The vendor's price is mostly irrelevant when choosing the selling price. It's mainly used for deciding how much product to put on the market. If you price above the market because your costs are so high, then you won't sell any. If you price significantly below the market because your costs are low, you'll be throwing away money.
Don't blame the "evil overlords" for the high prices. Price gouging isn't a market failure—a monopoly is.
Facebook will read my Twitter status and add it to my wall. Google+ needs the same ability so I can post to all three services at the same time from my mobile.
Someone driving on a heavily congested road bears the same cost of congestion as everyone else around him -- and is contributing to that congestion just as much.
We don't use time as a form of money here. If we did, there would be no "shortages," there would only be really long queues.
Drivers already bear the cost of traffic congestion.
But not in proportion to the amount of traffic congestion each driver causes.
We can permanently eliminate traffic congestion by allowing supply and demand to settle on the equilibrium price of travel. This would save us all a LOT of money that would otherwise be needed to expand freeways just to relieve traffic congestion.
Putting an environmental impact fee (tax) on fuel would be a more reliable compensation for your impact than GPS.
Actually, the gas tax only covers your emissions. It doesn't cover your impact on traffic congestion, which is higher when the road is congested or approaching it; it doesn't cover wear and tear on the roads, which is proportional to the fourth power of the weight of the vehicle (the gas tax is only proportional to the first power of the weight of the vehicle); and it doesn't correct for the fact that bridges are much more expensive to construct and maintain than at-grade roads in rural areas.
This won't work because people don't make their own schedules - their boss does.
Actually, people make their own schedules in that they choose who to work for. Bosses will have to be flexible with their schedules or pay their employees more, or risk losing employees.
Markets exist when consumers have choice between multiple competing providers.
And they also exist even when consumers don't have a choice. Perfect competiton isn't required.
#1, if everything is a toll road in congested areas, the areas that have higher tolls between the living area and the working area will be depressed in value...
Why not let the free market decide what properties in sprawling suburbs far from work centers is worth?
#3, just because there's a toll making it more expensive to get there, doesn't mean that there'll be any less traffic...
Of course it does. Look at a demand curve. As price rises, demand falls, so if the price is high enough, demand falls to the level of supply and the shortage is eliminated.
Why price the tolls on the highways according to market when you can make more money due to your captive market?
If you want to make more money, build fewer lanes. Then you can price the tolls according to the market and also make more money.
And then you have the other side, the people who refuse to spend the money on the tolls and use the side roads rather then the highway.
If the freeway lanes are nearly full because you've correctly priced them, then you can hardly blame the tolls if people are also taking the side roads!
Given that traffic congestion is a type of shortage (a shortage of available space on a road at a given time of day), and that a shortage happens when when the price of an item is set below the going rate determined by supply and demand, the solution is made obvious: raise the price of freeway access just high enough to eliminate the traffic congestion, but no higher. Then lower the toll when demand is low, to give people the ability to economize. Variable tolls permanently eliminates any need to expand the freeway just to eliminate congestion. There are other ways to justify expanding a freeway, but congestion is no longer one of them.
Please explain more carefully how using more trucks and truckers to haul the same amount of goods would save us all money.
It doesn't have to be more trucks and truckers. It can be more axles and tires on existing trucks (to reduce pavement wear), or more trains to haul intercity freight.
Extending your logic, the tax bill on an 80,000 lb 18-wheeler that hauls food to your local grocery would be 2.56 million times the taxes paid on a 2,000 lb car.
How on earth would making it illegal to pass on the right cause slow traffic to stick to the correct lane?
Because they would be impeding traffic if cars can't pass them on the right. So they will pull over under threat of being cited, as on the Autobahn.
And even if the slow traffic *does* stick to the far right lane, how is that going to make it easier to merge into traffic? The main problem with merging into traffic is the fact that onramps are generally too short to get up to speed...
...when the traffic in the right lane on the freeway is moving faster than the speed limit.
We already have a close proxy to this with the gas tax. The weight of a vehicle is a large determinator of it's fuel efficiency.
