And While We are on the Subject of Uber………

It appears that they retaliated against one of their drivers for talking to the press:

An Uber driver who critiqued the company’s top-brass at a highly publicized event now tells the San Francisco Examiner he’s facing backlash from the tech company.

Last Friday Eric Barajas, a Bay Area-based Uber driver who works in San Francisco, leveled criticism to Uber which garnered exposure in national news. The next day, he said, he was unable to get fares via the Uber app.

Barajas showed the Examiner video of two phones with two Uber driver accounts side by side, one showing “pings” for ride requests, while Barajas’ phone had no pings. Now he says he isn’t sure what to do – his three children and wife depend on his earnings to live, and without his income from Uber he may face dire financial straits.

The Examiner contacted Uber, and only an hour after a phone conversation with an Uber spokeswoman, Barjas saw his account suddenly reactivated.

He also reported “strange” modifications to his profile and Uber login screen, what he said are clear signs Uber was trying to shore up the story they told this reporter.

“You call them, and then its active,” Barajas told the Examiner. “That says to me they’re trying to cover their tracks.”

He still worries that his account may be deactivated or otherwise modified in the future, once media exposure dies down. That exposure began last Friday, when former Obama campaign manager turned-Uber advisor David Plouffe was onstage at the Next Economy Conference in San Francisco.

As cameras rolled, Plouffe invited drivers to speak at a microphone. Barajas made his voice heard.

“I just wanted to know how you guys are helping the economy when there are full time drivers like me… who are struggling to make ends meet, barely making minimum wage,” he said. On Craigslist, Uber in the past has said drivers could make $35 an hour, Barajas said, but that isn’t near what he earns.

“After all the expenses I’m really struggling, I don’t know if I can pay my PG&E bill and my water bill,” he said.

Uber is founded and run by bad people whose goal is to privatize their profits and to socialize their losses.

It is a fundamentally evil and hypocritical business model.

When Your Business Model Is to Use Law Breaking to Enter Markets, This Is Inevitable

In Pennsylvania, a $50 million dollar fine against Uber in response to their deliberately and knowingly breaking the law:

Judges for the Pennsylvania agency that regulates buses and taxis recommended on Tuesday a record $50 million fine against ride-sharing company Uber for operating in the state without approval.

Two administrative law judges issued the decision, subject to approval by the Public Utility Commission, to punish Uber Technologies Inc. for rides by its subsidiaries from February 2014 until it received experimental authority six months later.

The judges rejected Uber’s argument that it did not run afoul of commission rules because it’s a software company whose services aren’t necessarily available to the public at large.

“Uber took a more active role in providing transportation service than simply providing the Uber app for people with cars to use to provide rides for people who need transportation — it was not a disinterested invisible entity in the background,” wrote judges Mary Long and Jeffrey Watson.

Uber spokesman Taylor Bennett said the San Francisco-based company was disappointed and hoped to come to a “reasonable resolution” after being unable to settle with the commission.

After a 30-day period to allow both sides to respond, the Public Utility Commission will consider the recommendation. If approved, it would be the largest fine ever imposed by the agency.

Uber's arguments in this hearing describe their business model in a nutshell:

• Break the law.
• Profit
• When the hammer falls, blame their employees while claiming that their employees aren't their employees.

While there are a tech business models that make no sense, Uber's business model makes a lot of sense.

It's been used by con men and organized crime for years.

Quote of the Day

The “health insurance industry” is not, following Veblen, an industry; unlike health care, it creates no value; it is wholly parasitic and should not exist. “One does not improve a tapeworm; one removes it.”

—Lambert Strether

The same characterization could quite easily apply to many segments of the finance industry.

That's Gonna Leave a Mark

President Obama just called the Republican cowardice explosion over Syrian refugees a sign that they were afraid widows and orphans:

President Obama is lashing out at Republican politicians who oppose allowing Syrian refugees into the U.S., accusing them of being "scared of widows and orphans."

Speaking to reporters Wednesday morning in the Philippines, Obama scoffed at attempts to block refugees following the Paris terror attacks as "political posturing" that "needs to stop."

"Apparently they are scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America," Obama said of Republicans. "At first, they were too scared of the press being too tough on them in the debates. Now they are scared of three year old orphans. That doesn’t seem so tough to me."

Obama apparently directed his ire at New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), who said Tuesday he opposes allowing people fleeing the conflict in Syria to resettle in the U.S., even "orphans under five."

………
"We are not well served when, in response to a terrorist attack, we descend into fear and panic," he said. "We don't make good decisions if its based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks."

What is going on with the refugees right now is cowardice, naked pants-soiling cowardice, and it's nice to see Obama calling it out.

I Would Call Chuck Schumer a Schmuck, but a Schmuck has a Head

The distinguished gentleman from New York just came out publicly against allowing Syrian refugees into the United States.

I'm sure that if he had been alive in 1939, he would have been comfortably playing Mahjong with friends while the passengers on the MS St. Louis were sent back to die at the hands of the Nazis:

Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third ranking member of the Senate Democratic leadership, on Tuesday said it may be necessary to halt the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States.

Republicans immediately seized on Schumer’s comment, which breaks with other Democrats who have argued against halting the program.

Schumer, however, declined to take the option off the table ahead of a special briefing scheduled for Wednesday afternoon on the process that is now used to vet refugees entering the United States.

“We’re waiting for the briefing tomorrow, a pause may be necessary. We’re going to look at it,” he said.

Schumer is widely expected to become leader of Senate Democrats in the next Congress, after Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) retires.

A spokeswoman for Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) highlighted Schumer’s statement as an example of “bipartisan concern” over refugees.

Centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) signed a letter to President Obama Monday calling on him not to allow another Syrian refugee into the country unless federal authorities can guarantee with 100-percent assurance they are not connected to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Other Democrats have rejected freezing Obama’s plan to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the current fiscal year.

What a toxic combination of stupidity, cowardice, and evil.

His position is deeply wrong, and will be seized on by Islamist terrorists as a recruiting tool.

I wish that I was registered to vote in New York so that I could vote against him.

The Car for My Midlife Crisis Has Returned

1980s Version


New Version

For some reason, the styling of the original always appealed to me, and if I were to get a car with just two seats and a tiny trunk, that would be it.

And now, it's back:

Fiat unveiled a "new" two-seat sports car at the Los Angeles Auto Show Thursday -- the reborn version of the the Fiat 124 Spider.

It marks the return of a model name that hasn't been available in the United States since 1985.

The original Fiat 124 Spider was a small, fun-to-drive sportscar that had adoring fans, but also a reputation for mechanical troubles boiled down to the memorable joke "Fix It Again, Tony."

That bit is not quite fair.

The 80s Spider was a simple, and, at least by the standard of 1980s vintage Fiats,^* fairly reliable.

I've not had my midlife crisis yet, but if I do, I will get the model with manual transmission, because if you are going to have a midlife crisis, and buy a 2 seat convertible, it's lame to use an automatic transmission.

I think that I'd get the model with the manual roof too, because ……… well ……… midlife crisis.

There are two ways to go with a midlife crisis car, super car, or something that you would have driven as a kid.

I swing the latter way.
^*Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

We are Going to Bail Out These Motherf%$#ers Too

The private equity group Blackstone is now the largest private owner of real-estate in the world:

Blackstone has grown its size nearly four-fold since its 2007 IPO.

But the biggest private equity firm on Wall Street has seen even greater growth in its real estate division, which has expanded from a $17.7 billion business when Steve Schwarzman took his company public to one that today manages nearly $100 billion worth of property.

Steve Schwarzman is America's landlord, now, and he's not afraid to acknowledge it.

"We’re now, we believe, the largest owner of real estate in the world," he told Business Insider in an interview at his company's Park Avenue headquarters in midtown Manhattan.

"We have a performance record that is… pretty much in a league of our own, we’ve compounded [returns of] around 18% after fees. We’ve had almost no losses of any type."

They went into real estate after the crash, which was the bottom of the market.

They have been making insane margins, which means insane risk, though they probably do not realize this, 

Then this game of Jenga ends with a crash comes tumbling down, and it will, Blackstone will be too big to fail.

It's already too big to fail.

And the rest of us are going to have to bail them out.