6 ms·

I feel like right now, society has just over-committed to wasteful use of resources. There is a gas station attendant working at 4am because they only cost $8/

I feel like right now, society has just over-committed to wasteful use of resources. There is a gas station attendant working at 4am because they only cost $8/h and the company makes enough revenue during that hour that that is worth it. If they need to start paying $15h/h and have to close from 1am to 5am, some people might not be able to get cigarettes from the gas station, or buy gas without a credit card. Or maybe, out of 5 gas stations, 1 will remain open and now have 5 times as many customers during those hours, so it's worth it to stay open again. But right now, 4 out of 5 gas stations are open simply because they can be, no matter how useful they are.

marcusverus 5y ago
This is a bizarre argument. The $15/h wage in your example put four people out of work (How many end up on the dole? How much new taxation will be required to support them?) and potentially squashed other economic activity by closing the shops. You're arguing for the destruction of economic activity in the name of reducing the 'wasteful use of resources', which is just silly. You're just making it harder for these folks to support themselves, while burdening others with the need to support them.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  Good point. it doesn't imply though that the 4am worker would be left doing nothing. He could well be providing another service less wastful, day time, for 8 dollars per hour or more, or less. Unless or course those who want to buy stuff at the gas station at any hour of the night would not trade that convenience for any other service they aren't getting yet.
  - indymike 5y ago
    > Good point. it doesn't imply though that the 4am worker would be left doing nothing. This assumes the worker isn't doing something valuable during the day. I worked some night shifts to pay for college. > day time, for 8 dollars per hour or more, I got paid more for the night shift than the workers on the day shift. Fewer people wanted to be awake at 3:30AM. Even fewer wanted to work.
    - iso1210 5y ago
      > This assumes the worker isn't doing something valuable during the day. I worked some night shifts to pay for college. Well yes, people need to sleep. You can sleep during the day, or at night, but you still need to sleep at some point. If a student is burning their energy working overnight, they aren't getting the most out of college, that's a waste of resources in a given system.
      - indymike 5y ago
        > If a student is burning their energy working overnight, they aren't getting the most out of college, that's a waste of resources in a given system. Being debt free after leaving college was worth the lost sleep.
        iso1210 5y ago
        You're looking at it from an individual perspective rather than treating mankind as a system to optimise. It would be better as a whole for you to have completed the course either faster or better, and progress onto more productive things. Reality of course is that you can't optimize a global society of 7 billion individual thinking people with different abilities, wants, hopes, needs, indeed you can't even come up with a measure of what you are trying to optimize, but in my view mankind should have eliminating non-producive work as a goal. I've just filled in forms to register at the local GP surgery. I had to fill them in on paper, putting name and address multiple times on different forms, this will all be transcribed by one of the receptionists into a computer. This is waste. My health care system is fairly good with eliminating waste (compared with say the US system), but it's something that should be optimised -- it would have been more efficient for both me and the data entry person if I could have just typed in the data into an online form (complete with autofill), rather than this archaic method from the 1980s. Having inefficient systems is bad. On the London Underground 20 years ago you had to queue up at a ticket office or machine to buy a ticket. Now you just walk through the barrier with your phone. 100 years ago you would tell someone behind a counter what you wanted and wait around while he went and got it, 50 years ago you walked through the shop and did that yourself, and now with some stores you scan simply pick up what you want and walk out without even paying. The total work done reduces each time, and that's a net win for the species. Reducing tedious unfulfilling work should be the goal, and a higher minimum wage incentivises that.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    Perhaps they should be paying more for the convenience then
    - ThePadawan 5y ago
      Right? I'm writing this from Switzerland, which has this weird relationship of being quite like the US, but also quite unlike the US. In this case, opening hours of everything are strictly regulated. Only some shops in (or next to) train stations and airports are allowed to remain open on Sundays and holidays, on a case-by-case basis. But because there's also legislation requiring large hourly salary multipliers for employees working on those days, their products can also be expensive as balls. (Seeing as these are also the shops tourists see most often, this is where the "$4 for a can of coke???" encounters originate)
- structural 5y ago
  It's not at all a bizarre argument in a labor shortage. Exactly what you should expect to happen is that low-value economic activity gets replaced by higher-value economic activity!
- Ekaros 5y ago
  I dunno, sounds like employing one person that is almost 4 times as productive for less than half a cost would be overall good move. Specially when the 4 couldn't properly pay their living costs. Issue really is that we can't find different work for the 3 anymore...
  - marcusverus 5y ago