A 2-ton vehicle uses only about twice as much gas per mile as a 1-ton vehicle, while causing 16 times as much road damage. Therefore, the gas tax is a completely inadequate way to pay for the road wear.
Uhm, that tax already exists: It's called lower miles per gallon with raising gas prices.
But a 2-ton SUV doesn't use 16 times as much fuel as a 1-ton small car! Therefore, the small car owner is heavily subsidizing road repairs for the SUV owner.
Yes, lowering the speed limit or at least enforcing existing limits, would reduce fatalities, attract smaller engines, make larger vehicles more fuel-efficient, and optimize traffic flow [pdf]. So I'm counting four birds with one stone.
Another "two birds, one stone" solution is to make it illegal to pass on the right. Then slower traffic would always need to be in the right lane in order to avoid impeding traffic, and that would (1) make it easier for smaller engined cars to come up to speed on freeway onramps, and (2) separate slow traffic from fast traffic.
Data caps are only needed for prime Internet usage hours to keep the data pipe from getting congested. Broadband ISPs really ought to embrace the "unlimited nights and weekends" model used by the cell phone companies, although in this case it might be 10pm-6am.
With some kind of congestion management like this in place, ISPs can sell more bandwidth using the same infrastructure and offer lower priced data plans, and customers can further economize by scheduling their movie downloads for the wee hours.
So all they have to do is raise the price during periods of high demand, until demand falls enough so that whoever's using the bandwidth is getting their full allotment.
Yes, and if people would always stop at stop signs, and always yield right of way, and never drive too fast for conditions, and not drive while impaired, and not drive while distracted and do everything else a driver should do, driving would be much much safer for everyone. Of course, in the real world, people don't drive like that.
Calling this technology unsafe because of a few bad drivers is like calling airbags unsafe because of a few airbag fatalities.
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The vendor's price is mostly irrelevant when choosing the selling price. It's mainly used for deciding how much product to put on the market. If you price above the market because your costs are so high, then you won't sell any. If you price significantly below the market because your costs are low, you'll be throwing away money.
Don't blame the "evil overlords" for the high prices. Price gouging isn't a market failure—a monopoly is.
Facebook will read my Twitter status and add it to my wall. Google+ needs the same ability so I can post to all three services at the same time from my mobile.
We don't use time as a form of money here. If we did, there would be no "shortages," there would only be really long queues.
But not in proportion to the amount of traffic congestion each driver causes.
We can permanently eliminate traffic congestion by allowing supply and demand to settle on the equilibrium price of travel. This would save us all a LOT of money that would otherwise be needed to expand freeways just to relieve traffic congestion.
Actually, the gas tax only covers your emissions. It doesn't cover your impact on traffic congestion, which is higher when the road is congested or approaching it; it doesn't cover wear and tear on the roads, which is proportional to the fourth power of the weight of the vehicle (the gas tax is only proportional to the first power of the weight of the vehicle); and it doesn't correct for the fact that bridges are much more expensive to construct and maintain than at-grade roads in rural areas.
Actually, people make their own schedules in that they choose who to work for. Bosses will have to be flexible with their schedules or pay their employees more, or risk losing employees.
And they also exist even when consumers don't have a choice. Perfect competiton isn't required.
Why not let the free market decide what properties in sprawling suburbs far from work centers is worth?
Of course it does. Look at a demand curve. As price rises, demand falls, so if the price is high enough, demand falls to the level of supply and the shortage is eliminated.
If you want to make more money, build fewer lanes. Then you can price the tolls according to the market and also make more money.
If the freeway lanes are nearly full because you've correctly priced them, then you can hardly blame the tolls if people are also taking the side roads!
Given that traffic congestion is a type of shortage (a shortage of available space on a road at a given time of day), and that a shortage happens when when the price of an item is set below the going rate determined by supply and demand, the solution is made obvious: raise the price of freeway access just high enough to eliminate the traffic congestion, but no higher. Then lower the toll when demand is low, to give people the ability to economize. Variable tolls permanently eliminates any need to expand the freeway just to eliminate congestion. There are other ways to justify expanding a freeway, but congestion is no longer one of them.
