NYC Transit workers should be fired 772

Not really.

The railroads, oil (Rockefeller), and steel makers did have considerable economic power. However, they could not charge "what they wanted".

In those days, all of those businesses were offering a new service or product that wasn't available before. Consumers had the choice of continuing with the old way or paying the price for the improvements offered by the new way. The new ways offered so much improvement it was worth paying the high prices for it.

In other words, if you didn't want to pay Standard Oil's price for kerosene for your house lights, you could still make your own candles. If you didn't want to pay for steel, you could still use wood. If you didn't want to ship by rail, you could still use a horse.

In today's world, when new electronic devices come out they usually are rather expensive and only a few people buy them. But then the price drops down and many people buy on.

The CD player had many improvements over the phonograph. Initially it cost a lot and wasn't worth the high price despite the advtgs it offered. Then the price went down (and tone quality went up) and vinyl quickly became obsolete.

In the short term the laws of supply and demand can be bent. But in the long term it won't work. We have seen that often in NYC (and other cities) history: we have given union workers excellent wages and raise prices or taxes to cover it, in the short term things remain the same. But in the long term people decide the city is too costly and move away. Industry moved to the suburbs, the South, and overseas to find cheaper wages and overhead. NYC and other cities suffered terrible losses of taxpaying people and commerce because city life just got too expensive and annoying. That can and will happen again if we're not careful.