Re: What to do about inequality?
 

We could relax rules so that the authorities have more options than evict or ignore. If the fire dept or police had the option of simply directing that the tenant would have to keep X number of extinguishers for every X number of people, and had to make sure ample easily accessed exits were clear in case of fire, the problem could have at least been thoughtfully approached.

Too many of our codes are starkly black and white.

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

wasn't it a bunch of squatters in an abandoned building?

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

Um, no. Ultimately, every team is a monopolist as regards its own tickets. If anyone wants to drill down on this, I can point them to the former antitrust lawyer for StubHub. But teams sell lots of tickets at the start of the season, before the team starts playing. If the team does worse than expected, season-ticket holders dump their seats for cheap. If the team does better than expected, there is more demand than inventory. The team would love to run the secondary marketplace so that it can try to keep these secondary sales from competing with its own primary sales, and sometimes it does.

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

That isn't the impression I got of the Ghost Ship or other similar collectives at all.

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

Yes, who needs a fire code when you can just have a simple occupant to fire extinguisher ratio? Freeing people to innovate by, e.g., experimenting with flammable exterior cladding seems just the way to avoid a future Grenfell Tower situation.

It doesn't surprise me that there were Oakland employees who knew there were problems and didn't do anything. I suspect it was because (a) it wasn't their job, and (b) Oakland is not going to win any Municipal Government Competence contests, not even in the rarely competitive Post-Industrial Wastelands, Mid-Sized Cities division. I saw this as someone who is quite fond of Oakland. Oakland city cops are generally too busy clubbing protesters or abusing victims of sexual violence to enforce building codes.

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

The team is seeking to maximize sales cross the entire season, where the optimal price point is well below that of the more popular games. Most likely, GGG’s observation that tickets for every game are higher on the secondary market is wrong and instead his sample is skewed toward popular games, but if not, then the Sox are charging less than they could. That does not sound like monopolizing behavior.

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

This is true, but it is also true that the team can bundle tickets to individual events together (call it a "season ticket") and sell them to people who can unbundle them and resell the tickets for individual games.

If only we knew someone who worked for a company with a good grasp of the data across different sports and cities and teams and seasons, someone who could speak to the antitrust implications from a pro-consumer perspective. Let's just keep a lookout in case that person comes along.

No, you're right. If you want tickets to the see New York Yankees play in New York, there are all sorts of companies you can go to who can create that sort of thing for you. The entry barriers are nonexistent.

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

I can't speak to Fenway, but Wrigley sold out even when the Cubs sucks. Tourists could fill half the seats. And don't discount good will- the Red Sox name and image are very valuable- do they want fans to think of them the way Thurgreed speaks of the Yankees above? The tickets really aren't what they're selling. Look at the payrolls and do the math.

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

Do you know who has a great monopoly? Augusta National Club. And they don't abuse it- they're racist and sexist and probably vile in many ways, but they do not gouge. If you have an angle for a ticket to the Masters, from Augusta, you will pay very little. But no one has an angle that way.

I took my dad to practice rounds Tiger's first and second years. I spent shit tons to get the tickets, there wasn't Stubhub yet. Just some re-seller. And we stayed in some fleabag hotel. Swear to god- we were paying like $200 per night for our room, and as we pull up I see a sign on the building "Rooms $100 per week!" The town lives on what happens Masters week and otherwise is sleepy and cheap.

So you can imagine we walked through the gates ready to be flat out robbed- but sandwiches were $2. Beer $3. Masters' gear? What you would pay in any pro shop at any country club.

Get it- you couldn't leave and come back- they had us- a sandwich could be $100- a Masters' polo? $1000. We'd buy it. They didn't do that. Economic theory misses goodwill as a thing, and it is.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Sorry, missed this thread. Busy getting blocked by people on twitter for calling Derek Jeter a compiler.

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

You surely support judges having greater discretion in awarding downward departures. Same concept.

In some instances, a return to the old way of doing things is warranted. And preferable to a rigid code. If a cop should run across a warehouse full of artists who've no other housing options, maybe allowing that he can say the following without losing his job and pension might be a smart policy:

I know this is not up to code. But I also understand that you all being homeless is a much worse result. So to those of you who have this lease, understand, if this place should burn, and anyone die, you will be held liable. I can't stop you from doing what you're doing because as a practical matter, no matter what fine I impose, or eviction I order, you'll correct long enough to appear compliant and then resume doing what you're doing. So I suggest you all employ as many safety precautions as possible. And I suggest you determine what this requires by calling the fire department and determining what what is needed as soon as possible.

And we should develop law that excuses public officials from enforcing draconian eviction penalties where the immediate negative impact (homelessness) outweighs the possible but unlikely dire negative impact where the inhabitants have been advised about taking precautions (fire resulting in deaths).

People have to be adults at some point. If the police visit, tell you you're in danger, and you do nothing, they should face no liability if that danger comes to pass. Almost all codes and regs in this country, which assumes its citizens should be treated as partially-challenged and its codes applied with a zero tolerance standard, are too rigid.

We all know zero tolerance isn't real. With any law, there's a set of stealth considerations governing whether it's applied, how it's applied, and to what extent it's applied. That should be made transparent by giving the authorities more latitude.

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

I think there are probably a bunch of good reasons why cops don't enforce fire codes. You don't have to work too hard to find ways to improve the way the City of Oakland operates. If you could just get its employees to do what their counterparts in other cities routinely do, that would be a big improvement. But affluent cities don't usually have problems with gentrification. Oddly enough, those see to hit poor places.

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

Red Sox tickets go wanting if the Sox are out of it in August. There are a lot of purchased tickets that just don't get used and then you can buy them on the secondary for peanuts. At least, that's what I remember, it has been a while.

Here's my proposal: you want that nice subway station right outside the stadium, you want the police around for every game supervising traffic that isn't moving, you want all the infrastructure in the area upgraded?

Fine, set aside a section of the bleachers to see to kids with a high school ID for $2 a seat. 1000 seats a game. Set aside another 1000 for anyone under 22. And have a family day every Saturday where anyone with kids gets in for $10 a ticket adults, $5 kids. Let the kids have the same experience previous generations had.

Then go gouge the corporate masters of the world six days a week for 90+% of the stadium. Have fun.

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

If only we had a sock versed in Zoning law........

Re: What to do about inequality?
 

Yeah, that's what I just said.

Are you really getting caught up in the difference between being a monopolist and monopolistic behavior?

GGG says the secondary market prices are always higher than the primary market. If that's true (and it's almost certainly not), then his complaint is not about the monopolist, who is leaving money on the table.