Andrew Milgram

It also is an important on-ramp to American commerce for the immigrant population.

When I did my taxi driver's license, you have to do a pretty complicated and long set of classes.

It's no London, but it's still demanding and expensive.

But I was the only native born American in the room.

Everyone else had come to the United States in search of a better opportunity.

So it's an important spot for New York commerce in particular.

And by the way, what people don't realize is the bulk of New York City taxi medallions are owned by individuals that are driving the taxi.

So it's a small business in and of itself.

By the way, pre-Uber coming to town, taxi medallions had been worth over a million dollars.

They peaked at $1.2 million.

For one medallion.

For one medallion.

And by the way, again, if you look back and look at it purely on a cash flow basis and where interest rates were and alternatives, it's not the craziest thing to have happened.

You or I would never have done it, but I can understand why somebody might have made that decision.

It's not a decision I would make.

but not the craziest thing.

Now that being said, the average unpaid principal balance of a taxi medallion loan ended up being about $550,000.

So the average taxi driver owed $550,000 on their medallion loan.

It was a lot of money.

We did a bunch of survey work.