Pollution from fossil fuel combustion deadlier than previously thought

Re:Pollution from fossil fuel combustion deadlier than previ... by db48x on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @09:19PM (#26575440)

As long as there are people willing to subject themselves to that, then Starbucks will continue to employ them. But each minute of commute you add removes more people from the pool of potential employees. The more skill the job requires, the smaller that pool will necessarily be. At some point a business will find itself unable to hire for any amount of money they can offer, and they will either go out of business or move out of the city. Then the companies that don’t need much skilled labor, such as Starbucks, will either close down most of their locations, or open them elsewhere. The result will be less demand in the city center, and more elsewhere.

You could accelerate this by making employers pay for time spent commuting to and from work, but that will not be a panacea; it will eliminate some jobs that people rely on. The person in your example might end up completely unemployed, and given the choice they might prefer to commute for four hours per day than to be completely unemployed.

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Re:Pollution from fossil fuel combustion deadlier than previ... by ClumsyPilot on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @09:24PM (#26575482)

"As long as there are people willing to subject themselves to that, then Starbucks will continue to employ them"

Historically some people sold themselves into slavery, should we bring back the good old days?

Also, how does any of this prove that having people travel 4 hours a day is economically productive?

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Re:Pollution from fossil fuel combustion deadlier than previ... by db48x on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @09:42PM (#26575619)

No, it’s relatively easy to prove that all forms of slavery, even voluntary ones, are less efficient than simply paying wages. This is because it removes the capacity for future choice. An employee in a low–paying job today can leave for a new opportunity whenever one appears, a slave or an indentured servant cannot. Societies which use slaves or indentured servants will have less economic success over the long term than ones without.

> Also, how does any of this prove that having people travel 4 hours a day is economically productive?

It’s manifestly more productive than being unemployed. It might be a bad enough job that you can barely tolerate it, but that’s better than starvation. An employer whose employees are this close to the edge is taking a very large risk. If any alternative opens up, or if the job conditions get any worse, then they will suffer fatal turnover. They’ll either have to pay higher wages or improve conditions (or both) to survive, or their competitors will do it for them.

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Re:Pollution from fossil fuel combustion deadlier than previ... by stjohnswarts on Thursday March 25, 2021 @03:30PM (#26584389)

Well blame it on London for not building more housing and having ornery zoning laws not on Starbucks

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