    > I dunno, sounds like employing one person that is almost 4 times as productive for less than half a cost would be overall good move. Why assume that the worker is four times as productive? Even if the same number of transactions occur because everyone goes to the one open shop, we've still destroyed 64K of GDP by canning four employees. > Specially when the 4 couldn't properly pay their living costs. The 4 people working for $8/hour were contributing 64K per year to paying their living costs. By destroying their jobs have you made them better able to properly pay their living costs? Of course not, you've merely transferred the cost of supporting them to some other poor schmuck. Reducing economic activity and raising taxes is not a recipe for increased prosperity.
josephcsible 5y ago
> If they need to start paying $15h/h and have to close from 1am to 5am, some people might not be able to get cigarettes from the gas station, or buy gas without a credit card. You mean they might not be able to buy gas at all. Gas stations will shut off their pumps when they close, so you can't even do self-service credit-card purchases.
- jjav 5y ago
  > Gas stations will shut off their pumps when they close, so you can't even do self-service credit-card purchases. Some do, some don't. Many gas stations around here (CA) keep the pumps working for self-pay when they are closed. Also I remember driving on US50 through Nevada late after midnight running out of gas and stopped at a completely dark gas station. Fortunately the pumps worked!
- ThePadawan 5y ago
  Huh, that must vary by country. Here in Switzerland, more than half of all gas stations are completely unmanned at all times [0]. [0] https://www.avenergy.ch/images/pdf/TAB-16_2016_final_D_korrigiert.pdf https://www.avenergy.ch/images/pdf/TAB-16_2016_final_D_korri...
- iso1210 5y ago
  US gas stations are weird, at least last time I was driving there more frequently (about 5-10 years ago). In my country (UK), some have shops you can go into, but most of the time I for one fill up at an automated pump at the supermarket, put card in, type pin number, fill up the tank, leave. There's no need for anyone to be on site (some do have a store, some are completely unmanned). In the US/Canada when I've filled up, at some places you turn up and someone does it for you, which is a right pain and breaks your train of thought as you have to engage in conversation with someone. Others you do it yourself, but you turn up and find the pump isn't open -- you have to go into the shop and pay in advance, which is just weird - I don't know how much I want to put it, I just want to top it up and then pay the amount on my credit card. I believe laws vary by state or even smaller regions.
axiolite 5y ago
> some people might not be able to get cigarettes from the gas station, or buy gas without a credit card. Switching to credit card kiosks won't help. It's usually illegal to have a gas station operating without an attendant. Something to do with that whole danger of blowing up and killing lots of people thing. > maybe, out of 5 gas stations, 1 will remain open and now have 5 times as many customers Except it costs some money to open and close the store, costs some money to have alarms & surveillance while the store is closed, costs the store in damages, and more than that, costs customers who will prefer the store that will always be open, even during normal hours. It may not all be as wasteful as you think. And what happens when the store that can justify staying open happens to be the one that doesn't provide diesel, propane, milk, or similar? It can be very detrimental to the city.
- Supermancho 5y ago
  > It's usually illegal to have a gas station operating without an attendant. Not in most of the US States I've visited. There are all-night gas stations across the nation that are unmanned. > Except it costs some money to open and close the store, costs some money to have alarms & surveillance while the store is closed I think you misunderstand. He's proposing that the competition of the 2-4 gas station clusters at most highway offramps/some intersections are over-competing. The permanent closing of some is a net good for the economy. Multi-trillion dollar companies will eventually note how they are taking increased losses/less profit when faced with the current economics (wage floors, limited spending power of the middle class, etc). Is this true? Probably not because the owners are largely franchisees who will not simply sacrifice their entire livelihood because profits are down. It's not like the owner of a Mobil station can set their own gas prices (near total control of these locations is baked into the franchise agreement, like with many large brands). The multi-billionaire brands aren't sweating a dime off their own fees when some location can't survive and closes down.
giantrobot 5y ago
That worker's hourly wage is a small fraction of the cost of just running the gas station at that hour of day. It costs money to run the lights, the refrigerators, and the gas pumps. The owner of the property doesn't charge less rent when the gas station is closed. Property taxes are still due. If the labor cost of the graveyard shift doubled the total cost of operations for that shift would increase only marginally. That gas station is only going to shut down for that shift if there's a significant change in costs. A small increase is completely covered by a single late night or early morning fill-up.
indymike 5y ago
> There is a gas station attendant working at 4am because they only cost $8/h and the company makes enough revenue during that hour that that is worth it. Usually, because fewer people are willing to work late nights, pay is usually higher for the night shift. This is often called a "shift differential". > But right now, 4 out of 5 gas stations are open simply because they can be, no matter how useful they are. If there was no economic advantage to being open, the store would be closed.

