6 ms·

What if experiment is conducted like this: 1. 53 top bidders pay and get their spot. 2. total money collected is shared between everyone who doesn't park

ballenf 9y ago
I was waiting for just that outcome and was also surprised that's not where it ended up. Would have addressed the income disparity complaint. Maybe it smells too capitalistic?
- sowbug 9y ago
  I could see a concern that this would either look like a general partnership where the recipients of funds turned out to be liable if someone got hurt on the property, or else need to be a corporate entity of some kind with the recipients as dividend-eligible shareholders, with all the fun paperwork and tax-reporting requirements that come along with that. By the way I'm not sure about the capitalistic label. The recipients would do nothing to earn the money, did they?
  - Operyl 9y ago
    Well, could argue they had to do more to get to work? Unless of course they used Lyft to get a ride ..
- Gaelan 9y ago
  That encourages driving up the price then dropping out to increase how much you get.
  - wyager 9y ago
    You can structure your auction in different ways to discourage this sort of bad behavior. For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey–Clarke–Groves_auction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey–Clarke–Groves_auctio... There's lots of auction theory describing good ways to sell things like parking spaces.
  - Symmetry 9y ago
    That would require someone to take a big risk for a benefit they would only get a small share in.
wyager 9y ago
That makes a lot more sense from an economic optimization standpoint. The only question would be what kind of auction you wanted to use. Most likely, there would be legal issues with instituting this sort of structure, so it wouldn't make sense from a liability standpoint.
AlfeG 9y ago
That how it works in one of the IT company in Voronezh. All parking lots are sold at internal auction each month. All money from auction goes to charity. Its a win win for all. People know that they always able to park. Price for lot goes up every month by itself, because there is less and less free space around office. Charity goes up as well.
- occultist_throw 9y ago
  Uh, huh. "Charity". AKA corporate tax writeoff. Nope, parent poster said explicitly "Money from auction goes in pool and split between everyone who doesnt park." I'd like to see the same kind of idea with moving violations. It's wronging the communities they're cited in; it should go back to us, directly. Not to some enforcement arm that buys MRAPS and shit.
  - mcherm 9y ago
    > it should go back to us, directly. It does. There is a reasonable argument that such fees should go to the general fund for the locality, not to some specific department like law enforcement (because of incentives). But I do not think there is a reasonable argument that the money should "go back to us, directly" rather than going to the local government. I mean, if you REALLY wanted your tax bill to come with two extra lines on it: > Refund due to collections from legal enforcement: $ -54.36 > Additional charges for operating costs: $ 54.36 ...but I HOPE you are bright enough to realize that the net difference between showing these lines on the tax bill and not showing them is meaningless and that there is little benefit to bothering to list it that way.
    - occultist_throw 9y ago
      Actually, due to transparency, I would want the ability to drill that deep into the financials of the county, state, and country I live in. Even if it is a net positive offset by an exact equal negative. The problem is when government is opaque, we get things like "Govt services are horrible, blablabla". Whereas if funding wasn't in omnibus bills and covered up, we could see "Yes, their performance is low cause they are understaffed and working on a shoestring budget. They couldn't even afford office supplies." I mean seriously, we value provenance in software with tools like Git. Why not Government and expenditure calculations? I certainly see a value there, regardless the party.
Grustaf 9y ago
1b. Renormalise bids based on each employee's salary.
- Nav_Panel 9y ago
  Then an enterprising but low paid employee can rent their spot to a more highly paid employee and make a solid profit.
  - acjohnson55 9y ago
    Great! Why should rent-seeking be reserved for the rich?
    - Nav_Panel 9y ago
      We should seek to find solutions that eliminate rent-seeking altogether...
  - Grustaf 9y ago
    Very good point! I'm sure he'll quickly rise in the ranks if he's that clever though, which will erase the profit.
- dmichulke 9y ago
  1cA Explain everyone that now his auction bids should be kept secret unless he wants to share his salary with everyone else or 1cB Explain everyone that now the auction result (list of bidders and bids) is secret and people should just trust you.
  - Grustaf 9y ago
    They are normalised before being made public.
- Symmetry 9y ago
  If you want your employees to all be able to have as many nice things as each other you should pay them all the same. If you don't I don't see how a company parking lot is any different than one employee paying more for a shorter commute than another.

