Honolulu Lawmakers Pass 'Surge Pricing' Cap For Ride-Hailing Companies (reuters.com)

Honolulu could become the first U.S. city to limit fares ride-hailing companies can charge when demand spikes, following a city council vote on Wednesday, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser newspaper reported. From a report: Ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft use a model known as "surge pricing" in which the fare for a ride rises when factors such as rush hour and bad weather increase demand for the service. The practice could be limited in the future in Hawaii's largest city after the Honolulu City Council approved by a 6-3 vote a bill requiring city officials to cap surge pricing by ride-hailing companies, the newspaper reported. For the bill to become law, however, it still needs to be signed by the Mayor Kirk Caldwell, whose administration appears to oppose the measure, Hawaiinewsnow.com reported.

Comments

Supply and demand

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's repeal that pesky law of supply and demand.

Re: Supply and demand

[saloomy]

Any economist worth his salt knows how to create a shortage. Fix prices. If you cap surge prices, drivers won't want to deal with all the drunks at 2 am or after the game lets out. This will result in a shortage of drivers. Sure, some people would be happy to pay them more so they could have the convenience, but the government won't let them. Shitty....

Re: Supply and demand

[ooshna]

I live in cleveland. After the parade for the Cavs after they first one the championship a trip that would cost $10 was $50

Re: Supply and demand

[Mitreya]

If you cap surge prices, drivers won't want to deal with all the drunks at 2 am

Ah, but these are "ride-sharing" companies.
Uber/Lyft driver doesn't know how drunk you are when you order a car.

Re: Supply and demand

[cayenne8]

I live in cleveland. After the parade for the Cavs after they first one the championship a trip that would cost $10 was $50

I've seen this happen from time to time here in New Orleans.

There's always something going on here, but I don't see it as a big deal.

I've been dining and drinking downtown and was about to leave, when I see surge pricing on Uber....last time a concert had let out of the superdome I think.

no big deal, I just sat down back and the bar and met folks, hung out, etc....generally had fun and waited 15-20 min or so, and surge pricing went back to normal again and I was on my way.

I figure that's the "price" you pay for not driving your own car and have to wait from time to time for someone else to do it at the price I want.

Re: Supply and demand

[CaffeinatedBacon]

If you're within stumbling distance of a bar at 2am chances are good that you are drunk. Tripley so if you are a regular user and they see your history.

Re:Supply and demand

[pgmrdlm]

Actually, competition. Uber has been hitting me with huge surge prices at 5pm in Cleveland. for a ride during non busy hours that is 18 dollars, they were charging up to 55. I looked at Lyft, they were at 20 dollars. Uber lost my business, Lyft got it. Competition wins for the consumer every time

Re: Supply and demand

[pgmrdlm]

Your correct, it would also be reflected in your score that drivers see. If you are at a 4.8 out of 5 at 2am, they know you are a considerate rider. But if you have a score of 3, they are going to not pick you up.

Re: Supply and demand

[WorBlux]

The price is posted when you go to order the ride. Taxi's also generally have a unit limit set so that each unit doesn't have too much down time. When demand surges, that's just too bad, all the taxi's are out and you could be waiting hours to get one.

Re: Supply and demand

[Type44Q]

What actually ends up happening when UberX/XL surges is that people either wait or become more willing to upgrade to Black/SUV (aka "UberLux" elsewhere), which surges far less often.

Re: Supply and demand

[cayenne8]

What actually ends up happening when UberX/XL surges is that people either wait or become more willing to upgrade to Black/SUV (aka "UberLux" elsewhere), which surges far less often.

I dunno...I guess maybe I'm a bit of a cheapskate, but I'm not willing to pay more than maybe $2-$5 more than usual.

And again, if I'm doing Uber, I'm likely NOT in that big a hurry or on a tight schedule. I can wait it out on a surge.

If I were on a tight schedule or in a hurry, I'd be driving my OWN car where I am in full control of the situation, you know?

Re: Supply and demand

[ooshna]

No what I'm saying is surge pricing raised all the rates in town to 5x normal prices.

