Peso Exchange Rates and the Taxi Mafia

[ggunn]

Pay in pesos or make sure they charge your credit card in pesos.

I only occasionally use my credit card on Cozumel, but when I do, since the symbol for pesos looks like the one for US$, I write "PESOS" under the total amount when I sign the bill.

---------- Post added August 1st, 2015 at 11:00 AM ----------

And it only took 37 posts to get an answer to the simple question I posed! FINALLY, someone gives me a NUMBER! Thanks, KSU Diver!

But that number has changed several times since the question was posed.

---------- Post added August 1st, 2015 at 11:05 AM ----------

I wonder how well the taxi folks do when so many seem to sit around a lot. I suspect that demand picks up when cruise ships come in but is there a staffing solution that gradually reduces the number of sedan taxis and allows some sedan taxi drivers to operate small buses to accommodate surge demand. Instead of driving 2-4 people from the cruise ship to downtown they could carry a dozen or more. This might reduce the traffic congestion by several vehicles, increase the earnings of the remaining taxi drivers...thus a win-win for all concerned.

Except, of course, for the taxi drivers who are displaced. You said later that they could just retire or get other jobs; good luck to them with that. It's hard enough for someone to do that here in the Land Of Opportunity, and I speak from experience.

 

[Ron Lee]

ggunn, this is implemented as they retire or find other jobs.

How many days a week does the typical taxi driver work? Six? My idea may well allow them to earn the same or more working five days a week.

 

[DjDiverDan]

ggunn, I know the number changes - it changes pretty much daily. But knowing the number and the day gives me a data point from which I can calculate a rough relationship. At the open on July 27, the Peso was trading on international markets at about 16.24 to the Dollar. If KSUDiver purchased Pesos on that day at 15.31, it means that the Bank from which he was buying Pesos had a "sell" spread of 0.97 Pesos, or about 5.97% - call it 6%. If I know the approximate spread, I can estimate about what I can expect from a Bank on any given day by taking that day's opening Exchange Rate reported on international markets and applying the spread. Even if the actual exchange rate changes daily, the relationship - the spread charged by banks - tends to be stable, so the number given to me by KSUDiver was useful information.

 

[Ron Lee]

ggunn, I know the number changes - it changes pretty much daily. But knowing the number and the day gives me a data point from which I can calculate a rough relationship. At the open on July 27, the Peso was trading on international markets at about 16.24 to the Dollar. If KSUDiver purchased Pesos on that day at 15.31, it means that the Bank from which he was buying Pesos had a "sell" spread of 0.97 Pesos, or about 5.97% - call it 6%. If I know the approximate spread, I can estimate about what I can expect from a Bank on any given day by taking that day's opening Exchange Rate reported on international markets and applying the spread. Even if the actual exchange rate changes daily, the relationship - the spread charged by banks - tends to be stable, so the number given to me by KSUDiver was useful information.

Sounds like a lot of work to save a few pesos.

 

[DjDiverDan]

Sounds like a lot of work to save a few pesos.

What work? 15 seconds to look up the market, 3 seconds to calculate the spread in my head. It's only work for people who hate the chore of actually using their minds. Me, I enjoy it.

 

[mmmbelows]

I wonder how well the taxi folks do when so many seem to sit around a lot. I suspect that demand picks up when cruise ships come in but is there a staffing solution that gradually reduces the number of sedan taxis and allows some sedan taxi drivers to operate small buses to accommodate surge demand. Instead of driving 2-4 people from the cruise ship to downtown they could carry a dozen or more. This might reduce the traffic congestion by several vehicles, increase the earnings of the remaining taxi drivers...thus a win-win for all concerned.

They would go for that as long as the bus had 9 steering wheels in it.

---------- Post added August 1st, 2015 at 02:06 PM ----------

ggunn, this is implemented as they retire or find other jobs.

How many days a week does the typical taxi driver work? Six? My idea may well allow them to earn the same or more working five days a week.

