Seems like an odd emotional link. That we’re supposed to support this person’s edge retirement plan by making hailing cabs suck for users.
What if someone invested in Exxon. Spent $1.1M and was relying on the dividend yield (4.6% btw-http://www.dividend.com/dividend-stocks/basic-materials/majo...). And in twenty years renewables make Exxon tank.
Would we feel sympathy? I would, a little as people losing their life’s savings is sad.
But investing your whole nest egg in one thing is bad. Investing it in a thing that causes misery is even worse. Investing in a thing with artificial scarcity is further worse.
Putting a million into medallions because they’ve risen in value for 80 years is dumb. The article is also disingenuous as there were lots of investment firms buying these. Why only show this one example of a single owner.
This guy’s firm owned 500 in 2005, valued at $200M. https://www.nysun.com/business/new-york-citys-biggest-owner-...
This was a $5B market back then if all 13,605 medallions were worth $400k each. These weren’t mostly owned by mom and pop individual owners.