Read on to uncover some more details about this tragic situation. It's not only about the taxi business fights. Unfortunately, it's also about lost and devastated lives. More than 8 regular taxi drivers have committed suicides as they couldn't make the ends meet. ___ Is Uber and Lyft to blame❓As always when there is big money involved, this is a complex situation with multiple sides responsible. The "New York Times" did some investigation on this. To save your time here’s the summary of the causes: 1️⃣ Greedy insiders and speculators artificially inflated medallion prices. 2️⃣ Lenders scammed drivers into loans 3️⃣ Government officials ignored warning signs and even exempted lenders from regulations. 4️⃣ The pressure from Uber & Lift worked as a catalyst. ___ Much of the devastation can be traced to a handful of powerful industry leaders who and artificially drove up the price of taxi medallions, creating a bubble that eventually burst. Over more than a decade, they channeled thousands of drivers into reckless loans and extracted hundreds of millions of 💵 before the market collapsed. ___ The practices were strikingly similar to those behind the housing market crash of 2008. Banks and loosely regulated private lenders wrote risky loans and encouraged frequent refinancing. Drivers took on debt they could not afford, under terms they often did not understand. Some industry leaders purposefully overpaid for medallions to inflate the prices. ___ As in the housing crash, government officials ignored warning signs and exempted lenders from regulations. The Taxi Commission went the furthest of all, turning into a cheerleader for medallion sales. It was tasked with regulating the industry, but as prices skyrocketed, it sold new medallions and began declaring they were “better than the stock market.” At the market’s height, medallion buyers were typically earning about $5k/mo and paying about $4,5k to their loans.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ •⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ •⠀ #uber #taxi #didyouknow #fact #howstuffworks #themoreyouknow #rarefacts #instagood #learning #business #money #entrepreneurship #businessman #lyft #finance #financetips #cash (at Manhattan, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4OHrRkn-Q2/?igshid=19oggyjetu04g