Re: Supply and demand

[CaffeinatedBacon]

I thought you said it would cost $10?

Re: Supply and demand

[tlhIngan]

If I were on a tight schedule or in a hurry, I'd be driving my OWN car where I am in full control of the situation, you know?

And if you tried that, you'd just get caught in traffic. Not because everyone else also drove (many events everyone says to take public transit, which works fairly well), but because there are just so many people walking everywhere traffic just doesn't move.

Personally, I walk out of the area first to catch transit - because the events are located downtown, the stations are near and few people ever bother to make a 5 minute walk to another station further up. As a bonus, you get a seat because the crowds use the later stations.

Re:Supply and demand

[PReDiToR]

Over here in the UK we have gangs of UBER drivers sitting around waiting for the surge to kick in.
Then they go on the app and do some work.

We even have a name for it: "Riding the surge" because it happens all over the country.

When they're cheap, it's Predatory Pricing, when they're surging it's a rip off.
Better to just call a proper cab and get a fixed rate every time. They all have apps now and take card payments.
UBER offer nothing new or innovative. They're just ripping drivers, passengers, and VC's off at every given turn.

Re: Supply and demand

[saloomy]

If you understand the difference, and you want to pay for a Taxi vs Uber, fine. But don't assume your value judgement is the same as everyone else's. I'd rather use Uber.

That's not surge pricing

[CaffeinatedBacon]

It's not a surge price, it's the normal price. The other times are just off peak discounts.

Re:That's not surge pricing

[sqorbit]

Funny but true. That's how companies get around charging fees for Credit Card Purchases, they offer cash discounts instead

Re:That's not surge pricing

[terrycarlino]

Except in places like where I live where it is illegal to give discounts for using cash, or charging more to use credit. This kind of thing (government price controls) is already done in the U.S.

Re:That's not surge pricing

[west]

> Except in places like where I live where it is illegal to give discounts for using cash, or charging more to use credit

The government makes it illegal to pass on the price differential between the cost to the merchant of paying in cash and paying by credit card?

Must be nice. I'm an Apple user, could they make make it illegal to charge different amounts for different phones, too?

Or is Visa the only buyer of legislation in town.

(I'm hoping that this is actually a misinterpretation of *Visa* not allowing merchants to offer a discount/surcharge. But if it's the government in the business of subsidizing the credit card companies profit line at the expense of cash users, I'm very disappointed.)

Re:That's not surge pricing

[jbengt]

The government makes it illegal to pass on the price differential between the cost to the merchant of paying in cash and paying by credit card?

In my hazy memory, it is not government regulations that prevent the store from charging differently for cash or credit, it is the merchant agreement with the card issuer - except that some governments have passed laws preventing that sort of contract.
Anyway, nowadays merchants don't mind dealing with credit cards as much as cash, except where the purchases are small enough that the credit card fee is too high to make a profit.

Re:That's not surge pricing

[crimson tsunami]

If you're an Apple user, can't you afford it anyway?
I think they do it like that to add to the exclusivity of the brand. That way it's more impressive when you show other people you don't mind paying the Apple extra.

It will be interesting to see what happens

[N1AK]

It will be interesting to see what difference it makes if there is a cap implemented; though my own opinion is that one shouldn't be.

The argument for surge pricing pretty much boils down to the idea that sellers should be able to charge whatever they think buyers will pay (thus when there is scarcity prices increase) and that the existence of surge pricing encourages sellers to operate when demand is higher increasing supply. I'm yet to be persuaded that surge pricing really makes that much difference to supply at peak times (people who want work were likely to work when their is demand, and people who weren't planning to work often won't be able to respond fast enough to benefit from surge pricing). I am comfortable with the idea that people can make huge profits by selling a scarce resource, but I can see why many people dislike that it is "profiteering" and restricting access to a relatively basic service for those with relatively low incomes.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[Rei]

I think it's important to assess the social consequences of any given policy. For example, a major sporting effect (where some people drink heavily) can often cause high surge pricing. As has been shown time and time again, the higher the price of alternative modes of transportation, the more likely intoxicated people are to drive.

