omg this is amazing pic.twitter.com/TOlAIKvPl5
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 14, 2018
Author: Harold Pollack
Harold Pollack is Helen Ross Professor of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. He has served on three expert committees of the National Academies of Science. His recent research appears in such journals as Addiction, Journal of the American Medical Association, and American Journal of Public Health. He writes regularly on HIV prevention, crime and drug policy, health reform, and disability policy for American Prospect, tnr.com, and other news outlets. His essay, "Lessons from an Emergency Room Nightmare" was selected for the collection The Best American Medical Writing, 2009. He recently participated, with zero critical acclaim, in the University of Chicago's annual Latke-Hamentaschen debate. View all posts by Harold Pollack
In the early 1980s, "WKRP in Cincinnati" was a popular sitcom set in a rock and roll radio station. In the opening segment, they would play a soundtrack of someone in a car flipping through the dial as various quick clips come and go. In one of them, the announcer says, "…and though the senator denies he was intoxicated, he could not explain his nudity."
For some reason, that little opening has come to mind in recent days. Cannot imagine why.
OK, hate to be an idiot, but maybe I'm a news cycle or two behind. Who are those guys?
Some explanation and more photos here.
I don't claim to understand it fully either. New York is the Amazon rainforest of lowlife diversity. Men in Black had it right: if there were alien visitors, in no time they'd have a street with seedy bars, mind-altering substances and sexual entertainment of choice, gangsters, and tame lawyers like Michael Cohen.
Calling Mark on the bent taxi medallion angle. The system looks to me like an invitation to crime. London does this better: pass the insanely demanding geographical knowledge test, buy an expensive bespoke taxi, show a clean criminal record and driving license, and away you go.
Some explanation and more photos here.
I don't claim to understand it fully either. New York is the Amazon rainforest of lowlife diversity. Men in Black had it right: if there were alien visitors from Altair, in no time they'd have a Little Altair street with seedy bars, mind-altering substances and sexual entertainment of choice, gangsters, and tame lawyers like Michael Cohen.
Calling Mark on the bent taxi medallion angle. The system looks to me like an invitation to crime. London does this better: pass the insanely demanding geographical knowledge test, buy an expensive bespoke taxi, show a clean criminal record and driving license, and away you go.
[oof, unrelated to the point of the OP, but] a different way in which the taxi medallion "market" is evil, is that it's a government-mandated creation of an "asset" that is then the basis of property claims. It's rent-seeking, full stop. And sure, so are patents, but at least there's a shred of an argument that patents are a good way to foster innovation. In the case of medallions, regulation should be enough, and absent regulation medallions don't do anything other than constrain supply (hence raising rates, hence rent-seeking). Ugh. There shouldn't be any medallions — only regulation, and the sort of regulation used in London Is. A. Good. Start.