Gauging The Economic Impact Of Uber

Authored by Andrew Zatlin via MoneyballEconomics.com,

Uber has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons over these past couple months.

I’m sure you’ve seen or heard the headlines.

From sexual harassment, to discrimination, to “Greyball” – software that helped Uber drivers evade law enforcement.

Everything seems to be imploding for Uber. Amidst all the controversy, CEO Travis Kalanick resigned yesterday.

Yet we should not overlook the major economic impact of Uber (and its main competitor Lyft).

According to Uber and Lyft, there are over 400,000(K) registered active drivers in the US.  

An active driver is someone who has provided at least 4 rides per month.

The number of taxi and limo drivers reached 77K in 2013 – an increase of 18% from 2010. Taxi and limo driver payrolls hit 8K in 2015 and 2016. But dropped to 76K this year… essentially leaving payrolls flat for the last 4 years.

You could even argue the 5% decline in payrolls this year were taxi and limo drivers jumping ship to Uber.

But looking from an even higher view,  we now have 400K part-time contractors.

These part-time contractors are not included in the non-farm payrolls numbers.  So any employment upside is being missed in the government data.

Who Wins, Who Loses?

Uber & Lyft will generate $8 billion (bn) in revenue in 2017.  

The U.S. Taxi industry generates $19B annually (per IBIS World).

This hasn’t changed much even with the advent of the ride-sharing economy.  Which means that Uber is not replacing the taxi industry as much as it is augmenting it by releasing pent-up demand.

Understand that the taxi industry is a local monopoly.  New York, LA, Las Vegas, San Francisco – the taxi rights are owned by individual companies.

The origins of the U.S. regulated taxi industry goes back to the Depression.  

To make ends meet… car owners offered ride-sharing. But supply overwhelmed demand and prices plunged.  

To prop up workers, cities began to regulate the industry in order to limit the number of drivers. They created a limited number of licenses (aka medallions) which they sold.  

Eventually a market emerged for those medallions and some smart business people began to scoop them up. Some became billionaires by doing this.

(The fight against Uber is really a fight between billionaire monopolists and a monopoly-busting service. Banks also have a heavy interest in keeping the taxi industry alive because they borrowed a ton of money to buy up the medallions.)

But limiting the number of licensed taxis also capped the number of rides.

If you’ve been to San Francisco, you know hailing a cab is pointless. There aren’t very many.  

As Uber is showing, massive pent-up demand has existed and is generating $8bn of incremental economic activity that is being distributed across hundreds of thousands of workers.

Is Uber Cyclical (part of a booming economy), Counter-cyclical (part of trying to make ends meet), or a bit of both?

There are full-time Uber drivers but most are part-time drivers trying to supplement their income.

An active economy creates the demand for drivers. But when the economy turns down, we’ll likely see even more drivers but less demand. Unlike the Depression, price regulation will be in place because Uber has to make a profit somehow.

KEY TAKEAWAY: Uber has disrupted the ride-sharing economy. However, the government, banks, and taxi monopolists won’t allow Uber to completely put them out of business… at least for the foreseeable future.

When the economy turns, more people will take up driving (increasing supply) as consumers pull back their wallets (decreasing demand). Prices will drop.

Eventually more regulation will be put in place for companies like Uber and Lyft.

Cab Drivers Union Says Chicago Taxi Industry Near Collapse

By Jeff Schuhrke of In These Times

In addition to repaying loans on their medallions, taxi operators also have to pay thousands of dollars each year in city expenses, like the ground transportation tax and medallion license renewal fee—expenses that rideshare drivers are not subject to. (Cab Drivers United/ Twitter)  

Ghana-born John Aikins has been a cab driver in Chicago for two decades. About 15 years ago, he decided to go into business for himself by taking out a loan with his wife to purchase a medallion—a city-issued license to operate a taxi—for $70,000. Paying it off within a few years thanks to a steady stream of passengers, they took out loan for a second medallion five years ago, using the first as collateral. Watching his medallions appreciate in value over the years, Aikins planned to eventually sell or lease them to other drivers, a common practice in the industry. “I hoped it would be my retirement investment, and I had planned to retire this year,” Aikins told In These Times.

