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The good thing about this particular problem is that it will be corrected by the market mechanic regardless of what the government does. Companies have to compe

The good thing about this particular problem is that it will be corrected by the market mechanic regardless of what the government does. Companies have to compete for labor now - the landscape has changed. Some will not adapt and they'll go out of business. That's not to say that we shouldn't also explore policy action, but when workers have the upper hand it's probably best to let the market just figure it out, and then come in with policy after that.

swader999 5y ago
Perhaps, but this doesn't give much to the people in Lac-Megantic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaste...
tgv 5y ago
> it will be corrected by the market mechanic ... it's probably best to let the market just figure it out What evidence do you have for that? Let me guess: none, whatsoever. Just a religious belief in Adam Smith' invisible hand.
advisedwang 5y ago
The letter describes undisturbed market forces increasing this problem. Unless something changes, there's no reason to expect market equilibrium points to change.
cheschire 5y ago
Why do you think the workers have the upper hand? If anything, this letter sounds like workers have no recourse other than to find other employment. Based on historical trends, I suspect relying purely on the market mechanics will result in business failure, and then the policy action will be to save (bail out) the rail companies that are too big to fail. This will then lead to a bunch of strict controls so that bail outs never occur again, creating a regulatory moat further blocking future competition without significantly changing the corporate culture that led to the issue in the first place. Instead, an up-front regulatory limitation that prevents short term profiteering over long term sustainability seems required. How many trillionaires need to be minted on the backs of the population majority before significant regulatory limitations sound palatable? I guess I just don't understand the free market concept. It's like... sure it works great assuming you don't factor in the chaos components like greed, limitless ambition, explosive population growth, limited resources, natural disasters, international politics, etc etc etc etc etc.
- ericmay 5y ago
  > Why do you think the workers have the upper hand? If anything, this letter sounds like workers have no recourse other than to find other employment. Well yea. I'm not sure what the issue is there. Right now almost every company in America is struggling to attract workers and they're being forced to raise wages, increase benefits, move to 4-day work weeks, etc. Everyone is impatient. They want changes now but these things take time to evolve. It's much better for companies and people to organize democratically and organically - that's a fundamental principle for me, and then if those organizations in the long run are trending toward a negative outcome, that's when we need government to step in. Right now I see trends moving the right way, so I'm reluctant to support adding government intervention just to speed things up. It's a cost and inefficiency. I support government intervention and regulation, but it has to be used as a reluctant tool for great good. Environmental regulations, for example, are fantastic and I wholly support them. Mandatory 4-day work weeks when we are already trending in that direction doesn't seem like a good use of regulatory resources. > Based on historical trends, I suspect relying purely on the market mechanics will result in business failure, and then the policy action will be to save (bail out) the rail companies that are too big to fail. This will then lead to a bunch of strict controls so that bail outs never occur again, creating a regulatory moat further blocking future competition without significantly changing the corporate culture that led to the issue in the first place. The correct thing to do is not to implement policy action here and let the businesses fail. That's the missing piece. Too Big to Fail is a government failure, not a market failure. > How many trillionaires need to be minted on the backs of the population majority before significant regulatory limitations sound palatable? I guess I just don't understand the free market concept. It's like... sure it works great assuming you don't factor in the chaos components like greed, limitless ambition, explosive population growth, limited resources, natural disasters, international politics, etc etc etc etc etc. I really, really can't stand this type of mentality. It makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Poor government in, say, America doesn't change the success of capitalism - ask Sweden and Denmark, for example. Both countries are staunch free-market capitalist economies. You're mistaking government failures for market failures. You should be asking why your government is not curbing excessive population growth, not Pepsi or Google.
  - 5y ago
viscountchocula 5y ago
The market did figure it out. The status quo is what it settled on.

swader999 5y ago

Perhaps, but this doesn't give much to the people in Lac-Megantic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaste...

tgv 5y ago

> it will be corrected by the market mechanic ... it's probably best to let the market just figure it out What evidence do you have for that? Let me guess: none, whatsoever. Just a religious belief in Adam Smith' invisible hand.

advisedwang 5y ago

The letter describes undisturbed market forces increasing this problem. Unless something changes, there's no reason to expect market equilibrium points to change.

cheschire 5y ago

Why do you think the workers have the upper hand? If anything, this letter sounds like workers have no recourse other than to find other employment. Based on historical trends, I suspect relying purely on the market mechanics will result in business failure, and then the policy action will be to save (bail out) the rail companies that are too big to fail. This will then lead to a bunch of strict controls so that bail outs never occur again, creating a regulatory moat further blocking future competition without significantly changing the corporate culture that led to the issue in the first place. Instead, an up-front regulatory limitation that prevents short term profiteering over long term sustainability seems required. How many trillionaires need to be minted on the backs of the population majority before significant regulatory limitations sound palatable? I guess I just don't understand the free market concept. It's like... sure it works great assuming you don't factor in the chaos components like greed, limitless ambition, explosive population growth, limited resources, natural disasters, international politics, etc etc etc etc etc.

ericmay 5y ago
> Why do you think the workers have the upper hand? If anything, this letter sounds like workers have no recourse other than to find other employment. Well yea. I'm not sure what the issue is there. Right now almost every company in America is struggling to attract workers and they're being forced to raise wages, increase benefits, move to 4-day work weeks, etc. Everyone is impatient. They want changes now but these things take time to evolve. It's much better for companies and people to organize democratically and organically - that's a fundamental principle for me, and then if those organizations in the long run are trending toward a negative outcome, that's when we need government to step in. Right now I see trends moving the right way, so I'm reluctant to support adding government intervention just to speed things up. It's a cost and inefficiency. I support government intervention and regulation, but it has to be used as a reluctant tool for great good. Environmental regulations, for example, are fantastic and I wholly support them. Mandatory 4-day work weeks when we are already trending in that direction doesn't seem like a good use of regulatory resources. > Based on historical trends, I suspect relying purely on the market mechanics will result in business failure, and then the policy action will be to save (bail out) the rail companies that are too big to fail. This will then lead to a bunch of strict controls so that bail outs never occur again, creating a regulatory moat further blocking future competition without significantly changing the corporate culture that led to the issue in the first place. The correct thing to do is not to implement policy action here and let the businesses fail. That's the missing piece. Too Big to Fail is a government failure, not a market failure. > How many trillionaires need to be minted on the backs of the population majority before significant regulatory limitations sound palatable? I guess I just don't understand the free market concept. It's like... sure it works great assuming you don't factor in the chaos components like greed, limitless ambition, explosive population growth, limited resources, natural disasters, international politics, etc etc etc etc etc. I really, really can't stand this type of mentality. It makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Poor government in, say, America doesn't change the success of capitalism - ask Sweden and Denmark, for example. Both countries are staunch free-market capitalist economies. You're mistaking government failures for market failures. You should be asking why your government is not curbing excessive population growth, not Pepsi or Google.
- 5y ago

viscountchocula 5y ago

The market did figure it out. The status quo is what it settled on.