If surge pricing isn't really turning out "new" supply - if it's just that the existing supply goes idle in off-peak times - then is it actually a good thing to have the price fluctuate dramatically, or would it not be better to level it out?

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[N1AK]

I agree about considering consequences of decisions, and your sporting event example is well chosen. What I'm not sure of in that example is 1) how much difference in supply of drivers would there be if surge pricing was stopped or restricted and 2) how many people who would drive when they shouldn't would move to services like Uber if they would have to pay high surge prices.

In the UK it is quite common for taxis to operate on fixed rates. Because drivers want to be busy and earning fares you still see vastly more drivers operating around peak times than during quite times. An Uber driver who currently works 4pm-11pm because there is high demand (and also some surge pricing) then if surge pricing is stopped his choice is keep working the same hours without surge pricing where there will still be demand (likely more), or move to other hours which will either have untapped demand in which case their is a societal benefit to the service being available at the different time, or there isn't untapped demand in which case he will earn less.

Again, my natural inclination is that surge pricing should be allowed because I don't think we should interfere in markets without a very strong reason for doing so and I haven't seen one in this case.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[phayes]

The "very strong reason" for meddling with ride share surge pricing that you're not seeing is the taxi companies finding a way to curb their competition by lobbying council members. As the taxis cannot benefit from surge pricing they find it unfair that anyone else should be able to do so.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[N1AK]

You'd have to ask the people who dislike surge pricing on that basis if you want to know how they'd define that line. Government's often regulate transport related costs (whether you agree or not) and that includes taxi rates in many cities, while not regulating prices of many other things so clearly a decent sized group of people don't think the line between price control is an all or nothing thing.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[alvinrod]

I am comfortable with the idea that people can make huge profits by selling a scarce resource, but I can see why many people dislike that it is "profiteering" and restricting access to a relatively basic service for those with relatively low incomes.

The people selling rides are not incredibly wealthy corporations and are often just regular schlubs. Limiting their ability to engage in free commerce is just restricting their access to make a living for themselves. The real consequence of this are that if the profitability goes down too much, people will quit to find something else to do instead and there's more restricted access to this service regardless and that sellers will find new ways to discriminate when selecting customers because they can be more choosy when demand exceeds supply.

I personally think that Uber should allow drivers to charge whatever they want at any time. Let each driver and passenger set the price for each individual ride. This helps balance supply and demand and also allows drivers to ensure that they're making enough to cover their expenses instead of what Uber thinks they ought to receive. I think it would also go a long way towards helping Uber make the case that they're working with individual contractors and that their drivers are not employees.

Re: It will be interesting to see what happens

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber's soulless computers are quite okay with me only working during surge pricing. No surge dollars, drunks not worth my time. A huge fraction of Uber drivers have a surge only philosophy.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[alvinrod]

I think you need to examine this a little more carefully. The devil's in the details and people who advocate economic controls for social policies tend not to think much further than their pre-desired outcome and don't consider all of potential side effects.

First, does limiting the ability to use surge pricing cause an even greater reduction in the number of rides available such that it leaves even more people to drive while intoxicated? You can't make drivers work for $0, nor can you expect any customers to pay $10,000. Somewhere along that point you'll maximize the number of rides. What makes you think that you (or anyone) knows where that point is?

Second, does the perception of cheap rides available mean that more people are likely to become intoxicated than who would otherwise do so in the absence of cheap rides? In general, when you subsidize something, you tend to get more of it. Additionally, subsidies naturally have to come from somewhere else.

Third, to what extend to pre-planned major events even causing large spikes? If I'm a driver, I already know that when a game lets out that more people will need a ride, so I'm more likely to want to work when I know there's more demand. Uber should be giving this kind of information to their drivers to the largest extent possible such that surges only result due to unknown or unpredictable situations.

