Comments by "Kim O\x27Brien" (@kimobrien.) on "NYC Taxi Medallion Owners Are Screwed" video.

  1. The issued medallions so profits could be made by investors and multiple cab owners. Of course to cover their tracks they pretended they were helping the drivers. Drivers use to be union and get paid a commision on rides and companies paid all the expenses. Once the union was broken the bosses changed to the lease system so they could guarantee profits at the drivers expense. Uber pays a commision per ride but everything else comes out of the drivers pocket. They don't even tell their drivers what they will pay before you sign on and then its a take it or leave it policy. In which they take and then leave you with all the costs. The put out this propaganda that they are just a ride sharing application and not a big capitalist monopoly operation sucking billions in profit and stock value.
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  2. Free market capitalism can't exist because money and free markets go hand and hand with corruption and business secrets. So what business has decided to do is limit capitalist greed with rules and regulations. Dog eat Dog capitalism is at work here. All kinds of small to medium sized Taxi operators will be driven out and replaced with national taxi monopolies fighting for market share. Once they have been driven out prices for services will rise and service quality will drop. Profits always come first Only when working people strike and protest do things change.
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  3. There has never been a capitalism without corruption and cronies. It needed a government and revolutions to defeat the slaveholders in the US and the monarchies serfdom system in Europe. Initially capitalism was progressive. That ended with the war to end all wars where different national capitalist classes chose sides in a war over colonial empires. In order to protect the capitalist system and US foreign investment a huge military budget and continual threats of war and war are necessary to keep this corrupt system going. Capitalism no longer advances any new production or investment without adding more to its protection racket of a government to protect and advance monopoly capitalism. This battle between Uber and Lyft on one side vs the local taxi bosses is like what Walmart did to so many local retailers. Local, State and the Federal government are powerless to even enforce the regulations they impose on the taxi companies because big money does all the talking and makes all the important decisions.
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  4. Socialism does not come about by electing more Democratic party politicians and writing more regulations. It is the logical conclusion of the world wide class struggle. The class struggle is the result of capitalisms built in contradictions that it can not escape. Nor did Hitler end private property he merely organized it to crush all decent while he organized the ruling capitalist classes production forces to overturn the Treaty Of Versailles and make German capital the rulers of the world. Just because he called himself a National Socialist means nothing other than the word socialism is not trademarked like "Make America Great Again". The longest lasting Fascist government was that of General Francisco Franco of Spain who died in office. Private property under Franco a neutral ally of Hitler who did not directly participate in World war II was never under a threat from Franco either. Stalin became the leader of privileged socialist bureaucrats who sought to end the revolutionary course of Lenin and Trotsky. To do this required a massive purge and murder directed against all opposition and even the mildest criticism. The Moscow Trials found all of Lenin's original politburo guilty of fascism. One could conclude that Lenin made the second socialist revolution by surrounding himself with fascists except for Stalin himself. If one were to believe the bureaucracy and its supporters.
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  5. Socialism means the working class being in control of our lives instead of professional bean counters and capitalist governments issuing regulations aimed at controlling but not ending capitalist greed.
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  6. Answer to the first question is that utopian socialism is not possible because it must compete with the cheap labor that the capitalist exploiters use and invest (buy) the newest machinery. The workers are paid on average just what is needed to sustain life so their ability to buy their freedom from the capitalist is blocked much like the Black American slave being unable to buy his freedom. Only a few slaves could buy their freedom and the same applies to workers. If you want a further explanation I suggest "Socialism Utopian and Scientific" by Engles. Robert Owen a rich Cotton merchant and social reformer was the founder of New Lanark, Scotland commune is given praise for what he could and couldn't accomplish. Owen concluded that private property, marriage and religion stood in the way of creating communism despite it being both just and possible. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm Obviously for me to boycott life under capitalism will result in death unless I should join the libertarians and move to the jungle eating low hanging fruit and thereby avoiding the 'original sin' of collective labor. The communists choose the methods and ways to best push the class forward to victory. A general does not fight an enemy from the bottom of a cliff if he can come around and attack from behind trapping the enemy from retreating because of the same cliff.
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  7. As far as little successful communes Cuba is the example you are looking for. Its neighbor just 90 miles away has been waging hot, dirty and cold war against the people of Cuba and their choice of socialism. Economically and politically the "Socialism in one country" theory advanced by the old Stalinist regimes is not possible. One side must eventually win or lose. Cuba did not go back to capitalism because its leaders were not corrupted and cynical stalinists who put their privileges ahead of the world class struggle.
