Why are there not local competitors to checks notes cook, bag and freeze potatoes at a 10x markup? Might it be an overly large regulatory burden on starting said competitor?
[deleted]
It's not a crime if we do it with an app
441–450 of 640 posts
Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
>To avoid having to pay any difference to make up the hourly wage to drivers, Uber runs an algorithm which kicks drivers out of the app randomly if demand gets too low, without warning or indication of when they can get back in. It can be minutes or hours. So the drivers remain on the road, driving/idling, waiting to get back into the app. The "work" is still getting done, but it doesn't count against Uber. I get leg…
> expecting uber to continue allowing unlimited amount of drivers to be "online", when they have to pay for them is absurd. The market they operate is of their own making, there is no "free market" argument to be made here. What's absurd is the mischaracterization of what their constructed market can provide to its participants, particularly when people are apparently randomly banned from participating it as they ple…
Further, from a markets point of view, by managing their market with micro-lockouts of drivers out during projected quiet periods, they are essentially setting a price floor such that riders are paying more than they otherwise might have.
Stock markets for example generally have circuit breakers and limit up/down rules that will put in pauses for a stock if there is too much volatility. However they do not institute asymmetric throttling by say restricting half of sellers from selling but allowing buyers orders through.
Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If Uber has let so many drivers on the app such that they cannot earn a minimum wage, they should stop aggressively enrolling new drivers. The number of drivers needed at any given time is completely variable. It's obviously a larger number during peak travel periods. Suppose number of drivers needed off-peak is 100 and the number needed at the peak is 500 and they have 300 drivers. They need to sign up another 200…
> The number of drivers needed at any given time is completely variable. It's obviously a larger number during peak travel periods. That's variable based upon time of day, not completely variable. It is not a new problem either. Take public transit: drivers may hate split shifts, yet they are given well defined shifts that they are paid for. On top of that, a company that operates through an app ought to have the abi…
> That's variable based upon time of day, not completely variable.
It's completely variable. If there is a major sporting event in your city, the demand is going to be much different than it is at the same time of day when there isn't a major sporting event. Demand is affected by weather, public transit disruptions, current events etc. It's not just time of day.
> Take public transit: drivers may hate split shifts, yet they are given well defined shifts that they are paid for.
Public transit has internal buffers that absorb demand. You have a bus which seats 40 but typically has 7 passengers. If there is a demand spike, this time you have 35 passengers, but this is still less than 40 so you don't need any more drivers. If that happens with Uber, they suddenly need five times as many drivers.
> On top of that, a company that operates through an app ought to have the ability to develop software to relatively reliably predict demand.
They could certainly predict part of the demand, but then what? You don't know ahead of time what time of day it's going to rain and cause a ton of people who usually ride a bike to want a ride. There is still a high amount of unpredictable variability in the demand.
> Willing, or desperate? For example: relatively few people want to be on-call replacement workers. They either do it because they need the money or they do it because they are hoping to get their foot in the door.
Let's consider these people then. Their options are to have no job and likely run into serious financial difficulties, take the on-call job to cover some bills while they look for a better job, or take some even worse job than the on-call job, but that might not be worse in a way that has been legislated against, e.g. because it's two hours away and there is no law against having a four hour round trip commute.
The only reason they'd take the on-call job is if their other options are worse. But if their other options are worse then taking away the on-call job option isn't helping them. To actually help them you need to give them some options that are better, in which case you still don't have to prohibit the on-call job because then they'd just choose the better alternative once it's available.
> Those who do it willingly are typically doing so for extra cash and because they don't have any other obligations (e.g. retirees in some fields).
Then why shouldn't those people be able to do it, and get the extra cash?
> Now imagine that an entire company is based upon the concept of replacement workers.
Suppose Uber was part of Costco but otherwise operated in an identical way. Is that supposed to make any difference?
Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe? It should at least be debatable, not taboo, to consider. One's investment into a criminal enterprise could arguably be contributing to or encouraging that crime. Having this nearly-impenetrable corporate veil that shields decision-makers, footsoldiers, and funders (both institutional and retail investors) from consequences of their actions seems like the extreme end of a spectrum that should be explored. But w…
The thing you are suggesting is jailing every adult American with a 401k when a corporation misbehaves. You say that shouldn't be taboo, it should be debatable. Alright, I'm listening, tell me how that wouldbsolve more problems than it would create.
Nobody said every shareholder would go to jail, just that it should be more common that some of them do.
