How to turn a bad idea into a good one
Posted by Harry Stotle on February 2, 2008
French taxi drivers, a strong force within French politics, now loathe President Sarkozy. Do you want to know why? Sarkozy had asked Jacques Attali , a former aid to President Mitterrand, to suggest a few new ideas on how to modernize the country. The man came up with 135 or so proposals (yes I know, but this is France). The most remarked output of this improvised think tank was not to alter the course of the Brahmaputra river (a former intention of the modest Attali), but to increase the number of taxi cabs inside Paris, by lifting the obligation of a paid license.
I do not intend to minimize the importance of such a move. Anyone who has tried to find a cab in Paris to take him or her to a restaurant knows that taxi drivers in the city of Descartes usually take their one and a half hour long meals during rush hour!
The thing is there are now 16.000 cabdrivers in Paris as opposed to 25.000 in 1920, and 42.000 in New York. No wonder: they have to purchase a licence at outrageous market prices (reaching $ 200.000).
If you tell them that their main asset overnight will be worth nothing, they understandably go crazy and this is what happened, with a nationwide strike and Sarkozy collapsing in the polls.
Hmm. You wonder why no one thought of a very simple idea to resolve this matter: release new paid licenses and distribute the proceeds to former owners of a license. Everyone would be happy: new cab drivers (now unemployed) would find a job, older cab drivers would receive a new source of income, Sarkozy would rise back in the polls, Attali would be comforted in his opinion of himself, and you and I would find a cab when we need one!
Too simple probably.
This is how the world goes.
