Tag Archives: New York

Uber & Lyft fight drivers over caps NYC

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New York legislators are close to deciding an issue driven by Uber and Lyft drivers. They are demonstrating in the streets and demanding a cap on the number of authorized ride-share vehicles.

Mainstream media began covering this dust storm two weeks ago, but the pending decision is putting international attention on the issue of licensing a sector that was credited with eliminating nanny-state legislation. After all, licensing should be confined to the singular issues of transportation safety and not overall commerce.

A cap? What is a cap?! Does this mean that a person with a clean car, a good driving record and no criminal complaints will need a special license or medallion to participate in a ride sharing service? How ironic! Don’t glance in your rear-view mirror, because that is exactly what we used to grant taxi services until…Well, until sometime next year. It’s an old school, anti-free-market concept that we surmounted 10 years ago!

Legacy drivers claim that we need a cap of 80,000 entrepreneur-drivers, ostensibly for two reasons:

  1. They want economic protection. (Duhh!). Drivers who were early to the party are cruising the streets in cars that are empty 42% of the time. They are waiting for their next guest. This quite ironic, because these are the same drivers that disrupted the protections afforded to taxi companies.
  2. They claim that capping ride-share cars will reduce congestion on crowded Manhattan streets, along with pollution and commuter frustration.

But the ride share companies are not backing their drivers. They are lobbying anyone who will listen that we must avoid legislative restrictions.

A Wild Duck Opinion…

Uber and Lyft are absolutely right in championing the fight against a legislative cap and thereby removing free-market economics from the transportation sector. These drivers are owner-operators. There is already effective vetting of safety and criminal records. They are not employees of a municpal service. They are entrepreneurs exploiting a smart-phone app to sell their own services. It is no different than programmer who uses an app to write and distribute his own software.

Putting legislative caps on the number of participants in a new-era, free enterprise service, or limiting hours of operation is antithetical to a democratic and empowered free market constituency. It smacks of a Communist mind set. The armchair economics of protestors (drivers who feel threatened by newer drivers) and even well-researched data of credentialed economists) plays no role in an organic, facts-on-the ground growth industry.

I am not suggesting that an unlicensed or criminal driver should get away without vetting. But attempting to impose restrictions that are unrelated to health, safety or the environment will have unintended consequences, such as:

  • Underground apps that do the same thing with even less restrictions
  • Pushing innovation and profits off shore — or —
  • Ceding the market to foreign countries

Licensing has always been intended to serve the public good and not thwart innovation, growth and individual entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, it is often used to protect early entrepreneurs and exclude newcomers. That’s not how it should work—certainly not in a free country.

If you can’t take the heat of fair market competition, then innovate.

 

Ineffective JFK airport anti-terrorism security

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Check out this video, courtesy of Yahoo! and ABC News:

  • A man horsing around on a Jet Ski in Jamaica Bay has a technical problem.
    It may be related to his drinking a few too many beers…
  • He ditches his water craft. Friends aren’t responding to his calls. It’s night
    and the sky is dark.
  • He swims toward the only thing he sees: runway lights at JFK airport.
  • He climbs out of water, over a fence, walks across 2 runways, past
    motion detectors, cameras and security guards. Still dripping wet and
    wearing a bright yellow life vest, he wanders into a back maintenance
    door of the Delta terminal—all without being detected.

I don’t find it hard to believe that a $100 million security system is flawed. But I would have thought that the weakness would be “social engineering”. That’s where an operative probes for individuals who can be fooled into weakening the perimeter, revealing passwords or even deactivating security systems.

During the past year, we have endured a lot of boasting about protective measures built into the travel process by Homeland Security, TSA, NYPD and the New York Port Authority. These organizations want us to believe that our money is well spent. And yet, without even trying, a 31 year old, tipsy water sport enthusiast waltzes past counterterrorism barriers of a brand new $100 million Airport security system.

If JFK truly has the latest technology, wouldn’t there be some kind of RFID/NFC badge on every authorized individual? I would think that each individual moving on the tarmac would be tracked and identified on an alarm console  just like planes in the sky.

I suppose that we can’t expect the latest, high-tech measures at every airport, but considering the boast of a 0.1 billion dollar, state-of-the-art security system, it seems reasonable that a slightly inebriated swimmer shouldn’t be able to get this far!

Incidentally,  Daniel Casillo, 31, was arrested for trespassing into a ‘secure area’. Obviously, he did no such thing! Wild Duck’s say: Give this guy a gold medal and pray that we learn from his swim lesson. Let’s also pray that Jihadists don’t use Jet Skis in Jamaica Bay.

The “Ground Zero” Mosque

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Stephen Prothero is a professor of Religion, author, and lecturer. He also writes the CNN Belief Blog. In July, 2010, he wrote an op-ed for CNN in which he supported the efforts to build a mosque near Ground Zero, the hallowed ground of a great number of 911 victims, including the many 1st responders who died there.

Stephen’s take: Ground Zero mosque good for America and New York

CNN also published my feedback. Now that I have created AWildDuck, the retort is as relevant today as it was last year.

Does this belong at Ground Zero?

I get it… Stephen Prothero argues that blocking a Mosque at ground zero is a win for terrorists, because they will have succeeded at changing our pluralistic ways of tolerance and coexistence. But the argument doesn’t cut it, Stephen! In this century, Islam stands for intolerance in our front yard, and it is inextricably linked with violence and hate. Imams here in the US call for the overthrow of America, implementing Sharia Law and death to Americans.

The religion routinely calls any outsider an infidel (and you know what that brings, don’t you?). It is just too much to ask that we look at these individuals as a fringe minority within a peaceful religion. The nuts are driving the car and we needn’t choose to give them the auto loan and the dealership.

I grew up in Skokie Illinois. Our village of 70,000 had a large number of concentration camp survivors from Nazi Germany. Neighbors and store owners had numbers burned into their forearms at Auschwitz, Sobibor, Matthausen and Treblinka. While I supported the ACLU and admired their stance on free speech, they lost my respect and support when they backed the march of Nazis through the streets of Skokie. The ACLU claimed that political, legal and financial support was offered to these nuts in the name of free speech and fair representation. Perhaps they have the right — I don’t know. But certainly, the ACLU could find other worthy causes for their time and money. The decision to represent these screwballs was about as looney as the intent to allow a mosque to be erected at Ground Zero. For hundreds of millions of individuals (perhaps more than a billion around the world), that juxtaposition represents a win for radicals, cowards, and nut cases. To claim that it represents a religion of peace and tolerance is a PC delusion. At the very least, it is shockingly insensitive and inappropriate.

Is there even a contest of opinions here? I realize that true freedom is not subject to the whim of public opinion, but let’s just vet this one question: How many people in New York want to walk past a Mosque at Ground Zero. Seriously…How many?!