Tuesday morning links

Uber and Lyft are intriguing, but my wife has an odd view opposing them both. Her feeling is government NEEDS to manage cabs to make sure they are safe and clean. I pointed out with these apps, you can choose to not get in the cabs if they are not clean, and while safety is a concern, if anything happens it is traceable.

She then recounted a story of a cab ride she had in Boston. The driver was abusive, angry, driving too fast, probably taking a long route, etc. She said "if for no other reason, government intervention with cabs will prevent this kind of threat that I felt in that cab."

My response was a simple one: "The cab you were in was regulated by government, and yet you still felt threatened. I see nothing in that story which vindicates your viewpoint."

The problem, of course, is that this is my wife. So I'm wrong.

#3 Bulldog on 2014-06-17 09:33 (Reply)

of course you're wrong. The government makes everything better, can't have all that nasty private enterprise stuff...
All it does is create filthy rich capitalist pigs who steal poor peoples' money to line their own pockets...

Of course there's a rather nasty little secret in the taxi world, and that is that taxi permits are traded by the taxi companies and drivers themselves, not the government, with people trying to enter the market being forced to pay tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars per license, usually on a loan forced on them by those same taxi companies at excessive interest rates.

#3.1 J.T. Wenting on 2014-06-17 12:58 (Reply)

Thanks for clearing that up.
I just thought I was wrong because my wife says so, and once that's been settled I rarely go any further.

But you're right, of course. The government does make everything better.

I like my government with ice cream. And even then it's still pretty nasty.

#3.1.1 Bulldog on 2014-06-17 15:18 (Reply)

re Stuck in Traffic? Thanks, Obama!: Feds to Regulate Waze, Google Maps, and Other Navigation Apps

Indeed they do. The Regulator's work is never done.

It is a wonder we have any innovation at all.

I recall 0bama saying, "You didn't build that." A more accurate line would have been, "You can't do that."

"You can't do that." could be the slogan of our ruling masters.

#4 feeblemind on 2014-06-17 09:52 (Reply)

Has the Dept. of Homeland Security become America’s standing army? -

This Department is out of control...

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/friendswood/opinion/whitehead-has-the-dept-of-homeland-security-become-america-s/article_81acf508-4660-5e0a-87fc-fee9c447f61f.html

#4.1 feeblemind on 2014-06-17 11:04 (Reply)

2 1/2 more years of Obama's fundamental changing or America. Can we survive it? How many illegals can he bring across the border in 2 1/2 years? How much more land can Russia and China grab? How much more can our government borrow, print and tax us? Will our economy collapse first or will WW III beat it to the punch? Will the influx of legal and illegal immigrants, visa overstays and H1Bs put us all out of work or will Obama's great recession become a great depression first? Has all of this been an intentional Cloward and piven strategy to overwhelm us to destroy our country or has it simply been ineptitude and idiocracy at all levels of the administration? So many questions, so little time...

#5 GoneWithTheWind on 2014-06-17 10:20 (Reply)

The partition of Iraq matters, who controls the oil and the pipeline to Turkey?

Mildly surprised Mead et al has not seen the resurgence of Chinese nationalism that's been going on the past few years. Whether is ethnic Chinese mobs hunting muslims in Xinjiang , the reaction of the Chinese public to the pilot killed when he played rough with a USN P3, etc.

Nice to see Kerry and the VA reminding us of whats important to them.

The Administration playing word games on the border situation? Inconceivable, I say.

#6 walt moffett on 2014-06-17 11:49 (Reply)

Most of the illegal immigrants are what Border Patrol officials call OTMs. That is, while they are crossing into the United States from Mexico, they are actually from other countries -- in this case, mostly Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador -- and are classified as Other Than Mexican immigrants.

Children. Smuggled across Mexico by human traffickers and drug runners.

The question I have seen no one answer is what percentage that set out on this journey actually make it to the states and what is happening to those who don't.

Fucking disgusting. This country is too corrupt and stupid to survive.

#7 B Moe on 2014-06-17 19:50 (Reply)

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Tuesday, June 17. 2014

Tuesday morning links