marcusverus 5y ago

This is a bizarre argument. The $15/h wage in your example put four people out of work (How many end up on the dole? How much new taxation will be required to support them?) and potentially squashed other economic activity by closing the shops. You're arguing for the destruction of economic activity in the name of reducing the 'wasteful use of resources', which is just silly. You're just making it harder for these folks to support themselves, while burdening others with the need to support them.

hirako2000 5y ago
Good point. it doesn't imply though that the 4am worker would be left doing nothing. He could well be providing another service less wastful, day time, for 8 dollars per hour or more, or less. Unless or course those who want to buy stuff at the gas station at any hour of the night would not trade that convenience for any other service they aren't getting yet.
- indymike 5y ago
  > Good point. it doesn't imply though that the 4am worker would be left doing nothing. This assumes the worker isn't doing something valuable during the day. I worked some night shifts to pay for college. > day time, for 8 dollars per hour or more, I got paid more for the night shift than the workers on the day shift. Fewer people wanted to be awake at 3:30AM. Even fewer wanted to work.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    > This assumes the worker isn't doing something valuable during the day. I worked some night shifts to pay for college. Well yes, people need to sleep. You can sleep during the day, or at night, but you still need to sleep at some point. If a student is burning their energy working overnight, they aren't getting the most out of college, that's a waste of resources in a given system.
    - indymike 5y ago
      > If a student is burning their energy working overnight, they aren't getting the most out of college, that's a waste of resources in a given system. Being debt free after leaving college was worth the lost sleep.
      - iso1210 5y ago
        You're looking at it from an individual perspective rather than treating mankind as a system to optimise. It would be better as a whole for you to have completed the course either faster or better, and progress onto more productive things. Reality of course is that you can't optimize a global society of 7 billion individual thinking people with different abilities, wants, hopes, needs, indeed you can't even come up with a measure of what you are trying to optimize, but in my view mankind should have eliminating non-producive work as a goal. I've just filled in forms to register at the local GP surgery. I had to fill them in on paper, putting name and address multiple times on different forms, this will all be transcribed by one of the receptionists into a computer. This is waste. My health care system is fairly good with eliminating waste (compared with say the US system), but it's something that should be optimised -- it would have been more efficient for both me and the data entry person if I could have just typed in the data into an online form (complete with autofill), rather than this archaic method from the 1980s. Having inefficient systems is bad. On the London Underground 20 years ago you had to queue up at a ticket office or machine to buy a ticket. Now you just walk through the barrier with your phone. 100 years ago you would tell someone behind a counter what you wanted and wait around while he went and got it, 50 years ago you walked through the shop and did that yourself, and now with some stores you scan simply pick up what you want and walk out without even paying. The total work done reduces each time, and that's a net win for the species. Reducing tedious unfulfilling work should be the goal, and a higher minimum wage incentivises that.
- iso1210 5y ago
  Perhaps they should be paying more for the convenience then
  - ThePadawan 5y ago
    Right? I'm writing this from Switzerland, which has this weird relationship of being quite like the US, but also quite unlike the US. In this case, opening hours of everything are strictly regulated. Only some shops in (or next to) train stations and airports are allowed to remain open on Sundays and holidays, on a case-by-case basis. But because there's also legislation requiring large hourly salary multipliers for employees working on those days, their products can also be expensive as balls. (Seeing as these are also the shops tourists see most often, this is where the "$4 for a can of coke???" encounters originate)
structural 5y ago
It's not at all a bizarre argument in a labor shortage. Exactly what you should expect to happen is that low-value economic activity gets replaced by higher-value economic activity!
Ekaros 5y ago
I dunno, sounds like employing one person that is almost 4 times as productive for less than half a cost would be overall good move. Specially when the 4 couldn't properly pay their living costs. Issue really is that we can't find different work for the 3 anymore...
- marcusverus 5y ago
  > I dunno, sounds like employing one person that is almost 4 times as productive for less than half a cost would be overall good move. Why assume that the worker is four times as productive? Even if the same number of transactions occur because everyone goes to the one open shop, we've still destroyed 64K of GDP by canning four employees. > Specially when the 4 couldn't properly pay their living costs. The 4 people working for $8/hour were contributing 64K per year to paying their living costs. By destroying their jobs have you made them better able to properly pay their living costs? Of course not, you've merely transferred the cost of supporting them to some other poor schmuck. Reducing economic activity and raising taxes is not a recipe for increased prosperity.