Taxi numbers are abundant all over the world, no place is worried about making taxi drivers wealthy by keeping the numbers low, they over staff by a lot everywhere. On an island employment is most important not so much keeping the wages high, success is measured by the amount of people employed. Having 100 more taxis than you really need isn't a concern as long as you're providing 100 more jobs.

 

[ggunn]

ggunn, this is implemented as they retire or find other jobs.

How many days a week does the typical taxi driver work? Six? My idea may well allow them to earn the same or more working five days a week.

At what other jobs? How do you propose they find them? Just kick them out of the taxis and let them fend for themselves? I daresay if there were jobs on Cozumel where a guy could earn the same or more money working a lot less than he could driving a taxi, he would already be doing it. You cannot create jobs by simply destroying other ones.

Your idea has no legs that I can see, and beyond that, IMO the last thing Cozumeleños need is us part timers telling them how to "fix" their system.

 

[DjDiverDan]

You cannot create jobs by simply destroying other ones.

Actually, history proves this statement to be false - at least in an economy with sufficient freedom to allow innovation. The American Railroads put Wagon Masters and Mule Drivers by the thousands out of business, yet created many thousands of new jobs for Station Managers, Engineers, Rail layers, Brakemen, Coal miners, etc. the Telegraph put Pony Express Riders out of a job, and created thousands of jobs for Telegraph Operators, wire stringers, linemen, etc. The Auto industry destroyed the jobs of tens of thousands, from wagon makers, wheelwrights, leather workers who made reins and bridles, smiths and farriers, even the armies of men hired by cities to clean up tons of horse **** off of the streets, but created hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. The history of economic progress is the story of the destruction of jobs and the creation of others. Read the work of Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, on the creative destruction of the free market.

 

[ggunn]

Actually, history proves this statement to be false - at least in an economy with sufficient freedom to allow innovation. The American Railroads put Wagon Masters and Mule Drivers by the thousands out of business, yet created many thousands of new jobs for Station Managers, Engineers, Rail layers, Brakemen, Coal miners, etc. the Telegraph put Pony Express Riders out of a job, and created thousands of jobs for Telegraph Operators, wire stringers, linemen, etc. The Auto industry destroyed the jobs of tens of thousands, from wagon makers, wheelwrights, leather workers who made reins and bridles, smiths and farriers, even the armies of men hired by cities to clean up tons of horse **** off of the streets, but created hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. The history of economic progress is the story of the destruction of jobs and the creation of others. Read the work of Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, on the creative destruction of the free market.

But the creation of new jobs in those cases was brought about by the very changes that made the old jobs obsolete. I said that you cannot create new jobs by merely eliminating jobs without there being anything to replace them, as in the idea of replacing taxis with buses on Cozumel. That would put taxi drivers out of work - those who couldn't get the fewer bus driver jobs - without opening any doors for those who would get pushed out.

But that's sort of beside the point that the residents of Cozumel don't need us "fixing" the system they have worked out for themselves merely because we think we would like it better some other way. It seems kind of hubristic to me for us to think we know better than they what would work for them. They live with their system 24/7/365 and we visit there occasionally.

 

[Bob DBF]

Actually, history proves this statement to be false - at least in an economy with sufficient freedom to allow innovation. The American Railroads put Wagon Masters and Mule Drivers by the thousands out of business, yet created many thousands of new jobs for Station Managers, Engineers, Rail layers, Brakemen, Coal miners, etc. the Telegraph put Pony Express Riders out of a job, and created thousands of jobs for Telegraph Operators, wire stringers, linemen, etc. The Auto industry destroyed the jobs of tens of thousands, from wagon makers, wheelwrights, leather workers who made reins and bridles, smiths and farriers, even the armies of men hired by cities to clean up tons of horse **** off of the streets, but created hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. The history of economic progress is the story of the destruction of jobs and the creation of others. Read the work of Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, on the creative destruction of the free market.

Your examples are of changing technologies destroying old jobs for new, now let's have an example of reducing jobs in a necessary service produceing more jobs. Taxi services have been needed throughout the advancements you cite, even though they may be using different forms of transportation.


Bob