French taxi drivers pulled out the throttle in an all-out confrontation with the ultra-cheap Uber car service Thursday, smashing livery cars, setting tires ablaze and blocking traffic during a nationwide strike that caught tourists and celebrities alike in the mayhem. — washingtonpost.com
Parisian taxi drivers have taken to the streets, smashing cars and burning tires to protest UberPop, a budget iteration of the car-sharing service akin to UberX in the States. Traffic came to a stop in the French capital, with reports of stranded travelers walking along the highway with luggage in tow, attempting to catch flights out of Charles de Gaulle airport. So far, 70 vehicles have been reported damaged around France and ten people arrested, according to the AP report.
One passenger caught in Thursday's melee was the singer Courtney Love, who tweeted throughout the experience. Love was able to escape via two men passing by on a motorcycle.
Over the past few weeks, taxi drivers have turned increasingly violent in their opposition to the car-sharing service, which they contend unfairly undercuts their business. Unlike Uber drivers, taxi drivers have to pay tens of thousands of euros for certification each year. Drivers are also frustrated by passenger complaints over a lack of tech-integration.
The French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve met with taxi unions and called for an immediate shutdown to UberPop services in France. Despite court rulings earlier this year and last banning the service, UberPop has continued to operate. The head of UberFrance, Thibaud Simphal went on the radio telling drivers "to continue," asserting that French law "has not demanded that UberPop be forbidden."
This is not the first time that Uber has drawn the ire of taxi drivers and government officials. The tech company is known for flouting laws and has been temporarily suspended from operating in Spain, while a Dutch judge ordered UberPop to stop in the Netherlands.
171 Comments
I don't see why communism isn't allowed to change just as much as capitalism
Either way, economic policy should always be written to reward working for a living. Should we be seriously talking about tax relief for capital gains or inheritance? Does that money come from dragging your ass out of bed and going to work? Do we really want wealth tied to debt and investment rather than hard work and ingenuity?
How is the profit motive even supposed to work? If you own a small architecture firm the goal is to take home as much money as possible. What if you work at a small architecture firm? Then the goal would be for the owner to pay you as much as possible instead of them keeping it all to themselves. There is an inherent conflict of interest there. No political or economic system works if the people are selfish or greedy assholes.
Not following that last paragraph, curt.
the policies you seem to support don't reward innovation or hard work or anything worthwhile. the problem as i understand some here might see it is that uber operates in a manner focused on rewarding executives or investors instead of focusing on their product and core service. that i think is where the walmart comparison came in. their core product suffers because of it.
rather than simply paying people a reasonable salary to do a good job, you seem to prefer a system where people have to prioritize competition over limited resources (money) ahead of the product or service they're in business to provide. it doesn't work. how do you become successful in that environment? i assume backstabbing and manipulation and such is more productive than just trying to do a good job.
if i go to work everyday thinking it doesn't matter how hard i work or how good of a job i do because i'm working for someone else's profit, i'm probably not going to have a very good attitude and there is a good chance the product i'm working on will suffer. this is how the profit motive works; it's not the people doing the work that profit. the higher up people making decisions on how to allocate funds would be inefficient if they weren't taking as much as they can while limiting labor costs as much as possible.
that's the conflict of interest. the lower level people have to try to make higher level people pay them more, the higher level people have to try to pay them less. with the profit motive and capitalism, having a decent product or even giving a shit about what you're doing is far less important than taking your piece of the pie.
you could say communism has the same problem, in that i'm working for someone else's profit instead of my own, but with communism the assumption is that other people will help support you while you help support them.
jla said "communism can only work if all people in charge are good...which is impossible as power always attracts shit head" -- it should be obvious that this is just as much a problem with capitalism.
Why shouldn't we be rewarding investors? They bear the risk of the enterprise.
because it doesn't work alternative. investors don't do the work. they don't do the innovation. they aren't the people coming face to face with the customer. you're removing the incentive from the people who matter and giving it to people who aren't able to contribute anything but money.