Efficiently pricing freeway access saves a lot of money that would be spent expanding the freeway. For example, the USA's Congressional Budget Office found that southern California's SR-91 express lanes generate net social benefits of at least $12 million per year, compared with a scenario in which the lanes had been built but drivers did not pay to use them.
Because many if not all states currently fund freeways with general sales tax revenue, As a group low-income residents, on average, pay more out-of-pocket with sales taxes" for freeways than with tolls. Therefore, tolls are less regressive than the alternative.
The free market works remarkably well, when it's allowed to work.
And my taxes used to repair the roads will go down by an equivalent amount. Who do you think pays for the roads?
It doesn't have to be more trucks and truckers. It can be more axles and tires on existing trucks (to reduce pavement wear), or more trains to haul intercity freight.
Which states?
Unfortunately, most people overestimate their driving abilities. Therefore, they tend to drive at speeds faster than are supported by road conditions.
I oversimplified a little. Road wear is actually proportional to the 4th power of the axle loading, and tire size also comes into play. In the end, a 40-ton truck does as much damage to the road as (only) 9,600 cars.
And because a 22,400-lb axle load causes 6.4 times as much road cracking as an 18,000-lb load, making truckers pay their fair share of the road wear would encourage them to haul lighter loads to save money. In the end, it would save us all money.
Because they would be impeding traffic if cars can't pass them on the right. So they will pull over under threat of being cited, as on the Autobahn.
...when the traffic in the right lane on the freeway is moving faster than the speed limit.
Yes, we would pay more in store prices, but we would pay less in taxes, so it would all even out.
Except shipping companies would then start moving more freight by rail in order to save money. Consumers would also benefit as a result.
And with fewer trucks on the road, we would save again with less traffic congestion.
So in the end, it would save a lot of money. The free market works wonders when market failures are corrected.
A 2-ton vehicle uses only about twice as much gas per mile as a 1-ton vehicle, while causing 16 times as much road damage. Therefore, the gas tax is a completely inadequate way to pay for the road wear.
In the USA, when there are two or more lanes in your direction, as far as I know you're always allowed to use either lane for passing.
On the Autobahn, it's illegal to pass on the right, and that is part of the reason why it's safe despite the lack of speed limits.
But a 2-ton SUV doesn't use 16 times as much fuel as a 1-ton small car! Therefore, the small car owner is heavily subsidizing road repairs for the SUV owner.
Yes, lowering the speed limit or at least enforcing existing limits, would reduce fatalities, attract smaller engines, make larger vehicles more fuel-efficient, and optimize traffic flow [pdf]. So I'm counting four birds with one stone.
Another "two birds, one stone" solution is to make it illegal to pass on the right. Then slower traffic would always need to be in the right lane in order to avoid impeding traffic, and that would (1) make it easier for smaller engined cars to come up to speed on freeway onramps, and (2) separate slow traffic from fast traffic.
Because road wear is proportional to the fourth power of the weight of the vehicle, make the 4,000 lbs SUV owner pay 16 times as much in taxes as the 2,000 lbs small car owner. Pretty soon we'll see fewer SUVs on the roads, and all because of a fair, well-justified tax as opposed to new, arbitrary regulations.
Data caps are only needed for prime Internet usage hours to keep the data pipe from getting congested. Broadband ISPs really ought to embrace the "unlimited nights and weekends" model used by the cell phone companies, although in this case it might be 10pm-6am.
With some kind of congestion management like this in place, ISPs can sell more bandwidth using the same infrastructure and offer lower priced data plans, and customers can further economize by scheduling their movie downloads for the wee hours.
False.
By varying the price.
Oh, they have the capacity. They just don't have the right pricing model. If there's a shortage of available bandwidth to your house, it's because the price is set below the going rate determined by supply and demand.
So all they have to do is raise the price during periods of high demand, until demand falls enough so that whoever's using the bandwidth is getting their full allotment.
Calling this technology unsafe because of a few bad drivers is like calling airbags unsafe because of a few airbag fatalities.