But with the introduction of Uber and other rideshare companies to the city—which can operate without the expensive, city-issued medallions—Aikins has seen his clientele plummet over the past three years, making it increasingly hard to keep up with his medallion loan payments.

Across the city, the number of taxi rides dropped from 2.29 million in January 2014 to 1.1 million in January 2017, according to a report released recently by Cab Drivers United, AFSCME Local 2500 (CDU).

As a result, the average monthly income per medallion has fallen by $2,000 during the same time.

“Getting to the end of last year, things had changed so drastically,” Aikins said. “We just couldn’t make it.” After recently receiving a notice of foreclosure on his medallions, his retirement plans are now on hold.

Aikins is hardly alone. In the past three years, more than 1,300 taxi medallions in the city have either been surrendered to the city or put into foreclosure status, while another 100 or so are facing repossession through lawsuits by lenders, according to the CDU report.

This foreclosure crisis is hurting small family businesses most of all, CDU contends. Of the 6,999 taxi medallions in the city, 39 percent belong to small owner/operators, like Aikins, who own four or fewer medallions.

“Because of the misconception that the taxi industry is just big fleets, the fact that thousands of small businesses are disproportionately being hurt by this crisis is too often overlooked,” said Tracey Abman, associate director of AFSCME Council 31. “The taxi industry is really about providing decent, full-time jobs—or was—for drivers.”

In addition to repaying loans on their medallions, taxi operators also have to pay thousands of dollars each year in city expenses, like the ground transportation tax and medallion license renewal fee—expenses that rideshare drivers are not subject to.

CDU says the number of rideshare vehicles in Chicago now exceeds 227,000, while 42 percent of the city’s taxis didn’t pick up a single passenger this March. The union stresses that the decline of the taxi industry is a loss for the broader public. Unlike most rideshare vehicles, taxis serve people without bank accounts by accepting cash, and they also have more stringent requirements on providing access to people with disabilities.

Aikins says he doesn’t fault the rideshare industry for his current predicament, but instead blames the city.

“We are so saddled with rules and taxes and renewal fees, and the city hasn’t done anything to relieve us,” he said. “It looks like they are just waiting for us to die off.”

Last summer, the City Council was poised to pass new regulations on rideshare companies, which CDU hoped would help create fairer competition. The original ordinance would have required fingerprint background checks on rideshare drivers and would have mandated that at least 5 percent of all rideshare vehicles be wheelchair-accessible—rules comparable to those imposed on the taxi industry.

After the last-minute intervention of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, however, a watered-down version of the ordinance was passed that removed the original provisions on fingerprinting and wheelchair accessibility. While the final version requires rideshare drivers to obtain special chauffeur licenses, it allows them to complete the necessary training online instead of through the expensive in-person classes taxi drivers must attend.

Critics have accused Emanuel of being biased in favor of rideshare companies, particularly Uber. His brother Ari—a Hollywood agent and the inspiration for Jeremy Piven’s character on HBO’s Entourage—is an Uber investor. Also, the mayor’s former chief of staff became an Uber executive not long after passage of last year’s ordinance. Earlier this year, Emanuel’s Obama administration colleague and former Uber executive David Plouffe was fined $90,000 by the Chicago Board of Ethics after it was revealed he illegally lobbied the mayor on behalf of the rideshare giant in 2015.

With no help from the city, Aikins turned to Cab Drivers United for assistance after receiving his foreclosure notice. Formed in 2014, CDU is a non-traditional union in that it does not bargain contracts, since labor laws classify taxi drivers as “independent contractors” rather than “employees.” Made up of hundreds of dues-paying members and a network of thousands of activists, CDU provides educational workshops for drivers, connects them to legal services and organizes them to pressure lawmakers for fairer treatment.

