Uber Now Outnumbers NYC's Yellow Cabs

this must really going to affect taxi medallion prices which I believe is a source of revenue for NY.

It's to a point of where are you going to draw the line.

Look at the subsidies farmers get for not growing crops or price supports for commodities. Nothing wrong with that....... until.

And this is what I don't like, even though this does work, and when it does, it creates a profitable price to the farmers, then the government goes political and uses this by importing these same commodities for diplomatic leverage.

And on the home front, claims that they need to do this because of the short supply compared to the demand.

Say your at work and someone from outside your immediate employment comes in and wants to give you a bonus for doing your job and then someone else from the same outside source comes along again when you are out of work and wants to give you a bonus now for not doing your job.

Are you going to turn down the money either time even if you are living within your own budget based on your pay level you made without any bonuses?

The majority of farmers here do work and live within their budgets but very few are dumb enough to not take free money from idiots while they are handing it out which is partly why and how our state came to be sitting on a financial surplus of over a billion dollars from well before the oil industry showed up and started piling more on us when the rest of the US was going bankrupt despite there were less than 640,000 of us living here.

It's not our fault idiots from above our states level want to give us money for doing our jobs or not doing our jobs just the same. Believe me politically we as a state are not interesting or influential enough to get that sort of kickbacks for being who we are let alone for believing in what we do.

I agree with you,

Its interesting here in Wisconsin, there are local county extension office as well as cheese factory's that pushed farmer to get larger, offering grants and incentives.... only for some of the larger farming operations to collect the money and grants and then break the contract.

In these same areas, the smaller family farms (400-500 acres with approx. 70 milk cows.) these same cheese plants (Some not all) and local county extension office do not want to waste their time on these smaller. So the moneys are tighter for these to get it. Yet its these smaller farmers, that not only pay there bills on time, they are the same type of what you talk about. And that is being practical.

But to add to that, I see the trend that the cheese plant now are beginning to take is that the smaller operations are not only loyal, but their quality is higher.

I felt that get the government out and 'let the smarter operations survive'..... which may not be the larger operations.

btw, my brother just purchase a used Steiger Tractor... a product from North Dakota.... or at least they use to be.

"But to add to that, I see the trend that the cheese plant now are beginning to take is that the smaller operations are not only loyal, but their quality is higher."

The cheese plants (corporation owned, I'm guessing) are beginning to see that the smaller (family-owned) dairy farms are more loyal, and better quality than the larger (corporate-owned) dairy farms?

Corporations are turning their backs on other Corporations? That's... well, that's par for the course at the corporate level, "It's nothing personal, I just make more money stabbing you in the back than I do NOT stabbing you in the back, so here's a knife in your kidney." but it's the fact that they're not leaving one corporation for another, but instead courting business from PEOPLE-owned businesses. That feels as unnatural as a wolf stalking a pig in a cornfield ... to buy corn from the pig. It's still a better result than the bloody mess you'd usually get from wolf-pig encounters, but it's so out-off-character for the wolf that it makes one stop and stare, slack-jawed.

We started in the late 1940's to ship milk to Lake to Lake cooperative a truly farmer owned plant. (World Champion Cheddar Cheese a number of times)

Back in the 80's Land 'O Lakes bought Lake to Lake cooperative, that's when at the cooperative meetings they pushed big is better, you gotta go big. And the plants started to cater to the larger farms and ignore the smaller farm operators. The smaller farmers started to leave and after over 50 years we did also. They (Land O' Lakes) started to suffer they didn't realize that a good portion of their supply was made up from the small farmer. Then they had cash flow issues..... First they started selling their most profitable division (Fluid Milk) back in the late 1990's. Then they started to close cheese making plants.

There are some large privately own cheese plants.... Belgioioso Cheese is one..... they started around 1977 own by an Italian family, the last 20 or so years they been building a new plant or expanding every 3-5 years. the have 7-8 plant by now.

