The taxi business in Hamilton is highly regulated by the city government. Yet in actual practice no other industry I have ever worked in, and I have worked in many, operates in such a state of anarchy.

If the entire Canadian economy were to operate as the taxi business does (regulated by people who are not actually engaged in it, who do not profit from it's success nor suffer from it's failure), our standard of living would be similar to that of some African dictatorship.

Just a few salient examples:

- what other business would employ a thousand or so individuals to do work that could easily be accomplished by a quarter of that number?

- what other business would tolerate having it's employees sit around doing nothing for 9 or 10 hours out of a twelve hour shift?

- what other business would spend about $20,000 a day on fuel, (400+ taxis at roughly $50 per day) to have their fleet driving around empty half the time, or sitting idling for air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter? (while our politicians claim to value conservation and environmentalism). Ever wonder why, despite skyrocketing gasoline prices, the taxi business in Hamilton continues to use so many gas guzzling Ford Crown Victorias?

- what other business, in Canada, could get away with paying it's "employees" less than minimum wage (except for the newspaper business which for some reason remains exempt from child labour laws)?

- what other business would continue to expand it's production (I.E. the number of taxi licenses) while demand remained static or declined? (and raising it's prices at the same time?(!))

- what other business would tolerate amongst it's workforce such a high level of incompetence, lying, cheating and failure to perform, at times approaching sheer lunacy, without mass firings? Drivers who cannot read maps.... drivers who cannot understand the simplest verbal instructions.... drivers who think "holy cow!" is a place instead of an exclamation. Drivers who are so poorly compensated they drive like idiots, break all kinds of laws and take other imprudent risks to grab another five dollar fare. (Buy a scanner and listen to what passes for a so-called business activity. Note: these drivers have all presumably passed the City of Hamilton's mandatory cab drivers license test.(!) Yep, the regulators sure know what they're doing.)

In short, what other rational business would or could tolerate such an incredible squandering of human and material resources? We already know the answer to this question. None. Not one. Not ever. In a market system, the winner is the one who works the smartest.

... but the cab business in Hamilton is not like any other business. It is totally controlled by the local government. As anyone with half a brain knows, or ought to know by now, wherever the government sticks it's ugly nose there is bound to be mischief, waste, injustice, absurdity and two-way streets.