Investors provide capital that fuels the entire system. Uber employees don't have to "pay into" the business to keep it operating; they work, and are compensated for their work (fairness of their compensation is a separate issue). Uber employees/contractors don't risk losing millions if the company underperforms or fails.
Investors might not perform "labor," but they certainly "do the work."
This conversation is becoming a little basic. Maybe you should read some introductory books on finance and capital allocation.
lol. you think hiring a financial adviser is "work," then say i'm the one who should read a book?
finance and capital allocation works the way it does today because it's broken. wealth comes from capital, not from hard work. that reduces the possibility of class mobility and creates large wealth disparity. that's a bad thing.
the way we have umbrella corporations and investment vehicles today is not the way things have always worked in america, and it's not a historically typical economic structure in other countries or in history. the economy is built from the ground up, not from the top down. dis-incentivizing labor and work and performance hurts everyone.
How do you propose that people acquire wealth in the United States? Serious question.
uber drivers don't stand to lose millions because they don't have millions to lose.
i doubt many investors put millions of dollars into uber without having millions in other investments as well, so that if they lost millions in uber it wouldn't be as big of a deal as say an uber driver not being able to pay their medical bills if they get sick. if there is an investor who dumped all of their available income so they could be the one to lose millions in uber, then they probably didn't "work" hard enough while sitting on their ass watching their financial advisor screw them.
sitting around waiting for money to come in is not "work."
i propose people acquire wealth by dragging their ass out of bed and going to work in the morning. i said that earlier.
"Either way, economic policy should always be written to reward working for a living."
apparently working for a living is the part of the post you didn't understand?
(architect conflating private equity and venture capital with Charles Schwab investment advisors)
This conversation is becoming a little basic. Maybe you should read some introductory books on finance and capital allocation.
Alternative, are you sure you are not Richard Balkins, Esq? You have all the textbook answers but entirely lack subtlety and understanding. To begin with, economics is not physical science in the sense of physics or chemistry but a social science of theories primarily used for manipulation.
Why shouldn't we be rewarding investors? They bear the risk of the enterprise.
You mean the investors behind LIBOR or the mortgage crisis or the housing bubble or the tech bubble or ... I can't begin to remember them all. Citizen "investors" get the shaft and bankers get a golden parachute. There is more than one class of investor, and investing in your own business is very different from gambling in the self-policing Wall Street casino.
and you're equating what mitt romney did with someone who can actually build something.
OMG—thanks for yet another lesson, Miles. Corruption in the financial sector means that all finance is BAD and should be replaced by a PROLETARIAT UPRISING.
this is rich coming from architects who probably resent the financiers who create projects that they design.
architects who think buildings should be built for the benefit of the end user, the public, and environmental sustainability rather than strictly a focus on ROI? did you get your architecture degree from glenn beck university?
No. Did you get yours from Pol Pot Community College?
proletariat noun also proletariate, "the lowest class," 1853, from French prolétariat, from Latin proletarius ( belonging to the lowest class of Roman citizens). In political economics, "indigent wage-earners," from 1856.
The wealth of the few is built on the poverty of many.
Miles, how do you propose that Americans grow their household wealth? Should we preclude investment schemes?
alternative, how about guiding monetary policy towards rewarding those who earn income by working for a living and paying reasonable salaries instead of gaining money through debt, capital appreciation, inheritance, other forms of interest income, etc.?
Capital appreciation is bad why? Do you have stocks or own a house and hope for them to gain value over time, so that you can provide for yourself when you retire?
Inheritance is bad why? Do you have children to whom you would like to pass your assets after you die?
Debt is bad why? If you want to start an architecture practice and don't have the requisite cash on hand to get things going, wouldn't you want a loan to get your business off the ground?
i didn't say capital appreciation or inheritance are bad. i said that monetary policy should favor income that comes from working for a living.
working for a living is bad? why?
