Taxi Driver Online

I started pointlessly posting and rucking with people on forums like TDO and its forerunners.

It seems to me that those wanting a free market do a couple of things when deregulating;

Primarily, they bring in age policies on vehicles (emissions standards now.....for the greater good).

Secondly, on the whole they introduce WAV only policies for at least those getting new licenses (for the greater good).

It is deregulation but with more regulation, this distorts the free market idea (for the greater good).

Indeed, fares are quite rightly regulated (for the greater good), which again, distorts the free market idea of supply and demand.

Of course we have those out there that say, well if they cannot make a living when they enter the market, tough. It was their risk and their choice, that is the capitalist system of supply and demand.

There are of course arguments to the contrary.

Primarily, we are all aware a good number of people only leave the market when they get their cabs repossessed......during which time because of the lack of funds the cabs are not serviced and are poorly maintained.

Secondly, the economic effects upon the person lead to debt and all that entails.

I would even suggest many of the regulations brought into the private hire industry are certainly contrary to what parliament intended when it considered the 1976 act (but they've been brought in for the greater good).

CC

:D


Delusional as well as self-serving.

You make some good arguments - for example your analysis of he LC's proposal - but your earlier personal comment reveals the usual scenario whereby your view of everyone in the trade ultimately depends on their position on restricted numbers, and this personalisation is especially evident in your own posts, where it reveals it's ugly head every now and again.

Which is why it's pointless getting into extended discussions.

Well if you can't see it there's no point in explaining.

No, you said the trade's saturation point would be reached when "all the space on all the roads in the whole country were to be populated by HC and PH to total gridlock point", which clearly isn't the case, and won't be in the future.

As for you comparison with other business sectors which I ignored, this is basically too crude an analysis of the market to be instructive. I mean look at any of the types of outlets you mention and there's plenty of competition in your average high street or mall, and plenty of over-capacity except at perhaps the weekends or at Xmas.

But many are still very profitable, basically because they offer a service or goods that the public want at the prices offered.

Anyway, it's pointless getting into extended discussions with people on the internet, a mistake I made almost ten years ago, so little point in repeating it again.

Yes many are profitable, but part of the reason they are is because space in the high street is limited and planning regulations would never allow all high street shops to be chips shops [for instance] to the exclusion of all other businesses.

Also, these businesses set their own prices to reflect their own expenses, something the cab trade cannot do at present

That's not an answer; just avoidance to justify guilt or a poor argument.