Comment by jlebar
6 hours ago
> Part of the issue is not systematically using a pricing structure that charges disproportionately more for usage above high thresholds.
We don't do this for gasoline (in most countries), even though it is also vital for life. And yet people can still drive, afford to eat food grown with fertilizers, use plastic, and so on.
Turns out markets are pretty good when you leave them alone. But when they're not left alone (as is the case with water today!!) you get some weird shit.
> We don't do this for gasoline
No, but commercial trucks use diesel, which carries about 25% higher taxes per gallon. And vehicle registration on semi-trailer trucks is significantly higher as well. They pay, on average, between $25,000 and $30,000 in taxes and fees each year.
> Turns out markets are pretty good when you leave them alone.
No, they aren't. They're ridiculously bad when you leave them alone because someone captures the market, ramps up anti-competitive practices, and immediately begins rent-seeking as hard as possible.
Free markets are pretty good at finding good prices. Markets that are left alone do not remain free. That lauded "self-interest" encourages businesses that have reached nearly 100% market share to increase profit in other ways.
Heavier commercial trucks that run on diesel tend to cause more damage. Scales with roughly 4th power of axle load.
Gasoline is absolutely rationed when it becomes scarce after having been plentiful.
When hurricanes come to South Florida, the well off migrate North to wait out the storm while the poor suffer the dangerous conditions. Part of this is due to the price spikes of gasoline in the local market as supplies dwindle due to fewer truck shipments and refineries shutting down for the storm.
Water is similar. Both water rights and water utilities are gamed by people who have resources. The people that are hurt are usually poor utilities bill payers, rural residents who are the first to lose service when wells dry up, and anyone who thinks they have water rights until an upstream user exhausts their expected supply.
The “markets work” heuristic is frequently wrong if you don’t glaze over the very many counterexamples.
Yeah but that response is stupid, irrational, makes shortages more likely and discourages people from taking action when they need to do something different right now. In an emergency situation, people who can provide more of something that is in desperately short supply should be paid more. People consistently adopt a strategy of trying to not pay them more and it's one of those really annoying cases where people's instincts are primed to make them band together and do something predictably foolish.
Rationing is an inevitable response. But to say that is like saying witch hunts are inevitable - they are. They're still bad ideas. People who can maintain access to their higher reasoning should resist them.
Gasoline is heavily regulated and subsidized. Leaving the oil market alone resulted in Standard Oil, and we obviously don't want that again.
Standard oil not only reduced consumer prices for gasoline, but was already losing its monopoly to competitors during the antitrust trial.
excuse me? leave the markets alone? to do what? continue screwing people over with the cost of living? at some point the government needs to step in when greed outstrips the ability of the consumer to meet the demand. capitalism on it’s own will demand ever increasing profits and that is simply unsustainable for any civilisation