ballenf 9y ago

I was waiting for just that outcome and was also surprised that's not where it ended up. Would have addressed the income disparity complaint. Maybe it smells too capitalistic?

sowbug 9y ago
I could see a concern that this would either look like a general partnership where the recipients of funds turned out to be liable if someone got hurt on the property, or else need to be a corporate entity of some kind with the recipients as dividend-eligible shareholders, with all the fun paperwork and tax-reporting requirements that come along with that. By the way I'm not sure about the capitalistic label. The recipients would do nothing to earn the money, did they?
- Operyl 9y ago
  Well, could argue they had to do more to get to work? Unless of course they used Lyft to get a ride ..
Gaelan 9y ago
That encourages driving up the price then dropping out to increase how much you get.
- wyager 9y ago
  You can structure your auction in different ways to discourage this sort of bad behavior. For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey–Clarke–Groves_auction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey–Clarke–Groves_auctio... There's lots of auction theory describing good ways to sell things like parking spaces.
- Symmetry 9y ago
  That would require someone to take a big risk for a benefit they would only get a small share in.

wyager 9y ago

That makes a lot more sense from an economic optimization standpoint. The only question would be what kind of auction you wanted to use. Most likely, there would be legal issues with instituting this sort of structure, so it wouldn't make sense from a liability standpoint.

AlfeG 9y ago

That how it works in one of the IT company in Voronezh. All parking lots are sold at internal auction each month. All money from auction goes to charity. Its a win win for all. People know that they always able to park. Price for lot goes up every month by itself, because there is less and less free space around office. Charity goes up as well.

occultist_throw 9y ago
Uh, huh. "Charity". AKA corporate tax writeoff. Nope, parent poster said explicitly "Money from auction goes in pool and split between everyone who doesnt park." I'd like to see the same kind of idea with moving violations. It's wronging the communities they're cited in; it should go back to us, directly. Not to some enforcement arm that buys MRAPS and shit.
- mcherm 9y ago
  > it should go back to us, directly. It does. There is a reasonable argument that such fees should go to the general fund for the locality, not to some specific department like law enforcement (because of incentives). But I do not think there is a reasonable argument that the money should "go back to us, directly" rather than going to the local government. I mean, if you REALLY wanted your tax bill to come with two extra lines on it: > Refund due to collections from legal enforcement: $ -54.36 > Additional charges for operating costs: $ 54.36 ...but I HOPE you are bright enough to realize that the net difference between showing these lines on the tax bill and not showing them is meaningless and that there is little benefit to bothering to list it that way.
  - occultist_throw 9y ago
    Actually, due to transparency, I would want the ability to drill that deep into the financials of the county, state, and country I live in. Even if it is a net positive offset by an exact equal negative. The problem is when government is opaque, we get things like "Govt services are horrible, blablabla". Whereas if funding wasn't in omnibus bills and covered up, we could see "Yes, their performance is low cause they are understaffed and working on a shoestring budget. They couldn't even afford office supplies." I mean seriously, we value provenance in software with tools like Git. Why not Government and expenditure calculations? I certainly see a value there, regardless the party.

Grustaf 9y ago

1b. Renormalise bids based on each employee's salary.

Nav_Panel 9y ago
Then an enterprising but low paid employee can rent their spot to a more highly paid employee and make a solid profit.
- acjohnson55 9y ago
  Great! Why should rent-seeking be reserved for the rich?
  - Nav_Panel 9y ago
    We should seek to find solutions that eliminate rent-seeking altogether...
- Grustaf 9y ago
  Very good point! I'm sure he'll quickly rise in the ranks if he's that clever though, which will erase the profit.
dmichulke 9y ago
1cA Explain everyone that now his auction bids should be kept secret unless he wants to share his salary with everyone else or 1cB Explain everyone that now the auction result (list of bidders and bids) is secret and people should just trust you.
- Grustaf 9y ago
  They are normalised before being made public.
Symmetry 9y ago
If you want your employees to all be able to have as many nice things as each other you should pay them all the same. If you don't I don't see how a company parking lot is any different than one employee paying more for a shorter commute than another.