Furqan Mohammed, a private attorney whose firm partners with CDU, said he has talked with over 100 owner/operators like Aikins facing foreclosure in recent months.

“Some of these drivers will owe upwards of $250,000 on these medallions, yet the underlying asset is worth maybe $50,000 if you can even find a willing buyer,” he said.

With CDU’s help, Aikins contacted an attorney who recently helped him file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in an effort to save his livelihood. Mohammed said his law firm is assisting many owner/operators to restructure their medallion loans, but he called it only a “temporary solution.”

Longer-term, CDU is calling on the city to ease the financial burdens of taxi drivers, including eliminating the medallion license renewal fee and waiving the ground transportation tax for struggling owner/operators.

The ground transportation tax—paid once every two years—is due at the end of June. Aikins said the tax for two years is about $2,000.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “The city knows we don’t have the money.”

“If the city were to create a hardship waiver for the ground transportation tax literally in the next few weeks, that would send a signal to these small owner/operators that the city does care about them and is prepared to work on a more comprehensive package for reform,” AFSCME’s Abman said.

“If relief is not provided [in the coming weeks] we will see much more decimation of the industry,” she warned. “Time is of the essence.”

The full report from Cab Drivers Union

How Space Tourists Will Benefit From No Government Regulation

Via The Daily Bell

Space tourism industry has a chance to show benefits of less regulation

If space truly is the final frontier, then it won’t be long until the first pioneers are making the journey, as several companies race to take paying passengers out of the Earth’s atmosphere and beyond. And true to form, right on its heels will be the regulators, red tape lassos in hand.

But like any brand new industry, the slight head start of the businesses will give them the opportunity to show the high standards that can be accomplished absent government control — and with any luck, they can do it in a way compelling enough to cast doubt on the “necessity” of regulation.

A March 20 article in Quartz about space tourism details the thus-far minimal regulatory burden on the burgeoning industry and questions how passengers will be protected without the “benefit” of tight regulations.

The first spaceflight participants will be guinea pigs in an experiment that asks: Just what does it mean to be safe in space when the government isn’t in charge?

The obvious answer, to those who believe in the power of market-driven incentives, is that space tourism will likely be safer with minimal government intervention than it would be with tight regulations and oversight, since the companies will police themselves, as Blue Origin Executive Erika Wagner says in the article.

Wagner recently told an audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ‘ . . . in terms of us having a safe place in the market, we take that seriously, we want to put our own families on board, we take that very seriously. So we are holding ourselves to internal standards.’

The case for strict government regulation is built on some faulty beliefs about humanity and behavior. It assumes that people in business are at their core unconcerned about other people and are motivated solely by profit. It assumes in contrast, that those people in government are the complete opposite, motivated only by altruism and never by self-interest. On this questionable foundation is built the assertion that the people in government must regulate the people in business so that the interests of customers and the public at large are protected.

It is easy enough to strike down these arguments. First, this stark divide between the values of businessmen and politicians does not exist. Good or bad personality traits can be found within any group, and I would argue that you’ll actually find disproportionately more politicians on the self-interested end of the spectrum than in other career paths, because politics either attracts or creates those kinds of people.

In any event, there is not a neutral ruling elite that can sit above the fray, benevolently handing down edicts to keep the otherwise-evil businesses in check. Politicians and regulatory agencies have a dog in the fight too, be it money, connections, political pressure, or desire for power.

But for argument’s sake, let’s assume the worst of businesses and the best of government. Even in this case, the goal for both parties is the same: safe space travel. At their most altruistic, regulators want it because they don’t want people to die. At their worst, space travel businesses want it because death and injury is bad for business.

Any company, whether they are building and flying rockets or simply selling sandwiches, needs to have customers to stay in business. Blue Origin, SpaceX, Boeing and Virgin Galactic — all companies planning to fly people out into space — won’t be able to keep customers if people aren’t flying back to Earth intact.

