davidf18

It is a market inefficiency caused by zoning density restrictions and overuse of historic landmark status which creates a politically induced artificial scarcity in housing (scarcity = rising prices). These "rent-seeking" restrictions are a regressive tax transferring income from renters to wealthy landlords including Donald Trump. It is wrong, and Japan has fixed the problem removing zoning density restrictions at the local level. The result, in 2014 there were 140,000 homes built in Tokyo compared with about 90,000 for all of California and 20,000 in NYC.

Economist David Ricardo wrote about this phenomenon of "rent-seeking" about 200 years ago related to the Corn Laws. Corn Laws taxed the import of all grains which benefited not farmers but landowners. Ricardo joined Parliament and managed to overturn the "rent-seeking" law.

The solution is a federal law in the US following the example of Japan.

At my local grocer in Manhattan, some prices suddenly went up 25% or more on a number of items and I was told by a senior manager of the food store chain (I was calling to complain about something else and inquired) who said it was because of the first minimum wage increase for not only the stores but the distributors which are also located in NY State.

NY State passed a minimum wage from $11 to $13 to $15 by 2018 or so. The current rate is $11.

A lot of people receive food stamps and/or are on a fixed income (think retirees) and this puts a substantial increase in their cost of living. This is only the first hike. One can only imagine how much higher food prices will be when it finally goes up to $15.

Meanwhile neither NY State nor NY City has dealt with the real problem which is the high cost of living which is very hard on low-wage people in particular because of zoning density restrictions and overuse of historic landmark status. These zoning density restrictions are a huge windfall for wealthy landlords as they make renters pay far, far higher rates for apartments than they would in an efficient market. It is a huge regressive "tax" that makes landlords like Donald Trump far wealthier than they otherwise would be in a efficient, functioning real estate market.

These subcontractors seems to run with lower operational expenses and yet use Americans as pilots following FAA guidelines. United could have a similar arrangement with lower operational costs for overseas flights.

That doesn't make any sense at all. That sounds like some sort of anti-trust issue that keeps airline costs low by making it impossible to "poach" highly qualified pilots from other carriers and raise wages.

> "and result from union contracts that inhibit the legacies from profitably operating smaller (non-mainline) aircraft."

And it is these union contracts then that keep the US carriers from earning such low profits.

Still, incandescents consume a lot of power, and LEDs little.

Are you certain that there is limitless hydropower in Quebec? I think we are using capacity and that more damns would have to be built? We already get a lot of power from Hydro Quebec, some of which runs our subway system.

The tilting at windmills joke comes to mind :-)

Honestly, first off the article says that it seems that gas is less competitive than renewable, so there are already market incentives in Texas to build windmills.

A lot of the money for windmill power simply ends up in General Electric's (the major US vendor for windmills) pockets.

Also, I think ones energy is best put in doing what one can do to minimize energy consumption using LED lights in place of incandescents, using mass transit instead of one's automobile and working with city council in Dallas and other major Texas cities to encourage more production of mass transit.

Also, doing what one can to turn up air conditioning from 72 to 76 or 78 in Dallas will save substantial amount of carbon-based power generation.

There is also the use of microturbine technology that can be used for trigeneration meaning that water chillers for air-conditioning as well as electric power from natural gas. This is very efficient and if it received the same financial incentives and wind and solar probably much more cost effective.

In that case, better to give the money to some charity that say, replaces incandescent bulbs with the newest LED lamps starting with your own house and office if you haven't already converted. Also, better to take mass transit than use the car.

BTW, our brilliant NY Govenor Cuomo is putting a lot more carbon-based fuel back on-line. Because nuclear is more expensive than gas powered generation, he is removing the Indian Point nuclear power plant from the grid. This plant generates 1/4 the electricity for NYC and adjacent Westchester County.

The population of NYC is 8.5 million, Westchester County is about 1 million. So removing the carbon-free power for about 2.5 million people.

All will be replaced with carbon-based fuel generation. So much for people like you trying to be responsible and green.

EDIT: Someone above provided a link that provides the figure I was looking for:

"Between 2010 and 2016, subsidies for solar were between 10¢ and 88¢ per kWh and subsidies for wind were between 1.3¢ and 5.7¢ per kWh. Subsidies for coal, natural gas and nuclear are all between 0.05¢ and 0.2¢ per kWh over all years." [1]

I wonder how much of a subsidy there is for LED lighting. A lot of energy goes for incandescent lighting.