Mucking about with systems that we don't fully understand is a recipe for disaster. You're far less likely to achieve your desired outcomes, and will probably get something much worse as a result. Look no further than prohibition or the war on drugs to see how a misguided desire to consider social consequences of policy created a mess among all of the unintended consequences that have arisen.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[red crab]

I didn't read TFA but it sounds like that they are trying put a cap on surge pricing, not eliminating it altogether. And frankly I don't see anything wrong in it. I have at times seen surge prices equaling more than 5x of the normal fares. And that definitely hurt because app cabs have driven local cabs out of business in the city where I live; so I in fact ended up paying that as waiting wasn't an option.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[N1AK]

I still don't see them; you seem to have confused me saying I am not in favour of market restrictions without justification, for me not understanding that others may see or invent reasons they believe/claim are important.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[N1AK]

How likely is it that you would have been able to find a vehicle at a normal price if surge pricing had reached a 400%+ premium? The one undoubtedly true thing about surge pricing is that it makes it easier for people willing and able to pay a premium to get quick transport by pricing out people who aren't willing or able. It seems unlikely that you'd have been easily able to have found a normal taxi quickly at a time when surge pricing is that high.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[jbengt]

I would really like to see statistics showing how much surge pricing increases ride availability. In my opinion, cab drivers need fares to make a living, and so they will pick up rides when there's demand whether there's surge pricing or not. Sure, some cabbies will be more inclined to work when there's surge pricing, but I'm not convinced that would be enough to make a great difference, especially if it only lasts a few minutes to a half hour as said above in cayenne8's anecdote.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[cascadingstylesheet]

If surge pricing isn't really turning out "new" supply - if it's just that the existing supply goes idle in off-peak times - then is it actually a good thing to have the price fluctuate dramatically, or would it not be better to level it out?

How are you going to force it to "level out"?

If I only like to drive when things aren't crazy, I'll be glad to undercut all those guys who now try to charge higher prices to make up for their price caps during surges.

Are you going to force me to charge a minimum price too? To make it "level out"?

(Before you call that ridiculous, forcing people to charge a minimum price, either directly or through various manipulations, has been done many times and places, e.g. with milk. Once you start, it's hard to stop fine tuning price controls.)

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[Rei]

The bottom end prices will inherently rise if you limit the top-end prices. You don't have to mandate it.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[Uberbah]

I think you need to examine this a little more carefully. The devil's in the details and people who advocate economic controls for social policies tend not to think much further than their pre-desired outcome and don't consider all of potential side effects.

Economic controls from a corrupt AF corporation vs controls from citizens is indeed a no-brainer, just not in the direction you may have been led to by years of capitalist indoctrination.

You can't make drivers work for $0

Good thing no one is proposing that.

Third, to what extend to pre-planned major events even causing large spikes? If I'm a driver, I already know that when a game lets out that more people will need a ride, so I'm more likely to want to work when I know there's more demand.

As to Rei's point, it was about people choosing to drink and drive rather than pay a higher fare to get home. Every Uber driver in the city could be parked outside a stadium when a game or concert is ending, and it wouldn't factor into that pricing decision.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[N1AK]

I would as well, although that wasn't what I was claiming. I'm saying that when demand is high then it becomes more difficult to attain a limited resource if you can't buy access by paying a premium (surge pricing). Availability might be the same with fixed rates, however if there are 10 times as many people willing to pay the fixed price then each has a 10% chance of getting a lift. With surge pricing the pool of people willing to pay falls so those willing to pay the surge rates are able to get service sooner on average.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[Shotgun]

I think you completely miss the GP's point. It doesn't increase ride availability, and does not directly intend to. It increase ride availability to those willing to pay the surge price. If at a game, concert, et. al., I will either leave early or chill while the crowd dissipates. I'm not willing to pay a surge price, or sit in a line burning my gas in the case I drove. That frees up a ride (or a place in line) for those willing to pay the price.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[N1AK]

Because if many of the drivers who worked Saturday tried to work Tuesday they'd spend 90% of the time earning nothing because their is no demand.

Re:It will be interesting to see what happens

[phayes]

None are so blind as those who refuse to see applies. The Taxi companies everywhere around the world have been searching for ways to outlaw and hinder the success of ride sharing as it threatens their cushy "I bought taxi medallion and want to resell this artificially scarce resource for as much money as I can in a few years" racket. Being in favor of market restrictions (or not) has nothing to do with blinding oneself to the active lobbying and sometimes outright corruption they employ.

