Why Is This Price Gouging 841

Jonathan Kamens

Traffic was so heavy folks took two or three hours each way, anyway! I can't imagine how price-gouging really affects that one way or the other.

I also don't think anyone got fired due to tardiness related to the strike. Just not in the employer's interest if there wasn't anything else wrong with the worker.

The physically disabled and such was always going to have problems. That's just life. Why should a cabbie be forced to spend the extra time dealing with such fares? I believe there's a City service specifically for them, though I don't know what the qualifying criteria are, exactly (age, income, etc.)...I'll have to ask my neighbor who works as a driver chauffeuring these folks around every day.

Disabled folks can bike, too -- or wheelchair (or whatever it's called). Really, it's not an impossibility. So what we're discussing is just different degrees of inconvenience. And I'm wondering why one party seems to get all the benefit.

One could imagine all kinds of worst-case scenarios, since so many factors are invovled. The point is, in the end, that it's possible, and so the issue really seems to be a lesser-of-two-evils one, based on utilitarianism -- greatest good for greatest number. But I do challenge that. Just seems like these poor cabbies (the days of raising a family working as one are long since over) could really do with the windfall they could make "price-gouging," and all under otherwise-accepted principles of captialistic opportunism.

That's no reason to deprive cabbies of the right to make money by taking advantage of a situation, which is what others do on a daily basis to much greater rewards.

Well, since we're going to go so "far afield" and into folks' "personal lives" and the decisions they make and the consequences thereof...let me say this: they should have a bike the same way they should have a retirement fund; it's good for them; and if they don't, why make cabbies suffer?

The issue will always boil down to this for me: under what concept of "morality" do we allow some folks to capitalize on economic situations day-in, day-out, while we deny others from capitalizing on a once-in-a-blue-moon economic situation?

Well, given that it's a strike, and given that we live in a capitalistic society, why shouldn't they pay premium for whatever service they think worthwhile?

Just think about it: Joe Blow's gonna pay market rates for his mortage, for his rent, and expects market rates for his paycheck -- but damned if he's gonna pay something other than an artificial ceiling for a much-appreciated service in a time of scarcity!

Don't want to go there.... =)

Sorry that my obsession seems to imply that, but no, I'm not saying that only or even mostly well-off commuters (that is, out-of-towners) are the ones complaining about price gouging. Just reacting to a news item on WCBS radio where this Wall St. dude was interviewed talking about how he was price-gouged for his taxi, the punchline being that even as a price-gouger himself he was shocked at how exorbitant rates can be.

As for the less well-off, well, they always get screwed, anyway. I don't see how putting a ceiling cap helps them (excuse me if you'd addressed this already): entrepreneur-drivers will carve out a niche market for them, surely, as has been done with so-called "gypsy vans" were compete with MTA busses. Indeed, many gypsy cabs already serve this population that cannot afford even a yellow taxi.

To that I have to repeat that that's like answering the question "Why do blacks have to ride at th back of the bus?" with "Because it's the law."

Again, simply appealing to the law with a question of "why" is to beg the question. I'm wondering about the "fairness" of the philosophical underpinning of the law itself, which exists in a system of laws that allows bankers, etc., to take advantage of economic situations on a daily basis but forbids working stiffs like cabbies from taking advantage of a once-in-a-great-while economic situation.