Also, there should be a lot of subsidies to replace heaters in building burning #6 and #4 fuel oil which is very, very dirty and pollution (NYC where I live banned #6 a few years ago but #4 is allowed to persist until 2030 I think).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/05/30/why-do-fe...

They don't fly out of regional airports at least in NYC I think that is rare.

I"ll bet there are a lot of operational issues.

Delta, United and others own low-cost carriers (the famous United case where the senior was dragged off the plane screaming and kicking was not on United but a low cost fully owned subsidiary carrier of United) as it is, so they could have a low-cost carrier that travels to Europe. These low-cost wholly owned carriers are domestic only.

But none of them have them because they want to cannibalize the higher fares charged. They enjoy their margins.

Norwegian (like Amazon, like Uber) is in a contest to capture market share and thus may be willing to operate on thin margins or even take a short term loss to capture share. The major American carriers may not want to invest the money to retain share and prefer to use politics instead.

NYC SFO July 11 to 20 RT is about $330 to $350 on Spirit, Frontier, and Kayak (with better carriers).

They are not comparable to EasyJet and Ryan Air which does offer substantially lower fares.

When I fly to Israel with a layover in Istanbul to visit friends in Istanbul, I am using Turkish pilots, thus depriving Americans of jobs. They are lower cost than many European pilots. Are you saying I shouldn't be flying Turkish Air? I don't understand? Incidentally, the flights from NYC to Istanbul use very modern planes and are staffed with very friendly staff.

Direct flights to Israel on El Al use Israeli pilots whom I guessing don't get paid as much as their American counterparts and yet, highly trained as probably almost all of them were in the Israeli Air Force.

So, please explain your position.

I am concerned with safety and in fact part my work deals with safety in healthcare. Airlines landing in US airports should be following FAA regulations. It is important that the FAA regulate this.

I encourage US domestic carriers to change the way they operate so that they can match the Norwegian fares while retaining American jobs.

But to complain that Norwegian is offering fares that make Europe more accessible for people with fixed or limited income is just wrong.

Consumers paid for these consolidations with higher fares and worse service.

The chief concern is safety.

America's airline industry especially with the consolidations of United buying Continental and American buying US Airways is dysfunctional. We have no equivalent of Ryan Air or EasyJet in the US and we should.

US domestic carriers should strive to compete with Norwegian offering their prices and stop complaining.

All of the US domestic carriers went bankrupt and renegotiated their union agreements, so this doesn't hold.

This is the same government under Obama and Democrats that allowed for consolidation of United buying Continental and American buying US Air which resulted in less competition.

The Democrats used to represent regular people instead of favoring special interests that result in higher prices.

Instead of allowing the legacy carriers to slow down Norwegian and other innovators, the legacies should copy them. They have much more capital and they can make it happen if they want to.

Using ublock origin, Ghostery on Safari with 2015 MacBook Pro 15"

You have not addressed at all the fact that they did not use a professional to investigate these claims.

> "What, precisely, makes you qualified to make this determination,..."

I don't have to work there. People such as the FB poster Margaret-Ann Seger and many other women who work there have been very upset about his firing. Just read the comments for Sanger's post on FB -- those written by women who support TK. There are 1,800 likes 350 shares, 65 comments to her FB post alone.

Google for the name "Margaret-Ann Seger" and you will see there are recall petitions and other positive comments by other women about the culture there.

You simply can't have these kinds of testimonials from women in there was a truly toxic culture there. Your issue is not with me, but the women who testify in TK's favor.

Culture does mean culture -- it means something endemic throughout. Undeniably there were cases just as there were cases in other tech firms. But to discount the words of the many women who work there supporting TK and his kindness and leadership is in itself discounting their opinions which is sexually abusive.

It is suggesting that these women's feelings should not be taken seriously.

You are either pregnant or not. You can't be both.

As I mentioned earlier, Eric Holder is a lawyer, the issue has do do with emotions and Eric Holder has absolutely no clinical training let alone clinical training for this specific kind of environment. That makes him unqualified to make judgments.

The question is why wasn't a specialist brought in. Someone who has the clinical training and business training who has experience dealing with hi-tech startup cultures brought in for an evaluation. It makes everything highly suspect.

