Another charge against Uber, courtesy of les Republique Francais

We know France has a troubled history with Uber - and things haven't cooled down.

Cab drivers opposed to Uber made another stand against the ride-sharing service, and in traditional French fashion, named their operation after what? Food. Of course. The dubbed "escargot operation" plans to create an embargo of Paris's city center via cab drivers operating at essentially a snail's pace on the highways surrounding the city.

It is interesting that the consistently "evolving" French Republic continues to find ways to stifle innovation and crowd out investors, even when opportunities for growth come knocking on its door (or cruising up to its driveway).

A few more World Cup charts...

It's always a great surprise when I meet someone I can talk soccer with here in America - whether the conversation involves my love for Arsenal, interest in Financial Fair Play, or development programs in the States - it doesn't matter. Regardless of the topic, it beats being called a socialist for loving the beautiful game (Jerry, take note). With the opening day of the World Cup tomorrow (arguably the most important day of every four year period), I thought it might be fun to look at a few more charts to see how soccer and the world unite.

First, let's consider the world's "disinterest" in soccer. This came from a recent New York Times article publishing a study conducted by YouGov. There are a lot of interesting facts in the article, but let's just look at something simple. Like yesterday's CMPB post on GDP, the USA finds itself on top of the charts in another competition with the remaining 31 World Cup challengers - being disinterested in soccer.

See here:

How can this be? Is there too much diversity in sports in America (lacrosse, hockey, wrestling, baseball, football, basketball, rugby, etc etc) for the sport to thrive elsewhere? Does being a wealthier nation mean kids have more money to play more sports that require lots of equipment? Or, is our nation's disinterest more a product of lack of exposure to soccer? Regardless, it's something to think about.

While you are pondering those last few questions, consider one more. Do you want fish to die? Do you like having a plethora of flourishing gill-bearing craniates amongst our lands and seas? Well then, maybe you should start getting involved with soccer, and stay interested! Keep telling your friends the same - until we reach a happy medium of about 27% of our population still being uninterested in the beautiful game. Let the rest of them keep their shoulder pads and mouth-guards. Do it for the fish.

Data taken from the World Bank

World Cup Nations and GDP

It's been a while! With moving for summer work and getting excited for the world's biggest sporting event, things have certainly not been at a standstill.

I thought it would be interesting to visualize GDP differences between the thirty-two qualifying teams for this year's World Cup. While the USA is clearly the dominant player in this chart, we can only hope for success in Brazil...

Note that the currency is measured in millions of US dollars. Data were taken from the 2012 United Nations study here.

Uber's lastest valuation and capitalizing on "idle" consumption goods

According to the Wall Street Journal, Uber, the on demand car service start-up, has received bids in the realm of $17 billion over recent weeks. At this time last year, it was valued at $3.5 billion (~385% YTD growth in value).

To the disdain of taxi drivers, Uber created an cheaper "UberX" option, which "connects users with drivers willing to offer rides in their personal vehicles without commercial registration."Similarly, Airbnb facilitates short-term property renting, so travelers can enjoy the comforts of home while still living the tourist lifestyle in the streets of their holiday destinations.

It is interesting to note the number of (currently) successful start-ups which attempt to help individuals utilize "idle" consumption goods for additional income. Historically, some "necessary" consumption goods like households and cars appeared to have a sunk cost when not in use - if a family decides to go on vacation for two weeks, it has been thought that not much could be done to earn marginal income from the home or their personal vehicle. However, thanks to the power of the Internet and the technological revolution, it seems like that may change in the near future. However, while Airbnb and Uber both share the characteristic of utilizing "idle" consumption goods as a means for extra cash, they both also face the challenge of dealing with lobbying against such behavior. See here and here.

Housing Prices Rise in London

I came across an interesting info-graphic via Reddit's /r/dataisbeautiful that describes London house prices per square foot (by postcode) that can be found here. It seems that only homes/flats for sale were considered in the chart; from what I could tell the data do not include rentable property. It would be interesting to see how a similar graphic would compare to what we see with rising prices in the Big Smoke.

With my limited understanding of socioeconomic history in London, it may interest some to observe significant developments on the East End of the city - transitioning from a home to mostly immigrant working class families to a mixed community with a growing banking industry in Canary Wharf.

Some cite foreign money as a primary source for the general rise in housing prices itself, but that likely does not explain the whole story (or even much of it). As published by The Guardian, a recent LSE study discusses the unintended consequences of land-use regulation and discriminatory zoning rules. Laws that limit how high construction companies can build their ceilings effectively limit population growth and crowd out would-be residents to neighborhoods further from the city.

There clearly is not a problem with demand for housing in or around London, but there certainly is an issue with how housing is supplied. Curbing back on "urban development" laws would be a start at making life more affordable in the great global city I was so fortunate to spend half a year in already.

Markets in Everything: Parking Spot Edition

Via Wired:

"The office of San Francisco’s City Attorney is “evaluating” the app, says Gabriel Zitrin, a spokesman for the department. So far, he says, the city has merely determined that the app is “pretty weird.”

It will be intriguing to see if the developers face any legal opposition in the future, as users are exchanging private goods (in the sense of being excludable and rivalrous) purchased in a public realm (thus, we are only discussing public parking lots).

From the article:

"The rub is that your parking spot isn’t really yours. It’s the city’s. Whereas services like Uber and Airbnb help us make use of things that would otherwise go unused — at least in theory — MonkeyParking merely lets one person grab something ahead of another." 

MonkeyParking is certainly an interesting concept as a means to help those willing to pay more for convenience and time saved finding a parking spot, but it may irk some in its nature of transforming public property into a market - especially when the public property is essentially the good in demand itself.

 I am also looking forward to reading about future Coasean solutions to potential holdout problems.

Bitcoin regulation hits close to home

Via Wired:

"The Ohio Department of Public Safety didn’t return calls and email messages asking them to explain their thinking, but the agency told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that bitcoin 'cannot be accepted as payment for alcohol in the State of Ohio.” Why, exactly, is unclear. The newspaper quotes Ohio Department of Public Safety Agent Eric Wolf as saying that bitcoin’s value fluctuates too much to be recognized as a currency.' "

Variation in purchasing power sure seems like an odd reason to ban the use of an online currency, especially considering Bitcoin's value has been relatively stable over the past month or so.