“If you keep hiking prices (no you cannot simply say ‘inflation!’) and cutting service and everyone hates you and they live in fear of you, you might be a monopoly.”
Well, no. A monopoly is a particular thing, and it is *not* simply ‘a business firm that does things I do not personally like.”
Well, it might be a question of revealed preferences. They complain, but it is still better than the alternative. Besides that, possibly those others might take their business elsewhere, but just haven't all done so yet. People have a lot of inertia there.
An actual monopoly that causes the economic theory problems of monopoly is fairly rare, when you come down to it. At the same time, people hate all sorts of businesses but still patronize them, for some reason.
I have a longer review coming out in a couple of months. Reeves never explains why the problems are emerging *now*--the slow-maturation story should have applied generations ago and should also apply to affluent males. Also, his set of policy recommendations is short, inoffensive, and unconvincing.
Re paypal, I've long had the policy to never link Paypal to a bank account with a meaningful balance. Lots of reports over the years of them pulling money out of the account with little transparency and no recourse.
I still use paypal for credit card processing, I think it's safer than having a wide variety of internet storefronts see your cc number. And if you don't mind some extra clicks, linking it to a low balance bank account that you move money into and out of just before/after Paypal transactions seems fine.
Argument from authority: I spent ~1995-1999 working on ecommerce credit card processing and fraud detection. The startup I worked at handled all of Paypal's credit card backends for years before Paypal in-housed it. (Which we knew they were going to do, it was too central to their business to have it outsourced permanently.)
I think this is a good question, because Zvi's contention appears to be that we should get rid of all credentials for teaching, including college degrees (at least for teaching grade school). That runs the risk of having incredibly incompetent people getting into teaching. That's fine if schools can evaluate properly (possible but questionable) and can remove bad teachers later (generally not possible due to things unrelated to credentialism).
If credentials are truly useless, then that's all win and becomes a good choice. If credentials have some usefulness, then we should find a way to retain as much of that as possible, even if we make getting the credentials easier.
I'm all for updating teaching certifications to make the process easier, cheaper, and more straight-forward. Saying that, I think we should also recognize that even things like college taking four years is a potentially strong signal of positive teacher performance (they are signaling a willingness to go through a long and frustrating process because they want to teach and also that they are capable of managing the process and their lives enough to do it).
If you sign up to play poker at The Hustler Casino, and you're not a hustler and someone else is, and you end up getting hustled, couldn't one say that you had it coming?
“If you keep hiking prices (no you cannot simply say ‘inflation!’) and cutting service and everyone hates you and they live in fear of you, you might be a monopoly.”
Well, no. A monopoly is a particular thing, and it is *not* simply ‘a business firm that does things I do not personally like.”
As in, it is Bayesian evidence that you are a monopoly - why didn't others simply take their business elsewhere?
“…evidence…”
You haven’t actually offered any evidence, but whatever.
Sysco has something like 15% market share. They’re big, but nothing at all like a monopoly.
Well, it might be a question of revealed preferences. They complain, but it is still better than the alternative. Besides that, possibly those others might take their business elsewhere, but just haven't all done so yet. People have a lot of inertia there.
An actual monopoly that causes the economic theory problems of monopoly is fairly rare, when you come down to it. At the same time, people hate all sorts of businesses but still patronize them, for some reason.
If you were to read the Reeves book, you would be disappointed.
Care to elaborate?
I have a longer review coming out in a couple of months. Reeves never explains why the problems are emerging *now*--the slow-maturation story should have applied generations ago and should also apply to affluent males. Also, his set of policy recommendations is short, inoffensive, and unconvincing.
Re paypal, I've long had the policy to never link Paypal to a bank account with a meaningful balance. Lots of reports over the years of them pulling money out of the account with little transparency and no recourse.
I still use paypal for credit card processing, I think it's safer than having a wide variety of internet storefronts see your cc number. And if you don't mind some extra clicks, linking it to a low balance bank account that you move money into and out of just before/after Paypal transactions seems fine.
Argument from authority: I spent ~1995-1999 working on ecommerce credit card processing and fraud detection. The startup I worked at handled all of Paypal's credit card backends for years before Paypal in-housed it. (Which we knew they were going to do, it was too central to their business to have it outsourced permanently.)
Are your claims about the uselessness of credentials backed by hard evidence?
I think this is a good question, because Zvi's contention appears to be that we should get rid of all credentials for teaching, including college degrees (at least for teaching grade school). That runs the risk of having incredibly incompetent people getting into teaching. That's fine if schools can evaluate properly (possible but questionable) and can remove bad teachers later (generally not possible due to things unrelated to credentialism).
If credentials are truly useless, then that's all win and becomes a good choice. If credentials have some usefulness, then we should find a way to retain as much of that as possible, even if we make getting the credentials easier.
I'm all for updating teaching certifications to make the process easier, cheaper, and more straight-forward. Saying that, I think we should also recognize that even things like college taking four years is a potentially strong signal of positive teacher performance (they are signaling a willingness to go through a long and frustrating process because they want to teach and also that they are capable of managing the process and their lives enough to do it).
If you sign up to play poker at The Hustler Casino, and you're not a hustler and someone else is, and you end up getting hustled, couldn't one say that you had it coming?