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  8. The price of labor is the average price of the cost to maintain a worker for the work period. Supply and demand comes in where the unemployed are used to keep the price of labor down and then workers join in a union to try boost their wages. That's called the class struggle and it is the most important thing for every worker and socialist to understand first before anything else. The capitalist doesn't earn his money he steals it when he sets two different prices one for the labor time paid and another for the labor time sold.
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  9. Medallions are a scam to begin with. It's a way to skim off profits for the owners and traders of medallions. Like other industries technological change is causing a drop in the value of older methods. The real winners are the bosses at Lyft and Uber. An MIT study says 3/4 of drivers working for the ride sharing companies earn an estimated $3.37 an hour while Uber claims it to be $15.68 After complaints by Uber the MIT researchers said the will take into account Ubers more optimistic assumptions.
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  10. Its not much different than how the original New England textile mill owners got their female wage slaves. Hay we can get you extra money as a farmer's wife as a textile mill loom operator (now a ride sharing driver). Uber and Lyft are worth massive amounts of money because they put all the actual costs of transportation and even the data time used on to the backs of the drivers. The use their market monopoly position to rake in the profits just like Bill Gates did with windows.
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  11. Your just another smart guy who thinks his job isn't 'menial' and he can't be replaced. Nevertheless the bosses have been successfully holding down the real price of labor since about 1973 such that real wages are no longer rising with productivity instead the wealth has all been going to the top. Lyft and Uber are just new taxi and limousine companies who will take the local markets much like Walmart has taken lots of smaller grocery and department store business. Like any boss they operate based on capitalist greed and fighting for market share. A study done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows these drivers at "ride share" companies earning on average of $3.33 an hour less than half the minimum wage. These bosses are taking advantage of laws that allows them to classify these workers as contractors instead of workers.
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  12. You've just admitted to one of the problems of capitalism in that it always throws out and reduces labor time yet the workers get no benefit from the increases in technology. If fact what happens is the return on investment in business wich become more capital intensive drops as new machinery replace the old. This leads to the capitalist not investing in new machinery but instead investing in new ways to create fictitious capital. This can only result in bigger and bigger crisis like 2008 when the law of value hits home.
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  13. No that's not the solution. Instead with socialism the workers don't get tossed out and told your on your own and find another job. With economic planning you can choose to make more or move some workers to another job where you will get free training or education without a cut in compensation. Adapt or die that's the attitude of the capitalists towards the workers. Coal is important in the manufacture of both steel and electricity. While coal production has been moving to open pits in the west even if Hillary Clinton were elected she could not replace coal in eight years time. Milkman is coming back in the form of grocery delivery service. Whales are endangered by US military submarines. Uber is a party to breaking capitalist law because of their claims that agreeing to a terms of service agreement covers everything that the drivers and passengers need. insurance companies are screaming about not being able to charge commercial rates for the vehicles being used and are refusing to pay for accidents. Ride with Uber at your own risk. Hope you have a good ambulance chaser if your hurt.
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  14. Ride with Uber at your own risk.I hope you have a good ambulance chaser if your hurt. See Uber will claim that they contract out their rides and its the vehicle owners responsibility for insurance. The vehicle owners insurance will claim that the vehicle owner didn't pay for commercial insurance and refuse to pay. Have fun suing someone who is so hungry that they choose Uber as a job. You can't get blood out of a stone. You might be able to get the vehicles totaled value but I'd sell it for scarp cash value and hide all my assets.
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  15. Most people like you don't know what work is anyhow. No one expects you to do a job to begin with. You think someone like Bill Gates is a genius because he is a great manipulator that started with a million dollar trust fund.
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  16. "The information is out there..." and so are the X Files.
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  17. Uber and Lyft are just newer exploiters of labor. Divers pay all the costs of actual transportation including the data used to communicate with the company.
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  18. In Connecticut Taxi and Limo drivers are required to pass DOT medical exams and carry a DOT medical card. Uber and Lyft are exempt? I don't know why because we are told that anyone carrying passengers for hire needs to have both a CT State Police and FBI criminal history check and DOT medical exam so a passenger endorsement of F can be put on your licence.
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  19. Most big cities adopted a medallion law to give the incumbents a closed market. Once when the market was closed than taxi operating companies could buy up medallions and raise prices which were also set by the government intervention to make profits.
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  20. Uber's profits are probably being reinvested in new areas and other countries to beat out the competition like Lyft.
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