Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519864)

This is happening with everything. I just heard Springsteen on Broadway tickets are going for $8k at orchestra level.

If you've been to any big name classic rock concert in the past seven or eight years, it's pretty obvious most of the best seats are bought with corporate money.

US Open (tennis)? First rows are mostly corporate.

This obviously distorts prices.

Then you get into something else that's a bit creepy: Paying to jump the line. Don't want to wait with the poors at Disney? Get that $200 pass that allows you to jump the lines. Same goes for the airport. Why wait with everyone else when for a few bucks they can't spare, you can jump the line and have your own lounge? (I understand this for business travel, but it feels a bit icky using it for a common ski trip.)

In the race to find revenue streams in our service economy, we're developing into a two tiered society. If you work for a big corporation or are a client of one, you've got a chance to get to the front row hear David Gilmour sing "Money" to you ("Dogs" would provide the best irony, but he hated Animals.) If you're a professional with the modest cash on hand to join an airline's "exclusive" lounge program, you don't ever have to hang with the proles during a layover.

These things have always existed, of course, but they take some of the charm out of the experiences. They also cut away at the idea that we're all in this together on some level. I'm not giving any of these things up, of course, because comfort is comfort. But I don't want to eat a gourmet cheesesteak on a truffle-oiled bun at the baseball game. A gross, boiled hot dog is preferred. It's part of the real experience. (I also don't want to see the pitcher hit a line drive home run, as I did a few years back at a World Series game, because the fences have been brought so far, to allow for more home runs to make the games more dramatic and exciting, but that's another story.)

The Stones are playing again this summer, and if you've seen them, you know the only way to see them is up close, because from a distance, the sound gets muddy real fast. I heard tickets close to the stage are going for $2-4k. I won't spend that kind of money on any ticket, but more importantly, I don't need to go to a concert to hang out with corporate ciphers and rich douches. I have to do that for a living already.

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 519865)

In our neck of the woods, it's housing. During the boom years of the recession, O&G was giving insane housing allowances to the square state recent grads, driving up rents all over the city. Totally changed the housing market. The price of oil nose dive in 14-16 didn't seem to have much of an effect once those prices went up. And now they're more or less recovered, so it's getting even more insane.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519867)

I generally agree, and find this particular obnoxious in airport security. If it's law enforcement, the well heeled should not be getting a better experience than the proles.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519866)

If the team sucked, it would be easy to get tickets. Be careful what you ask for.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519867)

I generally agree, and find this particular obnoxious in airport security. If it's law enforcement, the well heeled should not be getting a better experience than the proles.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519869)

That's the most perverted form of it. It's basically, "If you can afford this, we don't think you're a risk. If you can't, we assume you might be of bad character and cannot be so sure."

It also tends to undercut the assumption that our extreme airport security is effective and necessary. If the chance of terrorist act is so low that we can screen people by wealth, do you really need so many folks taking off their shoes so many times?

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 519870)

So you've become an apologist for monopolies now? We'll see if you get FTC or Justice in my administration.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519867)

I generally agree, and find this particular obnoxious in airport security. If it's law enforcement, the well heeled should not be getting a better experience than the proles.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 519871)

I don't get the economics of Clear. There is a person that walks me through it start to desk. There are always more workers than users, and it isn't that expensive.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519867)

I generally agree, and find this particular obnoxious in airport security. If it's law enforcement, the well heeled should not be getting a better experience than the proles.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 519870)

So you've become an apologist for monopolies now? We'll see if you get FTC or Justice in my administration.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519868)

I wonder how much of our economy is "house poor" or "rental poor"? That's got to be an enormous drag on the rest of the economy.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 519877)

If secondary market prices are consistently higher than the primary market, it doesn’t sound much like monopolistic behavior.

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 519878)

I was just reading a long form piece on the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland in the New York Times. Someone was asking a few days ago if we knew people who were poor. I know a lot of people who live in these sorts of living situations, partially because of lifestyle choices, but mainly because it's so godammned expensive to live in some cities that this is the only option outside of moving.

In the piece they talk about how the city knew about it. The fire department knew about it. The landlord knew about it. There is even bodycam footage of cops in the building saying that it's a deathtrap. But the only people who are facing consequences are the guy who ran the place and his number two.

These sorts of fires used to happen all the time in this country. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if this is just the first of many more to come.

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 519878)

I was just reading a long form piece on the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland in the New York Times. Someone was asking a few days ago if we knew people who were poor. I know a lot of people who live in these sorts of living situations, partially because of lifestyle choices, but mainly because it's so godammned expensive to live in some cities that this is the only option outside of moving.

In the piece they talk about how the city knew about it. The fire department knew about it. The landlord knew about it. There is even bodycam footage of cops in the building saying that it's a deathtrap. But the only people who are facing consequences are the guy who ran the place and his number two.

These sorts of fires used to happen all the time in this country. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if this is just the first of many more to come.