There's an argument to be made that, given the cost of medallions, men like this are essentially enabling people who couldn't otherwise afford to be taxi drivers to do that job.
And how is that not a really bad case of rent seeking? If he did not do this the price of the medallion would have to be something the driver could afford.
In the situation that exists, the drivers need him to provide that service. Of course I think the system is absolutely fucked up, but that doesn't mean that he isn't providing a useful service to his drivers currently.
Dont you think that the prices would be lower if you were not allowed to lease out your medalion? My point was that he is partly responsible for creating a fucked up system and does not provide any value to it but just raises the prices.
I actually think prices would be higher if you weren't allowed to lease out your medallion (or at least availability would be much worse.) You can only work so many hours in the day, for the time you aren't working your medallion is either idle, or being used by someone else.
This so much, then people like Mr. Ionescu and others wouldn't have the huge lobbying power that they use to coerce the taxi establishment into limiting the amount of medallions to prop up their rent seeking investments.
What you're missing is that these middle men almost certainly exert political influence to ensure that this situation exists. You're treating the two as independent, when I doubt they are.