Great experiment!

[misnohmer]

I for one hope it passes. I'm sure there are many people out there who can theorize what such a cap would do, but nothing beats real world data. So, if it passes, a few years from now if some other city tries to pass such a measure, there will be data to show what actually happened, so people won't end up being labeled as haters for arguing for or against such a law.

Re:Great experiment!

[N1AK]

The UK has considerably increased minimum the minimum wage since it was implemented at £3.60 in 1999 to £7.83 now (notably above inflation) and has seen a decrease in unemployment. I haven't seen any credible analysis yet that shows a clear correlation between minimum wages and unemployment, perhaps you'd like to share some? I assume you must be basing your view on credible and extensive analysis because if you weren't it would be a little hypocritical to claim other people can't argue logically.

Re:Great experiment!

[ixidor]

just looking at basic numbers, not taking into account things like purchasing power due to differnt laws, healthcare etc. thats about $10.50 usd. or about $3 more than our min wage.

Re:Great experiment!

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK also has a massive, undertaxed black economy of common laborers being paid off the books. Tax rates are very high in the UK, for a much higher level of social services such as a genuine universal health care program and much more effective public transit system than the USA has. But it's expensive, and these laborers are *not* paying into it. They're similar to Mexican migrant workers in the USA, but while the UK was part of the EU they were even easier to slip over the border.

I got to know a number of Polish migrant workers in London working on the Olympic construction while I was living in cheap housing as a US IT consultant. Interesting enough men, but they were definitely being paid off the books, and many of their colleagues were basically indentured labor who could not get their passports back from their owners.

Re:Great experiment!

[hwihyw]

An "experiment" that's been tried a thousand times over. Cap prices below market prices and you get a shortage. Cap prices above market prices and you get a surplus. Supply & demand 101, econ 101, common sense 101, operating a lemonade stand 101.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.e-education.psu.ed...

Re:Great experiment!

[N1AK]

Sounds about right, though I'm not sure if that was just an observation or you were making a point that I missed? I have an opinion on minimum wages but my point wasn't that the UK should have a minimum wage or that it was at the right level. My point is that the fifth largest economy in world has a national minimum wage and has for some time and has seen unemployment decrease since it was implemented. I don't claim this proves there is no link, but it provides a handy initial rebuttal to people claiming that minimum wages invariably drive up unemployment.

Re:Great experiment!

[Uberbah]

Very clever. Except the article doesn't say anything about trying to reduce the number of Uber drivers or traffic congestion, but limiting the "surge pricing" from the unlicensed taxi company.

Re:Great experiment!

[Uberbah]

We have multiple instances of minimum wage laws correlating with putting low-skill workers out of work.

If by "many" you mean "not one", then yes. Minimum wage increases are a job booster because it gives low wage workers more money to spend, which creates demand. As demand is what creates jobs (not the rich, not capitalism, not tax cuts) you see more employment, not less. Your uniquely American "losses" come from the fact that people don't need to have three jobs as a wage slave to keep a roof over their heads.

Re:Great experiment!

[N1AK]

So you're saying that the minimum wage has caused higher employment in low skilled and low education, then quoting an article talking about youth unemployment. They aren't the same group, and what you've posted doesn't in any way make a strong case that a minimum wage increases unemployment.

Firstly youth unemployment in the UK is low both vs other countries and historic levels, secondly youth unemployment is falling, while the minimum wage is increasing, thirdly the minimum wage for young people is lower so if a higher minimum wage increased unemployment you'd expect to see youth unemployment decrease more as employers stopped employing older more expensive employees.

But even if you weren't using an article that didn't relate to the group that you originally mentioned, and if that material made any kind of case that the minimum wage was a cause of youth unemployment and could be done as evidence then all you'd have done is argued that the minimum wage had decreased overall employment while slightly increasing it in one group which would still be a good thing for the country as a whole.

Re:Great experiment!

[Solandri]

Here's the study you requested.