I never said working for a living is bad, but you're always going to deal with "glass ceilings" when you're working for someone else. Why do you think there's so much talk about hanging out a shingle on these forums? Owners of architecture firms also bear the risk of the investment, just as institutional investors do in larger corporations.
how do you propose that Americans grow their household wealth? Should we preclude investment schemes?
Why is it necessary to grow household wealth? How much money is enough? Good choice of words:
scheme noun, a plan or program of action; especially : a crafty or secret one
So what do you propose, Cheshire Cat Miles? I sure as hell don't want the state dictating what amount of money I earn is "enough."
i'm not saying there should be a forced level playing field either alternative, nor am i saying people working for someone should be paid the same as the owner.
what i'm saying is that when someone refers to a specific monetary policy, be it tax policy, copyright, or a huge range of other things, it's best to say 'does this benefit income that comes from working for a living' and if it does, then it's likely a better policy than if it doesn't.
social mobility comes in large part from the ability to work hard to improve your standard of living. monetary policy that favors income generation from avenues other than working for a living limit social mobility, which limits the american dream. this system favors labor rather than what some people think "capitalism" should represent.
social mobility also creates a more healthy middle class, which means more people buying things like cars and refrigerators, which means more money circulating and greater overall economic growth.
According to your calculus, do investors not engage in "work"? You do realize that there is "work" related to choosing appropriate investment vehicles, don't you?
Is buying legislation work? By your definition, yes. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's not corrupt.
I'm not going to get into the semantics of "work" accept to say that the idea of capital working for you is very different from labor of any kind and that the former is rewarded while the latter is penalized because the fox is ruling the hen house.
You keep on changing goalposts and can't answer a single question, miles.
According to your calculus, do investors not engage in "work"? You do realize that there is "work" related to choosing appropriate investment vehicles, don't you?
no. absolutely not. choosing how to spend your money, be it an investment property, a purse, or a car, is not work.
working is different than spending money. to assume they're the same seems incredibly ridiculous to me. perhaps this notion that a shopping spree is equivalent to holding a job is where our interpretations of how capitalism should be implemented diverges.
I'm getting to the point where I know that it's time to disengage, but before I do, I really hope you realize that there are entire segments of the economy devoted to investing in promising new business ventures that have the potential to change the market.
These ventures require an enormous amount of work—familiarization with emerging technologies, market trends, and exhaustive research in potential companies for investment. In the sphere of private equity, it also requires making crucial, often complex managerial decisions about how to steer a growing business. This is not unlike the difficult business decisions that principal architects must make in terms of seeking out commissions, finding new clients, looking for new markets in which to hawk their services.
The investment that these companies facilities helps companies grow, allows the companies to hire new people, and in turn helps grow entire segments of the economy (where, you know, employees work and get paid). See, e.g., http://www.kpcb.com/.
Investors do, indeed, work and you're really flaunting your ignorance.
*these companies facilitate
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) partners with the brightest entrepreneurs to turn disruptive ideas into world-changing businesses. The firm has helped build and accelerate growth at pioneering companies like. . .
We provide decades of experience to help you develop your business, recruit talent, forge strategic partnerships, design products and services, and bring your idea to market.
spending money isn't working. investing in a company isn't working. if i go to TD Ameritrade and buy stock in google, that doesn't count as me working.
If i go to KPCB and ask them to provide their business consulting services to help me manage the growth of my business, then it's work in the sense that they're working instead of investing.
if there is an investment/venture capital arm that spends money by giving it to someone else with the hope that they'll make a bunch of money and give them a cut of the profit (similar to me buying google stock through td ameritrade, though obviously bigger scale and different process) that's not really working. the people they invest in do the work while they sit around hoping for a return on their investment.
if they invest in a firm through their venture capital arm and then do the work of managing the firm they invested in, then it's work in the sense that they're managing the firm.
