Re:France Says It Will Ban Uber’s Low-Cost Service in New Year
by SilasX on Monday December 15, 2014 @09:55PM
(#8755662)
This comes up every time someone suggests pricing a scarce good (either with Pigovian taxes or privatizing a scarce resource), but it has an easy solution: [p]rebate everyone the amount of tax they would pay for poverty level consumption of the resource. That preserves all of the incentives to cut back on a marginal unit, without penalizing someone for being poor.
Facing economic realities doesn't mean keeping staying with systems that rewards the wrong thing.
Re:France Says It Will Ban Uber’s Low-Cost Service in New Year
by tormeh on Monday December 15, 2014 @02:24PM
(#8753801)
The problem is that mainstream economic theory assumes your utility to society is equal to your income and therefore discriminating based on income is an optimal strategy for society.
Of course, wages are about negotiation power, not utility. It's so misguided it's bizarre.
Except where people are too poor to afford surge pricing, even though they may need to travel just as much as anyone else.
Libertarianism is great right up to the point where you actually need something you can't afford, like medical care or travel to a job. Then it's pretty much a big FU because you're not profitable.