"cash that rendered a NY cab's owner/operator 6-figure financed medalion license worthless"

Doesn't it strike you that if licenses for a banal service like taxi are that expensive, that this likely indicates political corruption?

Good riddance to this sort of rent-seeking. I wonder if the NYC taxi service was provided by the mob.

In Central Europe, I don't have to wonder. Prior to Uber, the local taxi services were operated by the mob, and the taxi drivers basically robbed naive tourists through exorbitant, illegal prices. Stories of rape or abuse of intoxicated women abound. Some of the drivers were so sketchy and creepy that people refused to board their cars. Scammy Prague taxi service was legendary, but by far the worst sort of tracksuit-and-gun wearing mobsters behind the wheel I ever encountered was in late 1990s Bratislava.

This ugly rotten web was swept clean by Uber, where people have a reputation to maintain. Thanks god. My wife is no longer afraid to take a cab at night. Hooray.