Dinosaur Hillary disses Uber

Hillary doesn't like (or understand) Uber, the new low-priced taxi service that is flourishing all over the world. Nor does she like (or understand) Airbnb, the international online apartment and room rental company that says it generated $1.15 billion in economic activity in New York City in 2014, supporting 10,580 jobs.

Why is Hillary opposed to them? Because the big unions hate the competition they've created. And Hillary desperately wants the AFL-CIO's endorsement for president. She's racing to try and beat Bernie Sanders for their backing. So, attacking the new-economy companies so hated by the unions is one way to get their attention.

That's the major reason Hillary has singled out companies like Uber and Airbnb. In a major speech on economic policy on Monday Hillary promised to "crack down" on the "gig economy." Hillary allegedly objects to Uber and Airbnb because the companies classify participants as contractors and don't provide benefits to workers. Translation: What she really means is that the innovative companies are a threat to the dinosaur unions she is courting.

There's another big reason Hillary is opposed to the Uber and Airbnb model. She just doesn't get the new technology. As her emails showed, she still hasn't mastered the fax machine, so she's got a ways to go. Both relatively new businesses are part of the "shared economy" that permits owners of assets like cars and homes to use their property to generate income. According to a study by former Hillary economic adviser Gene Sperling, Uber supplements middle-class income. But, the technologically challenged Hillary just doesn't get it. While thousands of Americans have been able to keep afloat in the age of Obama underemployment because of the opportunities offered by the new companies, Hillary touts yesterday's union line.

And here's the biggest reason Hillary doesn't get Uber and Airbnb: They are outside the realm of her personal experience. She is completely unfamiliar with the everyday advances available to the "everyday Americans" she constantly talks about. She is still stuck in the 20th Century. Operating in a large and blinding bubble, she is obviously out of touch on lots of technology issues and lifestyle changes. Consider this: Its been twenty five years since she drove a car and more than thirty years since she hailed a cab. She has no clue about the world outside of her 24/7 chauffer-driven limos and private jets. That's why she doesn't get UBER, and she doesn't get the advantages of the new shared economy.

Think about it. She and her husband are driven wherever they want to go – at home and abroad – by the Secret Service at taxpayer expense. We even paid for her granddaughter to be driven home from the hospital. That's right. No need for Uber there. As for vacations, while in the White House, the Clintons usually begged wealthy donors for free use of their vacation homes. Since cashing in on their public service and becoming multi-millionaires, the Clintons rent homes in the Hamptons with a $200,000 a month price tag. No need for Uber or Airbnb there, either.

What's amazing is that her omnipresent handlers let her fall into this overt admission of her dated view of the world. Has she never seen anyone arrange an Uber pick-up on their phone? Didn't anyone tell her that Uber is used by everyone, even by major corporations? Didn't they tell her Uber is here to stay, and is valued at $41 billion? That according Time, Uber is larger than Delta or Fed Ex? Or that it is available in 58 countries and 300 cities?

None of that matters to Hillary, who is pandering to the unions and has never even seen the black cars circling on an Internet map. And apparently, neither do her hundreds of economic advisers. But the millennials she is trying to attract definitely get it and use Uber and Airbnb. They will see her position as just one more example of an out of touch old lady who is beholden to the dinosaur unions that oppose Uber.

What's funny is that Hillary is echoing the same position as the extreme left in France. They don't like change any more than Hillary does, and they definitely don't like Uber. Last week, the French government ordered riot police to "crack down" on Uber as violent strikes closed down roads and transportation. The New York Times' Maureen Dowd described the scene on the Riveria last week when attendees of the Cannes Film Festival tried to leave amid an anti-Uber taxi strike:

"… French taxi drivers were … blocking airports, burning tires, smashing windows and harassing Uber drivers. They were protesting competition from the cheapest and least regulated Uber service, UberPop, which is illegal in France. (Two Uber executives were indicted there last week.)"

The French are really serious about their hatred for Uber, Dowd reported:

"Although strikes come and go here, the violence of the Uber brawl seemed to shock even the French. While commentators deplored the thuggery of some cabdrivers, they deplored 'L'uberisation' even more.

"'The uberisation of the economy is a godless and lawless development model,' wrote Jean-Michel Bouguereau in La République des Pyrénées."

"Godless and lawless" development? Wow.

Some militant French taxi drivers have accused Uber of "economic terrorism" because of its instant service, significantly lower prices, flexible working hours and circumvention of burdensome French bureaucratic regulation.

So Hillary and the most leftist French politics are in accord: Uber is an evil that must be crushed. Change is bad.

Hillary's the new anti-Uber champion, mired in the past, fighting change, representing the status quo.

Oh, and Hillary, one more thing. Happy Bastille Day.