The problem with using datasets over long times (like 19 years) is a myriad of other factors changing over time can influence the economic outcome. I suspect if you'd set the endpoint at the middle of the 2008/2009 recession, you would've concluded the minimum wage absolutely increases unemployment. To really do a valid study, you need to do an A/B comparison. Two different areas (preferably nearby or mixed with each other) with similar economies at the same time, but with different minimum wages.

Even then the results of all these studies tend to be mixed. I suspect what's going on is that a high minimum wage kills off low-income jobs (those where a worker would not be productive enough to pay for their own price of labor). So no neighborhood kid mowing your lawn, no people loading boxes from the warehouse onto the truck, fewer cleaning staff for the office, etc. But businesses don't give up and file for bankruptcy because of a small change like this. They adapt - they buy a forklift and hire a skilled forklift operator paid a lot more than the minimum wage, but who moves more boxes per hour per $ of wage than the workers he replaced. The company just hadn't wanted to pay the up-front money to buy a forklift, until the increased minimum wage tilted the scales against hiring multiple unskilled workers. Or they buy a robot vacuum which handles the nightly cleaning, so they only need the cleaning staff to come in once a week instead of every night. etc.

And so the net result of a too-high minimum wage isn't higher overall unemployment. It's a decrease in the number of jobs which require little or no skill or experience. Which is exactly the complaint you hear about from millenials (the neighborhood kid mowing lawns is out of luck - people will just do it themselves rather than overpay someone else to do it).

Re:Great experiment!

[misnohmer]

Capping the prices above market does absolutely nothing - think about it, let's say we cap each ride share to one billion dollars, you think it would do anything to the market? Capping the price below market creates a shortage but when the price is purely supply limited. There are other reasons for prices to go up (monopolies, gauging, price-fixing, etc.) which are not supply driven (remember Enron?).

Oh look

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the stupid commies interfering with Free Market again... let's see how that turns out shall we?

Prediction: OUTLOOK NOT GOOD

Re:Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

the people will just go to regular taxis instead. that's who pushes bills like this in the first place.

Incremental legislation

[ElizabethGreene]

The problem you have with legacy taxi companies is the slow incremental increases in legislation that made the industry suck. It would be a shame to see that happen to ride sharing too.

Cap it at what multiple?

[h4x0t]

For fucks sake....They don't even mention it in the full article. 3x? 1.3x? 50x? There is a difference between totally ridiculous gouging and legitimate supply and demand.

TFBill says no surge pricing at all.

http://www4.honolulu.gov/docus...
"The director shall establish, by rule, the maximum fares and baggage charges that may be charged to passengers of private transportation companies. A private transportation driver or private transportation company may not charge more than the maximum fares and baggage charges established by the director. The rules shall not allow surge pricing, as defined herein, if the increased fares and charges under the surge pricing would exceed the maximum fares or charges established by the director for normal operations. The director shall review the fares and charges at least once every two years..."

Ah yes.. Now supply will lag

[bobbied]

That cap on surge pricing will limit supply during periods of high demand, but hey to the liberal politician's mind this is a win as it shows he cares about the little guy...

Problem is in this case, the little guy is driving the car as well as riding in the backseat. And all they really accomplished is to inconvenience the riders by making them wait longer for service while limiting what drivers can collect during peak load.

What would have been better is to require a service that can *notify* riders of fair increases and periods of high demand as much in advance as possible so they didn't get surprised by the huge jumps or knew that if they only wait another 2 hours prices may decline. In fact, this would help both supply and demand, by notifying drivers too. Make it the service mandatory and free to all though the company's application and let users schedule their return trip and possible times with fairs being locked in when the trip is booked, not when the trip is completed.

Where does a city get the authority for this?

[psmoot]

Legally speaking, what gives the city council the authority to set prices and price limits?

Seriously, could a city council just decide they want to put a price floor or ceiling on anything they want? Let's say the Mayor wants to buy spam for a penny a can. Could the city council just decide spam must be sold for no more than 1 cent? Or is there any legal limit to what sorts of price controls a city can impose?

(Yes, I know, if they did this, there would not be any spam for sale within city limits. I'm trying to understand the legality here, not the likely outcome.)