And unlike the mistakes of a sandwich shop, which might never make the front page news, in a pioneering industry like commercial space flight, you can bet every potential customer on earth would hear about the company’s missteps. As safety risks increase, customers will decrease, and if that balance gets out of whack, the company will fail.

Not all customers desire the same level of safety. And that’s OK. When regulations are minimal, companies can cater to whatever customer base they want. Riskier or more expensive products or services will  have a smaller customer base than those that are safer or cheaper.

Perhaps each space tourism company will use this formula to choose a different niche; companies could advertise that they tested their spacecraft the most, or offer the least expensive weightlessness experience, or orbit the earth the fastest.  In this way, less regulation gives the consumer more choices, while regulation would restrict some of these options, eliminating the preferences of some customers while simultaneously crippling those niche businesses.

“Minimal” Regulation

What does “minimal” regulation look like in the space tourism industry? Right now, it’s governed by the Commercial Space Act, which establishes the Secretary of Transportation as the governing authority. The Secretary has the power to grant launch licenses to rockets, which can include requirements on crew training and medical standards.

The license holder must inform crew and passengers in writing about the risks involved in space travel, and let them know that the United States Government has not certified the launch vehicle as safe for carrying crew or space flight participants. The Secretary can also restrict rocket design features or operating practices that have resulted in serious or fatal injury or a high risk thereof.

By many standards, that amount of regulation is already too much. It’s not that these rules are especially onerous or illogical; it’s just that they are unnecessary. Crew members and paying customers are voluntarily participating in space flight — a non-essential service, moreover — through the company. Therefore, customers and employees should work directly with the company to ensure a satisfactory experience. The company can then meet those demands or lose those customers and workers. They can cut out the middleman of regulation because there is no one to protect; all parties are already satisfied, and customers are signing up in droves. According to the article, Virgin Galactic has accrued 700 paid passengers since 2005.

The article cites Uber as a close example of how the space travel industry could expect to pave its own way:

Because the slate is still blank for how the federal government will treat the space business, the earliest companies will be in a position to set the tone, much as Uber’s regulatory battles laid the groundwork for the still tetchy relationship between cities and ride-hailing apps.

This is a fitting analogy, but frustrating if space tourism goes the way of ride-hailing apps. Because Uber and others like it are another example of a business in which regulators tried to fix problems that didn’t exist. Everyone involved was already happy. And yet because of pressure from the highly-regulated taxi companies, politicians implemented regulations to handcuff ride-sharing companies as well, under the guise of consumer protection.

In my home state of Massachusetts, for example, a bill regulating ride-sharing companies required Uber drivers to complete a two-part background check, carry insurance coverage of at least $1 million, and have their vehicles get a second safety inspection in addition to the annual inspection required of all registered cars. And—perhaps the biggest affront— the law required the companies to pay 20 cents per ride to the state, which will fund public transportation, including the taxi industry. The bill was signed into law last August, adding Massachusetts to the long list of states that punish and restrict the ride-sharing app companies while buoying their competitors.

Yet Uber and other ride-sharing app companies have largely survived the onslaught of regulations because the service they offer is so attractive, not only from a practical standpoint, but also a symbolic one. It gives both customers and drivers freedom and self-determination, the ability to set their own hours, choose their own route.

And that’s just ground transportation. It’s hard to imagine a more freeing experience than blasting off in a rocket to outer space, quite literally extricating oneself from earthly cares. So while we will likely see a shorter leash on space tourism companies as the industry matures and regulators catch up, these pioneering companies have a chance to demonstrate that they can be self policing. They can prove that private industry can safely, astonishingly, and beautifully launch people into the final frontier — and bring them home again.

A new age is dawning. Will governments be left in the dust?

Cab Industry On Verge Of Collapse? Capital One's Taxi NPL Rate Soars Above 50%

Having abandoned its venture to lend out roughly $1 billion to legacy Taxi "Medallion" drivers and businesses some two years ago, and shifting its backing over to Uber resulting in many unhappy drivers as well as a handful of lawsuits, Capital One has nonetheless provided a useful spotlight into the troubled state of the traditional "yellow cab" industry by breaking out the details of its runoff commercial taxi medallion loan portfolio in its quarterly reports.