It also doesn't help that cheese making is such a "traditional" business. Change is hard for these folks and sometimes things do not go as the government would like. Hand mixing is one of those traditions that GMP, QA, and HAACP people hate. The problem is, when you do not physically put your hand in the milk curd the cheese will not taste the same. So once a BIG corporation takes over all of those thing have to happen and it ruins the cheese. how a milk cow is fed also effects the cheese but corporate overlords have no clue about such things. We hear this all the time here. Our company has been producing the cultures for over a century. (Marshal/Danisco) Now DuPont. They kept the Danisco name as a "hero" brand.

Just try to get a cheese maker to buy the culture in a frozen plastic bag instead of the little can he has been using for years. I struggle almost daily to keep an old turn of the last century Panama canner running. LOL

So once a BIG corporation takes over all of those thing have to happen and it ruins the cheese.

So true, Lake to Lake made an excellent Brick. when Land O' Lakes took over, the quality as well as consistency of the cheese dropped.

The Italian company that I mention.... they wanted it to be the tradition hand-on process...... only automated.... USDA-3A had another thing to say about that.

And when they a had large recall on their soft cheeses, that was a wake up call.

This is a little off topic,..... but the basis may be on target.

You must also consider the rise of the neighborhood Farmers Markets, which is from field to consumer with money directly into the farmer's pocket. Too small of a scale, yet works well in smaller communities...

I wouldn't really call it a rise of something new. Those have been around as long as farming has been in existence and I wouldn't call them a new small scale thing either.

In most large cities there are farmers markets of sorts that take up entire city blocks of space and run sun up to sun down seven days a week with dozens of individual sellers all working together.

One thing I have noticed here on the line between urban and rural, are these roadside farm stands that offer "homegrown" produce before it is even in season around here.

My brother-in-law and sister produce maple syrup. Which my sister has a website that sells caramel popcorn (not really popcorn but process corn curls similar to this with the caramel maple syrup coating) as well as granola and a trial mix made with maple syrup.

There's an organic outlet that sells their caramel popcorn as organic..... I thought there was government regulation on this.

By the way, (organics aside) it makes a great Christmas gift when bought direct....

oh, oh..... we're going commercial.

CASH Sales..... ^{I hope I didn't say that out loud}..... Always was the farmers best friend for a very long time.

The farmers market never really went away. Co-Op gardening is what's taking hold.

My Grandmother, in Kansas, on a farm with 7 kids, made do with Egg Money, and saved enough so that she and Granddad could buy their first car, for $200…This was in the 20's…He drove a Petroleum products supply truck, for Sconey Vacuum, and would take the eggs along on his route, as many people were unable to raise chickens of their own, for one reason or another..

What are the added insurance costs for an Uber driver?

It's more than just insurance....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2015/02/20/the-hidden-costs-of-being-an-uber-driver/

Taxi licensing is a government sanctioned monopoly...

http://missionlocal.org/2009/05/mta-poised-to-crack-down-on-unlicensed-taxis/

Insurance is parasitic

The only bit that works well is the premium

You ask for help and they do their best to get out of paying

I experience both ways..

they paid no questions

or

I don't hear from them. (this is the type of insurance that you pay and then turn it into the insurance company)

Here in Wisconsin, our Governor just signed into law a bill that was written by ALEC that pretty much eliminates local control over these services, (Uber and Lyft) it does conatin some requirements like a million dollar insurance policy and criminal background checks done by the Police not the company. Of course the union backed liberals are screaming bloody murder and the neo cons are touting Free market.

So far no one outside the legislature has seen that actual bill. Incidentally, the Governor signed it on Friday night in private and then his office tweeted the fact. Not exactly in line with "sunshine" regulations. We shall see.

Currently there are several criminal investigations in cities around the state resulting from driver behavior so that too will be an issue I am sure.

It seems all bills are written by ( )

1. ALEC
2. Public Sector Union
3. Soros
4. Koch
5. etc.....

Curious

Does the statement "Uber drivers are far better paid than yellow-cab drivers" account for total cost of ownership (TCO) or use of their personal vehicle? Does the better pay offset the TCO?

Perhaps Vehicle TCO is considered a wash considering that the Uber driver may be headed to the same destination or close to it.

Although I am not proud of it, I seem to recall that Homer Simpson had his own taxi service.

You may have confused Uber with Goober.

The future of UBER: