Tuesday, July 8, 2014

New York Attorney General has forced Uber to modify its price gouging during emergencies - for now

Ohttp://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/07/8548558/uber-promises-not-price-gouge-during-disasters

Travis Kalanick, head honcho at Uber is out to conquer the world. Inspired by Ayn Rand and Things German, (all Uber New York  bases have German names)he"s often found pushing an envelope to see where he will be stopped. He slightly over reached in New York with his natural disaster price gouging. He just agreed (for now) to modify the price gouging that"s charmingly called surge pricing. It seems he was breaking New York"s price gouging statute. Attorney General Schneiderman probably got all that he could get considering he was up againsg an $18,000,000,000 behemoth and not some welfare mother caught stealing hamburger meat.

Kalanick is out to dominate urban surface transportation worldwide. He recently bought a New York Taxi and Limousine Deputy Commisskoner and no doubt is browsing Attorney Generals and their staffs nationwide.

His New York purchase seems to have paid off well. Policies  that  hobble the taxi business are in place as is spelled out in this blog.

Prospective taxi licensees are being thwarted,  Draconian license suspension and revocation rules are going into effect.  License renewals are being delayed.

Hobbled with a fifty cent per ride MTA tax, a thirty cents a ride wheelchair accessible fee, the possible reinvoking of the six cent a ride Bhairavi Desai tax drivers are looking at goin with comletitive UberX.