IANAL but I'm guessing that since rights start with the people and flow upward, a city can pretty much do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't conflict with state or federal laws, or the Constitution. If none of those say a city can't restrict prices, well then they can.

This seems like a great dodge to ban items you don't want in the city: just impose an absurdly low price ceiling. You can sell all the pot you want but for no more than a penny a pound, with a $50 per ounce tax.

Re:Where does a city get the authority for this?

[squiggleslash]

I'm almost not sure what you're asking. Cities were the original governments, and while efforts have been made to undermine them as governments that cover wider areas have come into being, they've always had these kinds of powers. As long as they're not violating a higher law, and are working within their constitution and the constitutions that indirectly apply to them, they can do pretty much whatever they want.

Which is as it should be. Democracy frequently works best at the local level. If the local population wants to tax underpants, or ban the sale of green socks, then so be it. At least they're not impacting those who aren't part of that city.

Re:trust cynicism

[epine]

Somehow I managed to paste a link in title text rather than HTML, and this after manually excising the utm_term from the URL (how is that even possible?)

In Trump's Washington, public business increasingly handled behind closed doors

[*] Somehow I suspect the utm_term is just for show anyway:

        29f9047c-54fb-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

Re:trust cynicism

[epine]

Mystery solved: I accidentally lopped off the closing double quote in the URL href tag. Slashdot recovered from this error fairly gracefully. My HTML to wiki script turned the bottom half of my post into %20 escape sequences. Trust Haskell to point out the error of your ways.

I wiki my longer posts as an exercise in finding out how often I repeat myself.

Verdict so far:
    * thematically — all the time
    * actual language and dress code — hardly ever

Of course, you keep going back to the same reference pool (e.g. Churchill's quotation). But that's because the common reference pool isn't actually all that large.

I read an article pool just last night where the reference pool was Alasdair MacIntyre, Andrew Sullivan, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Zygmunt Bauman, and Walker Percy.

On this list, three out of five is a pretty good score for an informavore gadfly (Walker Percy is mainly known—in popular circles—for writing the forward to A Confederacy of Dunces, much like Debbie Reynolds is barely known for her own immense filmography, but rather something else).

Government helpers

[micahraleigh]

Think of all those people making too much money and how government is directly helping them. And then there's the aspect of more people need rides and the government is helping these companies learn how to disregard them.

Guys! This is a WIN ... WIN. Excellent.

Creativity works everytime. Especially in states locked into the Democrat party where the state government helps people decide if they can have homes by allowing or disallowing them to have water meters. Or by helping them decide if expensive jet inter-island travel is better by telling them that all ferry travel is a crime against nature. Or by disallowing non-state hospitals from starting up because those poor, poor state hospital workers can't compete (in that case I can't take credit for a creative reason, this is actually the official reason ... I'm not the one being creative).

And look how Hawaii has benefited from all this: they enjoy the highest levels of crystal meth amphetamines, drug related crimes (which are really acts of innovation and property redistribution committed by people ahead of their times), community interactions (which may be in the form of ethnic violence), and fancy products and housing (so fancy, in fact, that they are the highest prices in the nation next to San Francisco).

Shouldn't we all aspire to these things? Hopefully its just a matter of time before we all can these wonderful policies brought to our lands. I was just sooo sad when I uprooted from Maui and moved to Raleigh, NC 7 years ago.

Thank you government helpers!

Re:Surge Pricing Does Not Work Too Well

[saloomy]

A supply shortage is created when there are more buyers at a given price point than there is product to sell. In this case, rides / riders.

A demand shortage is when there is a gut in supply given a price point. You end up with unsold inventory (drivers waiting around).

You want to move the price until you find a supply/demand balance. Anything else is a shortage of one type or another. The government of Honolulu is screwing over drivers, pushing them out of the driving pool. There will be less people incentivized to drive if you if they make less money on average. Surge pricing brings up their average so they will be more willing to drive for you on any other day.

If you don't understand the economic models, go to school. Lib-tard

Re:What's to keep a driver...

[saloomy]

Uber's policies. Driver will be reported afterwards and be barred from driving.