And according to the latest, just released report (in which COF incidentally missed both the top and the bottom line, reported EPS and revenue of $1.45 and $6.60 billion, both below expectations), the US taxicab industry must be on the verge of collapse, because in COF"s Q4 report, the company reported that while the size of its runoff Medallion "held for investment" loans tumbled by $83 million from $773MM to $690MM, it was the surge in the nonperforming loan rate that was the stunner: surging from 38.8% in Q3 to a whopping 51.5% in Q4, it suggests that legacy cab drivers in the US are not only barely making money, but are in financial dire straits.

Of course, the irony is that the Medallion industry"s biggest nemesis, Uber, is likewise burning through billions in venture capital cash every year in hopes of putting its legacy competitor out of business. And, if these Capital One numbers are any indication, it may soon succeed.

Driverless Shuttles Hit Las Vegas: No Steering Wheels, No Brake Pedals

Submitted by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Electric, driverless shuttles with no steering wheel and no brake pedal are now operating in Las Vegas.

There’s a new thrill on the streets of downtown Las Vegas, where high- and low-rollers alike are climbing aboard what officials call the first driverless electric shuttle operating on a public U.S. street.

The oval-shaped shuttle began running Tuesday as part of a 10-day pilot program, carrying up to 12 passengers for free along a short stretch of the Fremont Street East entertainment district.

The vehicle has a human attendant and computer monitor, but no steering wheel and no brake pedals. Passengers push a button at a marked stop to board it.

The shuttle uses GPS, electronic curb sensors and other technology, and doesn’t require lane lines to make its way.

“The ride was smooth. It’s clean and quiet and seats comfortably,” said Mayor Carolyn Goodman, who was among the first public officials to hop a ride on the vehicle developed by the French company Navya and dubbed Arma.

“I see a huge future for it once they get the technology synchronized,” the mayor said Friday.

The top speed of the shuttle is 25 mph, but it’s running about 15 mph during the trial, Navya spokesman Martin Higgins said.

Higgins called it “100 percent autonomous on a programmed route.”

“If a person or a dog were to run in front of it, it would stop,” he said.

Higgins said it’s the company’s first test of the shuttle on a public street in the U.S. A similar shuttle began testing in December at a simulated city environment at a University of Michigan research center.

The vehicle being used in public was shown earlier at the giant CES gadget show just off the Las Vegas Strip.

Las Vegas city community development chief Jorge Cervantes said plans call for installing transmitters at the Fremont Street intersections to communicate red-light and green-light status to the shuttle.

He said the city hopes to deploy several autonomous shuttle vehicles — by Navya or another company — later this year for a downtown loop with stops at shopping spots, restaurants, performance venues, museums, a hospital and City Hall.

At a cost estimated at $10,000 a month, Cervantes said the vehicle could be cost-efficient compared with a single bus and driver costing perhaps $1 million a year.

The company said it has shuttles in use in France, Australia, Switzerland and other countries that have carried more than 100,000 passengers in more than a year of service.

Don’t Worry Tax Drivers

Don’t worry taxi drivers because some of my readers say …

1. This will never work


2. There is no demand


3. Technology cost will be too high


4. Insurance cost will be too high


5. The unions will not allow it


6. It will not be reliable


7. Vehicles will be stolen


8. It cannot handle snow, ice, or any adverse weather.


9. It cannot handle dogs, kids, or 80-year old men on roller skates who will suddenly veer into traffic causing a clusterfack that will last days.


10. This is just a test, and testing will never stop.

Real World Analysis

Those in the real world expect millions of long haul truck driving jobs will vanish by 2020-2022 and massive numbers of taxi job losses will happen simultaneously or soon thereafter.

Yes, I bumped up my timeline by two years (from 2022-2024 to 2020-2022) for this sequence of events.

My new timeline is not all tremendously optimistic given the rapid changes we have seen.