Thursday, May 23, 2019

Buy Baby Buy

"buy baby buy this bubble will never burst" What's going on, what is hot off the press?  New York Times investigation- The Taxi medallion scam- Wasn't Michael Cohen involved in that dirty business? Yes- what was Cohen sentenced to for being shady? I forget- Tell me more about the scam- It was set up just like Fannie Mae Freddie Mac adjustable rate mortgages- predatory lending and taking advantage of immigrants- Just like the victims of the Herbal life MLM fraudsters many of these people have no real recourse-
  It was set up with a lot of creative design in such a way that what transpired wasn't even technically illegal.  Huge profits where many of the victims had no recourse because many are illegal immigrants. The sex slaves coming in from China involved as victims of  human trafficking rings are afraid of being locked up by ICE. The taxi medallion victims were just taken advantage of since the business model  doesn't seem to be technically illegal. What is the difference between illegal and immoral, its all in the eye of the beholder.
  Artificially driving up prices of taxi medallions that was led according to the Times by a handful of powerful industry leaders. Huge profits for the bankers, lawyers, brokers, fleet owners and debt collectors. It encouraged refinancing, risky loans where people overpaid to inflate prices-From 200k in 02 to $1,000,000 by 2014 and that is when the bubble burst. The Taxi Limo commission was supposed to regulate instead they just idly stood by and watched it all happen- The industry cheerleader was on Fox business news talking about what a great business it was (even better then the stock market)  although he was already planning his exit. Exploitive loans where the drivers had no real choice but to have a medallion, that was the only way to compete.
  When people couldn't pay back their predatory loans it was time to garnish their wages through forced judgments. After their medallions were seized they were confiscated only to be sold for profit. This worked out very well for the capitalists because the victims still were obligated to continue to pay off their high interest loans. So as the Uber drivers picketed and protested over low wages before the IPO it wasn't too long ago that the medallion owners in NYC and elsewhere were jumping off the high towers of low finance. 

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