But supposing that you did propagate it to every shareholder... I think that creating an incentive to divest in companies that are likely to commit crimes, and to avoid financial instruments where you can't be sure just what it is your money is up to, would create a much healthier investment environment. There would be more homework done before deciding which companies ought to get the boost. As it is, there are no market forces working to prevent cases where investors are enabling activity that are harmful to the rest of us.
Those mutual and index funds where the investor is disconnected from whatever harms their money is doing are a hazard to us all. Investing should mean understanding what you're investing in. The whole system needs more types of risk, it's currently like a car with no steering wheel.
Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app
#445This is the way our world works. If you steal a potato, you will be arrested immediately and the case will be resolved in a few weeks or months. If you illegally fix the price of potatoes and steal billions from the market, you will be allowed to operate for years in the open while a lengthy civil procedure eventually may ask you to give 1 or 2% of what you stole back in fines. Don't blame the potato theives or potat…
Let's be honest hear. If you go to store and steal sack of potato. I doubt either the store or police will even attempt to track you anymore... Retail theft is just left to happen.
We'll absolutely document a theft of a sack of potatoes if we notice it, because it's never just the sack of potatoes. The vast majority of thieves get emboldened and either up their thefts, or continue to repeat offend at a low level.
The one sack of potatoes is likely actually a sack of potatoes every week, and it doesn't really take long to rack up a dollar amount worth prosecuting over. I can get my local detectives hungry to file a warrant at the $100 mark.
Shoplifting is a bad game where the store has every edge, and only has to win once. The shoplifter has to win every time. If they don't, they usually find the line between getting away with it and jailtime is much thinner than they thought.
Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
"But the US has consistently been far too passive and accepts greedy companies far too readily." All companies are greedy. That's the reason for existence. Your point that monopolies and oligopolies need to be crushed is very valid though. I wish more mergers were rejected in the first place. Regulating prices is a recipe for disaster though.
Regulating prices is a recipe for disaster though That's an assertion, not a statement of fact. Pricing in natural monopolies is a mature subject, and public utilities have been a thing for over 100 years. Also, pricing for medical procedures is regulated in Europe, and it works extremely well.
The wait time for medical procedures is extremely long in places with price caps.
It does not work “extremely well” at all, it results in shortages and wait times exactly as you would expect from economics 101. I’m speaking from personal experience having been through it myself but feel free to look up how many Canadians go to the US every year and pay out of pocket for more evidence.
Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app
#447Lately I have been trying to propagate type ideas:
(1) corporations are not people. They are groups of people acting in concert under the direction of a small number of, or even one, person. They get legal immunities that individuals and unincorporated companies don’t. It is bat shit crazy to legally treat them as people for the purpose of “rights”. They don’t have morals (literally corporations are amoral entities). They concentrate power. We should be limiting them; not doling out rights to them.
(2) the best way to limit corporate power is to make it undesirable to centralize too much corporate power. I think that corporations should have a tax rate base on power - eg increasing based on revenue and number of employees and market share. The rates should increase with increases in any of these numbers. If done correctly, it would eliminate the need for antitrust and much oversight as it naturally deters centralization. Lots of details like shell corporations controlling other corporations, etc, but do-able.
Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Currently it shields nearly everyone from everything in nearly all cases from run-of-the-mill business failure all the way up to straight-up fraud. Tell that to Bill Hwang or Sam Bankman-Fried.
Bill Hwang and SBF committed the cardinal sin of business: losing other rich people's money. They both ran out of friends very quickly. Elizabeth Holmes was the same.
Came here to say the same.
Had they been scamming small investors, even for the same total dollar value, they might have actually gotten way with it.
Not only did they lose other rich peoples money, they lost money for people that were richer than them. Important distinction ..
Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
Despite constant moaning about the US not engaging in monopoly-busting anymore, that doesn't actually seem to be a problem in practice. In reality, comparative advantage and specialization dynamics do not uniformly equilibrate on monopoly markets.
The content of the article shows that it is still a problem. You think that landlords and food suppliers colluding to raise prices to just below the breaking point is not a problem?
It's not a "breaking point", it's the market rate. There's no landlord cartel; anyone can easily defect and lower their own prices.
The entire food production and provision supply chain has razor-thin margins. If you're hyperfocusing on that industry, it's a sign that your heuristics are pointing you at the wrong things.
Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app
#450This is all a result of a lack of active market regulation. The government needs to step in actively to keep a free market from collapsing into one of the natural end states. But the US has consistently been far too passive and accepts greedy companies far too readily. If a single company can sell almost 100% of an essential good, they need to atomatically lose the power to set their prices and margins independently.…
> to keep a free market from collapsing into one of the natural end states
What is that natural end state? Natural monopolies are exceedingly rare, almost all monopolies are the result of government intervention.