Hacker News Reader

Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

Drivers rarely owned the medallion. They leased the cab for 8-12 hours and drove it on behalf of the medallion owner.

I work for a company that owns (iirc) a large portion the medallions issued by NYC. We rent the vehicle and medallion out to people to drive/work

What a stupid process. It bothers me that farmers rarely own the land too. We can't shake our tendency to let wealth turn us into tiny little kings that live off the rent. (not so tiny in the case of farms, but you get it).

>It bothers me that farmers rarely own the land too

You will be glad to learn that most farmland is farmer owned:

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/land-use-land-v...

I am glad to hear that. Thank you for correcting me.

This depends a fair bit on how you define "farmer", of course.

If you raise crops or farm animals, you are a farmer.

The USDA is not trying to pull a fast one with the definition of a farmer.

We could have a discussion about farmers that have other jobs and so are part time farming and part time something else. That tends to correlate with less intensive farming like corn and soybeans.

Is a massive agribusiness conglomerate a farmer? Most farmland in the US is "owner operated". But really, that just means it's not rented out by a non-operator landlord, which is the distinction that USDA article makes.

Medallion is an artificial scarcity. Land is actually scarce.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com