Jay Honeck wrote:

In Chile cab numbers are frozen for pollution and congestion reasons, so
the only legal way to get a new cab is to buy the plate from an old one.

That sounds just like the scam New York has going. Those "plates" are
worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, thanks to their "regulations".

that was also the situation in Dublin (Ireland) when I was living
there; at the time, the going rate -- or so the rumor said -- was
around 50k Irish Pounds (no Europ yet), which at the time, about
ten years ago, could buy you a house, or a very nice appartment
downtown. The nominal fee was of course much lower. The thing
almost turned to riots when the gvt released a bunch new licenses at
said nominal fee, thus upsetting a very lucrative 'derivative'
market...

--Sylvain