josephcsible 5y ago

> If they need to start paying $15h/h and have to close from 1am to 5am, some people might not be able to get cigarettes from the gas station, or buy gas without a credit card. You mean they might not be able to buy gas at all. Gas stations will shut off their pumps when they close, so you can't even do self-service credit-card purchases.

jjav 5y ago
> Gas stations will shut off their pumps when they close, so you can't even do self-service credit-card purchases. Some do, some don't. Many gas stations around here (CA) keep the pumps working for self-pay when they are closed. Also I remember driving on US50 through Nevada late after midnight running out of gas and stopped at a completely dark gas station. Fortunately the pumps worked!
ThePadawan 5y ago
Huh, that must vary by country. Here in Switzerland, more than half of all gas stations are completely unmanned at all times [0]. [0] https://www.avenergy.ch/images/pdf/TAB-16_2016_final_D_korrigiert.pdf https://www.avenergy.ch/images/pdf/TAB-16_2016_final_D_korri...
iso1210 5y ago
US gas stations are weird, at least last time I was driving there more frequently (about 5-10 years ago). In my country (UK), some have shops you can go into, but most of the time I for one fill up at an automated pump at the supermarket, put card in, type pin number, fill up the tank, leave. There's no need for anyone to be on site (some do have a store, some are completely unmanned). In the US/Canada when I've filled up, at some places you turn up and someone does it for you, which is a right pain and breaks your train of thought as you have to engage in conversation with someone. Others you do it yourself, but you turn up and find the pump isn't open -- you have to go into the shop and pay in advance, which is just weird - I don't know how much I want to put it, I just want to top it up and then pay the amount on my credit card. I believe laws vary by state or even smaller regions.

axiolite 5y ago

> some people might not be able to get cigarettes from the gas station, or buy gas without a credit card. Switching to credit card kiosks won't help. It's usually illegal to have a gas station operating without an attendant. Something to do with that whole danger of blowing up and killing lots of people thing. > maybe, out of 5 gas stations, 1 will remain open and now have 5 times as many customers Except it costs some money to open and close the store, costs some money to have alarms & surveillance while the store is closed, costs the store in damages, and more than that, costs customers who will prefer the store that will always be open, even during normal hours. It may not all be as wasteful as you think. And what happens when the store that can justify staying open happens to be the one that doesn't provide diesel, propane, milk, or similar? It can be very detrimental to the city.

Supermancho 5y ago
> It's usually illegal to have a gas station operating without an attendant. Not in most of the US States I've visited. There are all-night gas stations across the nation that are unmanned. > Except it costs some money to open and close the store, costs some money to have alarms & surveillance while the store is closed I think you misunderstand. He's proposing that the competition of the 2-4 gas station clusters at most highway offramps/some intersections are over-competing. The permanent closing of some is a net good for the economy. Multi-trillion dollar companies will eventually note how they are taking increased losses/less profit when faced with the current economics (wage floors, limited spending power of the middle class, etc). Is this true? Probably not because the owners are largely franchisees who will not simply sacrifice their entire livelihood because profits are down. It's not like the owner of a Mobil station can set their own gas prices (near total control of these locations is baked into the franchise agreement, like with many large brands). The multi-billionaire brands aren't sweating a dime off their own fees when some location can't survive and closes down.

giantrobot 5y ago

That worker's hourly wage is a small fraction of the cost of just running the gas station at that hour of day. It costs money to run the lights, the refrigerators, and the gas pumps. The owner of the property doesn't charge less rent when the gas station is closed. Property taxes are still due. If the labor cost of the graveyard shift doubled the total cost of operations for that shift would increase only marginally. That gas station is only going to shut down for that shift if there's a significant change in costs. A small increase is completely covered by a single late night or early morning fill-up.

indymike 5y ago

> There is a gas station attendant working at 4am because they only cost $8/h and the company makes enough revenue during that hour that that is worth it. Usually, because fewer people are willing to work late nights, pay is usually higher for the night shift. This is often called a "shift differential". > But right now, 4 out of 5 gas stations are open simply because they can be, no matter how useful they are. If there was no economic advantage to being open, the store would be closed.