Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Innovation Strangled

Our pitiful Public Regulation Commission in Santa Fe which is made up of five mostly unqualified Commissioners has struck another blow against innovation.  Without even having a hearing they have told a new ride sharing program called "Lyft" to cease operations in Albuquerque.  Of course, they are doing this at the behest of the entrenched cab companies who are regular funders of these elected official's campaigns.  At the very least there should have been a chance for Lyft to plead their case.

No wonder we are continually failing to attract better economic prospects for New Mexico when we seem solely intent on protecting old ways of doing things.  We must look like the Luddite state to forward looking businesses.

One might think that this disastrous Commission which was recklessly created some years ago to replace the Corporation Commission has proven itself useless.  Will some legislator please just introduce a constitutional amendment to do away with this outfit and put its functions under another entity where pressure to change can be brought to bear.  These five commissioners with their little salaries and political movtives aimed at keeping donations pouring in, are just adding to the  exporting of  jobs and innovative folks to other states

3 comments:

Realist said...

Wow. So sad. Ride share drivers work for themselves and earn pretty decent wages. Uber and Lyft are popular in so many places (with both customers and drivers). As long as New Mexico engages in protectionism we will continue to stagnate. It's similar to a poor 3rd world county where you have to pay massive bribes to open a business.

Anonymous said...

Do you want to understand why APD is killing people and then lying about it?

Do you want to know why Berry says one thing (when he finally comes out of his bunker) and does another?

Do you want to understand why Martinez has reduced or eliminated services paid for by our taxes and destroyed the social and mental health services via Health Services Department, virtually eliminated the Environmental Department, reducing services to CYFD so that children like Omaree are dying or abused with no help, virtually no oversight to the Construction industry and creating a police state?

Find out who owns them and then you will understand EXACTLY what their intentions are and what they are doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTwqkl8BqSc

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/koch-brothers-family-history-sons-of-wichita

Recall Berry and vote in November or NM will continue to deteriorate!

See you at the protest on June 21st!

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile Albuquerque is in the top 20 in MOST expensive taxi rates in the country . Per mile taxi rates are cheaper in cities like New York City, Honolulu, Boston, Dallas, Phoenix, Tucson, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Washington D.C.

A company like Lyft could have provided much needed income for at least a few people.

Lyft also could have been a tool to help combat DWI if the city and state wanted to try and implement a common sense multi-pronged approach instead of relying on an enforcement only strategy. Hey but why try to actually stop DWI when you can just continue to arrest people below the legal limit of .08 so you can keep those DWI arrest numbers up. As long as you keep the DWI arrest numbers high you keep the state/federal funding coming in no matter whether you are helping solve the problem or not.