Investors sit around waiting for other people to make them money, and you're really flaunting your ignorance.
perhaps they spend a lot of time thinking about which firm to invest in, so they have better odds of making money off other people's work. that's not work any more than me thinking about what car to buy. buying a car is a big decision, so i want to put some research into choosing the right product to buy, but nobody is going to suggest that me thinking about buying a car is the same thing as going to work. an investor thinking about where to spend money is nothing more than an investor thinking about where to spend money.
(ignorant architect yet again conflating VC and PE with TD Ameritrade)
i clicked the kpcb link you provided, and it seems to me like they do something entirely different from investing. i tried to outline that, but then i suppose it got too wordy and rambley.
should we go to a dictionary to double-check what the word investing means?
if you hire a hedge fund manager to invest your money for you, then i think it would be fair to say that the hedge fund manager is working by trying to find a way to spend your money for you. i guess that would be like hiring a personal shopper, which is a service just as any other service. the person who hired the hedge fund manager is not working. the initial investor is sitting around waiting for someone else to do the work so they can take their cut. ultimately, the hedge fund manager is also just waiting for someone else to do the work so they can take part of the profit, but they have the added trouble of being someone's vendor, and they need to market their skills in spending other people's money and all that.
you pointed out there are segments of the economy devoted to investing other people's money. sound monetary policy could fix that. there shouldn't be that much money in the economy with nowhere else to go. that money should be in the hands of regular people who are trying to work for a living. what we have now, monetary policy that favors investment income over working for a living, is a bad thing.
So what do you propose, Cheshire Cat Miles? I sure as hell don't want the state dictating what amount of money I earn is "enough." I sure as hell don't want the state dictating what amount of money I earn is "enough."
I don't care how much you "earn". I care how you earn it and how much you pay in taxes.
Do you even know what a hedge fund is, curt?
Typically a group of investors pool money into high risk investments with less regulation than other similar groups. Investments are manged by a "hedge fund manager"
Do you know what work is?
Do you understand that virtually no hedge funds are able to solicit investment from mom and pop investors?
And yes, I know what work is. And I think it's funny that a CAD monkey is now arguing that the work of a hedge fun analyst isn't work.
What do mom and pop have to do with anything?
I said monetary policy should favor money that comes from work and that investing isn't the same as working.
Also, I said the hedge fund manager does work since they'they're hired to spend other people's money.
Tell me. Does the finance division of a manufacturing company do "work"? You know, the guys who run numbers to decide whether or not to buy a machine?
Yes
Does it make you feel bad that a cad monkey understands how the economy works better than you do?
Explain to me how that work is any different than alternative investment vehicles (PE, VC,HF)
You mean explain the difference between going to work and not going to work?
I find it difficult to figure out where to start with that. Maybe this link will help
http://finance.zacks.com/unearned-income-comes-taxes-3206.html
Thanks for the primer on tax treatment of income vs capital gains.
Setting that aside, how is the work different?
:
The person who goes to work in the finance division of a manufacturing company goes to work. That's in the statement of the example you made - 4th through 6th words.
If you invest the money you already have (note the other example starts with work, then gets money) in an alternative investment vehicle, you're spending money on an alternative investment vehicle. In this case, instead of going to work you're spending money.
The work that the person who works for a living does may help the business they work for make a profit. The investor is helping provide capital which someone who works for a living may be able to use in such a way to help the business be profitable. While the capital may or may not be useful, the investor isn't.
What if a manufacturer used OPM to finance the machines? Does the finance division cease to perform work in that instance?
The sharing economy is basically an end run around government oversight toward the false libertarian utopia of a "free" market.
Ever notice how Monopoly is super easy if you start with more money and property than everyone else?
^ and if you don't have regulations, taxes and insurance?
i just don't get your point alternative. earned income v. unearned income is pretty obvious to me. if it's more difficult for you, i gave you a link to how the irs defines it.
so what's your point? is there some sort of end goal to the repeated 'is this work?' tangent? surely there is some sort of clever 'aha' moment. just cut to the end and i'll pretend to 'aha.'
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