legalization of marijuana would do nothing to halt use of more dangerous drugs.
   
3. The time isn't right.
   

To which I would have responded (if Wells had the courtesy to ask what I thought of the matter, instead of pontificating at length about what he thinks,

1. Congress hasn't done anything yet. It is likely, however, that the courts will do something soon about the prevalence of racial profiling, as they did in Floyd v. City of New York.
   
2. Legalization of marijuana only legalizes marijuana, it is not intended to resolve all of society's drug problems. To oppose legalization because it doesn't stop other drugs doesn't make logical sense.
   
3. The time is always right to stop enforcing an unjust law that police use to harass African-Americans.
   

Gawker at the Jefferson Memorial

(Full Disclosure: Holly is my wife)

Holly Masri's "Gawker at the Jefferson Memorial" is on display at the Art League gallery in the Torpedo Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia until November 4. Rather than focus on the memorial building itself, which is nearly always depicted in photographs from the exterior, the artist has captured the experience of the Memorial. The painting conveys the monumental scale of the building by showing its huge marble columns from the inside. These columns extend upward out of the frame of the painting, giving a strong impression of their great size.

The central figure--the Gawker--is a senior citizen as revealed by his bucket hat and the sweater draped around his shoulders. He is apparently engrossed by something high up on the wall. As visitors to the memorial know, he is looking at (and reading) one of the three large panels that contain the writings of Jefferson engraved in stone. The gawker is oblivious to the other tourists as he gazes upward in an almost religious fervor.

The other figures in the painting are more typical visitors to the monument. Some are looking at other features of the building, perhaps the giant statue of Jefferson that neither the gawker nor the artist seem to notice. Other figures are arranging themselves for a group photograph. But the Gawker seems transported into a world of ideas and history, oblivious to his surroundings.

The artist skillfully suggests the thoughts and emotions aroused by a visit to the monument by a careful selection of images and details. If you look closely at the painting, you can feel the coolness of the air and hear the voices and footsteps echoing in the enclosed space. You may even hear the Gawker reading aloud the words of Jefferson.