I am not denying that some women and others may have been put off by the culture. Or that there may have been some specific cases of abuse. But clearly there was no culture of sexual abuse.

It simply cannot be that Ms. Sanger and a number of women were highly supportive of an environment that promoted sexual abuse. They are not crazy, they are not in denial. It was not a pervasive culture.

There is something else going on and to do everyone justice, don't use an unqualified lawyer to investigate, use a qualified industrial psychologist with extensive clinical training. Use the right person for the job.

As I said before, I have dealt with such a highly qualified individual. I use awareness of cognitive biases in my work where unlike Uber, cognitive biases can kill people.

Something else is going on. A properly trained industrial psychologist with clinical training and who knows the hi-tech startup environment should investigate.

I never suggested rumor or innuendo. But it is sexist to not believe not a single woman but a number of women who come out and support TK. Women know even if they have not experienced it directly (e.g. "the grapevine") if it were a sexist environment. It is sexist to discount the FB poster, Margaret-Ann Seger and the many other women who have come out in favor of TK. Ms. Seger even suggests the cultural difference which favors her personality in her post where she said she was too aggressive for the FB environment but fit right in with Uber.

Eric Holder would not be my first choice to investigate a corporate culture. There are professionals who have both MBAs and who are clinical psychologists that even specialize with hi-tech companies who also see patients on an individual basis. Eric Holder is not a clinical psychologist, has no clinical experience, is not an expert in corporate culture let alone the unique culture of the hi-tech startup firm.

These people have the clinical and business experience to deal with corporate cultures and those that specialize in hi-tech firms understand that unique environment.

Disclose, I have worked with such a specialist.

I have worked in Israel and the culture there can be off-putting to many in the US, especially those from the west coast. Intel, which employs 10,000 in Israel, even offers cross-cultural classes between West Coast and Israeli culture. Many people would consider Israelis very pushy (Hutzpah is the term). Israelis are very direct and many people don't like that. I happen to love that but adjust for different people.

In summary, it is sexist to discount the opinions of women who worked with TK. Eric Holder is not a clinical psychologist nor an expert in hi-tech culture. He is no industrial psychologist. It is strange that a non-professional would be chosen to investigate the organization.

Something else was going on.

1000 people have "liked" the posting including Zuckerberg and a number of women have commented in support of TK.

EDIT:

This is from the FB poster, Margaret-Ann Seger. Other women seem to confirm her perspective. If it were truly a sexist culture as was claimed then you wouldn’t be seeing these testimonials. It suggests that despite everything, something else is going on.

“Thank you for creating a culture where- as a woman- it was okay to, no, encouraged to speak up. This is one of my oft less-told anecdotes, but I feel it's appropriate given the circumstances. Before Uber, I was at Facebook. I left Facebook because I was told that I was too aggressive. Pushing too hard, wanting to move too fast, challenging the status quo a bit too much. The amazing part is that coming to Uber was like a homecoming. I could be who I truly am, without being labeled an "aggressive" woman. I could push on assumptions, move quickly, do whatever work needed to be done whether it was "in my area" or not, question leadership in an open, earnest environment. It was like a breath of fresh air. I don't think people realize how unique this is. This company truly listens to every voice, from the VPs all the way down to the junior PMs like myself. Thank you. Thank you for listening and creating an environment where the best answer truly does win.”

"Get a TLC license New York City With more riders than any other app, Uber is a great way to make money driving in NYC. You'll need a TLC license to pick up riders, but we've made the signup process quicker and easier than ever."

https://www.uber.com/drive/new-york/get-a-license/

and this: http://driveubernyc.com/tlc-overview/

Uber most certainly does follow the law. He should write a retraction. NYC is by far the largest market for Uber. It took me 10 seconds to google this information.

If this professor can't take the less than one minute to do research, how can you trust absolutely anything else this man writes?

Read this part of the article:

"Uber made a particular effort to deploy the tool in cities where it faced opposition from local regulators or rival taxi and transportation companies. One of those cities was Portland."

NYC did not bow to pressure from rival taxi companies and they did follow the law cooperating with NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission (again, unlike AirBnB which directly broke NY City and NY State laws and was sued by the NY State Attorney General). Uber was never in trouble with the law in NYC nor NYS and the only time it has trouble are with entities that try to block competition from the regulated monopoly.