[bpatel576]

What I don't understand, is why someone would be willing to buy 15 medallions at an "inflated price." My point being, you should have some basis on the PV of cashflows you can generate with each medallion. It doesn't seem like an extremely complicated financial problem in my eyes. At some point, you're cutting into any investment return you receive through cash flow and you're now expecting your returns to be generated through the appreciation of the medallion. That's probably where I would stop and think, I don't need to buy 15 of these things.

[rolltiide]

The people that borrowed to get them were greedy speculators too, and they just aren't talking about it.

They just forgot that “when your taxi driver is talking about investing, its time to sell” and they were the literal taxi drivers in the adage.

The blunt reason is because they are the bottom/edge of society’s universe of investors, so there is nobody else to sell an asset to at a higher price.

The same result would have happened eventually, the arrival of Uber & Lyft exacerbated the outcome much faster.

[ci5er]

It's like flipping homes in 2007. You come for the ARM and the 20%+ annual increase and you get carried out in a body bag. (But, all the cool kids were doing it!)