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"I think that's what he's saying. I'm not sure how true it is." So uh, they lower their price to compete and to what the market will bear. Isn't that how it is

"I think that's what he's saying. I'm not sure how true it is." So uh, they lower their price to compete and to what the market will bear. Isn't that how it is supposed to work? If it isn't enough to live on, people will do something that lets them live (In theory. In practice, people just complain about the high cost of living wherever they are, instead of moving to places where there are jobs available and lower cost of living)

pm90 12y ago
Moving is not as easy as you make out to be. People choose to live in a place for other reason than just monetary: their family might be in SF, they might have been born there etc. You can't just turn your face and say, "Hey this is how the market works. Deal with it". Because when the number of people disgruntled with this system reaches a certain point, bad things will happen.
- DannyBee 12y ago
  "People choose to live in a place for other reason than just monetary: their family might be in SF, they might have been born there etc. " Their are consequences to this choice. The consequence in this case is "it is hard to find a job that pays well enoguh to live there". "You can't just turn your face and say, "Hey this is how the market works. Deal with it"." I agree this is true. However, literally not a single person in this thread has given a solution to this problem that works over the long term. "Because when the number of people disgruntled with this system reaches a certain point, bad things will happen." Yes, revolutions happen. This does not generate a long term stable situation where everyone can live where they want either :) (in fact, revolutions tend to redistribute land, and often people who were living in places the longest get kicked out!) "Bad things" just kind of proves the point. If someone had come up with a viable solution, these bad things would never happen. But they happen in places all the time. They effectively reset the clock on some problem, though they often have some nasty side-effects.
DanBC 12y ago
But the market provides a generally terrible experience. These private buses want a better than the market experience, but don't want to pay enough to cover the costs involved. In the context of immensely rich companies who have extravegant perks it seems weird for them to be nickle and diming on this one perk. Driving buses is very stressful - so much so that it reduces length of life. Driving the price down to what the market (of drivers) will bear leaves you with sub-optimal drivers. Cost of Living is definitely skewed in some cities - london, SF, etc. Do you really want your bus driver to have a one hour commute before they start work? Other low paid jobs - cleaners, store clerks, teachers, low rank nurses and care assistants - these people are all needed by the city but can't afford to either live in the city nor live outisde it and commute in. Being a cleaner is probably lousy, but being a cleaner with a two hour commute to get to your minimum wage job must really suck. Your answer touches on the concept of people as "rational economic actors" but that doesn't happen in the real world, just like we don't have spherical cows in the fields. People have many reasons for staying at a sub-optimal location or in a sub-optimal job and using those sub-optimalities to screw them out of a bit more money is

pm90 12y ago

Moving is not as easy as you make out to be. People choose to live in a place for other reason than just monetary: their family might be in SF, they might have been born there etc. You can't just turn your face and say, "Hey this is how the market works. Deal with it". Because when the number of people disgruntled with this system reaches a certain point, bad things will happen.

DannyBee 12y ago
"People choose to live in a place for other reason than just monetary: their family might be in SF, they might have been born there etc. " Their are consequences to this choice. The consequence in this case is "it is hard to find a job that pays well enoguh to live there". "You can't just turn your face and say, "Hey this is how the market works. Deal with it"." I agree this is true. However, literally not a single person in this thread has given a solution to this problem that works over the long term. "Because when the number of people disgruntled with this system reaches a certain point, bad things will happen." Yes, revolutions happen. This does not generate a long term stable situation where everyone can live where they want either :) (in fact, revolutions tend to redistribute land, and often people who were living in places the longest get kicked out!) "Bad things" just kind of proves the point. If someone had come up with a viable solution, these bad things would never happen. But they happen in places all the time. They effectively reset the clock on some problem, though they often have some nasty side-effects.

DanBC 12y ago

But the market provides a generally terrible experience. These private buses want a better than the market experience, but don't want to pay enough to cover the costs involved. In the context of immensely rich companies who have extravegant perks it seems weird for them to be nickle and diming on this one perk. Driving buses is very stressful - so much so that it reduces length of life. Driving the price down to what the market (of drivers) will bear leaves you with sub-optimal drivers. Cost of Living is definitely skewed in some cities - london, SF, etc. Do you really want your bus driver to have a one hour commute before they start work? Other low paid jobs - cleaners, store clerks, teachers, low rank nurses and care assistants - these people are all needed by the city but can't afford to either live in the city nor live outisde it and commute in. Being a cleaner is probably lousy, but being a cleaner with a two hour commute to get to your minimum wage job must really suck. Your answer touches on the concept of people as "rational economic actors" but that doesn't happen in the real world, just like we don't have spherical cows in the fields. People have many reasons for staying at a sub-optimal location or in a sub-optimal job and using those sub-optimalities to screw them out of a bit more money is