I’d tell you to get bent. Next question?
Your financial desperation and/or low self-esteem are not my concern.
Obviously not, or “we’ll give you an $X discount to put up with waiting for our one cashier to get around to serving you” would be a viable business model. The reason it isn’t is that $X per customer turns out to be higher than the cost of hiring a dozen or so cashiers (enough to have half of them available at peak hours allowing for multiple shifts and absences). Admittedly, cashiering isn’t exactly a one-percenter job, but it still costs the store more than the “very small” amount you suggest.
This argument might make sense if the “hour before your flight” rule had been handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai or derived from Newton’s Laws of Motion or otherwise originated from a phenomenon independent of the airport security system. Given that the one-hour rule is, in fact, a result of the airport security system, arguing that it obviates the cost of the system is equivalent to a malpractice-defense attorney arguing that a patient who was accidentally turned into a mental vegetable shouldn’t get a big payout because he’d never know the difference if you stashed him in a cheap human-warehouse institution rather than provided high-quality care.
All of which presumably have no significant value.
I understand this is your opinion, even though you resent it when I accept that this is your ridiculous position.
Yeah, I can see how “the next best alternative forgone is generally not anything that has great value” could mislead me to think that you think that alternatives have negligible value. Whoops.
It wasn’t unclear at all. And I have repeatedly pointed out that this is not how they are interpreting this. They, and I, and everyone but you, know that time has a pretty significant value to people. They use it to satisfy their wants and needs, which, as most people expect, they value very much. They value their wants and needs so much, they spend hours and hours away from satisfying their wants and needs in order to earn money which they can use to satisfy them better. Depending on the context, we have different ways of determining how much they value this free time. We might, for example, attempt to pay them to give it up in an experiment. Many measures are indirect. One measure you might consider is how much they are paid to do things they don’t want to do, like work for someone else. This stands in for what is otherwise an extremely difficult measurement to make. Using this is not an assertion that if they weren’t doing what they’d be doing, they’d be working. It never has been. I’ve repeatedly pointed this out to you. You continue on your charade nevertheless.
Well since you basically have thrown out most economics, it seems like an extremely pointed question.
:rolleyes:
Sounds great. And how do we know, as a matter of social policy, how the situations we’ve imposed on people have a cost? How do we measure that cost?
Your stubbornness on this point is admirable. But that only raises the question: what is the cost of waiting elsewhere? Sooner or later, “wasting time” or doing things “with little value” will have impacted something of value. You wish to ignore this logical chain of events because it is inconvenient to your point, but that is not my problem and I won’t let the dog go.
It’s just that your side wants time to count only when it is convenient to your argument (when people are actually working) but not when it isn’t (when people are enjoying leisure time—which they worked for!).
It’s certainly misleading you.
If we were asking, “Should we force people to not use velcro on their shoes because we need it for our super secret spy activities and must divert all market production to that end” then I think that something similar to your proposal would be a decent first-approximation of the cost of that decision (though we’d only count the people current using velcro, since that measure is presumably available).
It would, but not for the reasons you think.
I know you think this. It’s horrible, and makes no sense, and doesn’t explain anything people do, and definitely doesn’t explain why we pay people to work in the first place, but you are free to hold ridiculous positions in spite of common sense and economic tradition. I can’t stop you. But I can point out that:
- We pay people to do work for us. If we didn’t, they would work for themselves instead
- People use this money not to work more, but to enjoy their leisure time more. It seems that there is a very high value on leisure time, because we cannot easily induce people any longer to work 14 hour days six days a week without paying them significantly more money.
- People have rioted for more leisure time. They kill for their families. They don’t give a fuck about their bosses.
Feel free to keep repeating yourself, it’s your hole to climb out of.
Maybe I am just not getting the jist of the argument but ANY cost that the TSA imposes is too great considering you can’t measure their success. You can measure their failures and they have been plentiful.
There have been lots of quibbling about the ‘exact cost’, I say who cares. That there is one is key.
Why is it ridiculous? I stand by my statement. Their time has very little value, as the alternative option of paying for a beer, reading a book, or working on their laptop is not appealing at all. If the beer were free, or the book were interesting, or the work had to be done this instant, then I’d be wrong. But it isn’t, they usually aren’t, and it can be done later.
What’s the difference between…
- That guy could kill us all if he wanted to.
- That guy will kill us all.
Why do people act like “if he wanted to” is an insignificant obstacle for terrorists to overcome? It’s like saying that NFL teams having cornerbacks is stupid because he could let the receiver past him if he wanted to.
No, it’s not. The one-hour rule is a consequence of ticketing, baggage-handling, and plane-prepping. Security is not the limiting factor.
No, you can’t measure their success. In the realm of national security, you’re a nobody. But the somebodies out there are able to measure successes. That’s “who cares.”
I’ve already explained why traditional cost-benefit analysis is inappropriate in this situation.
There are a few differences. First intrusion is usually not catastrophic. Second, those at risk have better security than the average PC owner who never updates his virus signatures. Third, unlikely a hole in a firewall, the holes in airport security are more random. Getting a gun past one guard on Tuesday does not mean you can get one past another guard on Thursday. Finally, some guy sitting in Moscow probing firewalls has a relatively low risk of anything bad happening to him, even if he gets caught. The terrorist caught is going to win a trip to Gitmo.
I’m certainly not claiming that security is perfect - there is no such thing. But I remember when unexpected trips to Havana were an almost weekly occurrence, so there is certainly evidence that security works.
BTW, if you know computer security I assume you know queuing theory, and so are aware that adding more consumers of tokens on a queue increase throughput and decreases wait times. If the cost of these wait times is so great, this cost benefit analysis, which more traditional methods work for, should be a no-brainer.
Exactly how many terrorist attacks have been thwarted by the TSA?
If the number is anything more than “0”, please cite an instance.
Well, maybe you can’t measure the success, but I would tend to believe that the FBI blows up any story about a thwarted terrorist attack. To this date, I can recall the liquid bombers, who were arrested by the British police, not the TSA.
So the TSA has no measurable benefits, and instead costs time and money, not to mention personal privacy.
I don’t understand what you are trying to convey?
Nice try. You consistently mischaracterized what I have said. You stated that I implied time has no value. If you need a reminder, allow me to quote you:
[QUOTE=erislover]
As far as I can tell, your hypothesis supposes their time literally has no value because they don’t earn money.
[/QUOTE]
I am not saying that. I am saying that valuing time at the rate you might earn working is a stupid way to calculate things. You said that’s not what they are doing, they you deign to explain how else they might reasonably calculate it.
Nobody is disagreeing that people value their time. The fact that you can pick apart this strawman doesn’t mean your argument holds any water. Of course people value their time. The problem with their calculation is that, on average, people don’t value their time at $34.95/hour. If they did, people wouldn’t routinely work for far less than that. That’s why that calculation is stupid.
Right, so explain why the average person works for far less than the value used in the calculations?
Once again, your comprehension problem rears its ugly head. The main reason you are wrong are:
- The actual opportunity costs are no where near $34.95/hour.
- Using the value of time of $34.95/hour implies that the time can be objectively valued at that rate.
- People don’t actual value what is generally free time at that rate.
- The only time people generally value at that rate is time spent working
A number of ways. If I want something to be revenue neutral or positive, I need to see if the benefits outweigh the costs. For example, if I am deciding whether to build a shopping center or a stadium. I can see if people are actually willing to shoulder the costs of building them in exchange for better shopping opportunities or access to professional sports.
Another concrete is example is waiting in line at amusement parks. Many parks, like Six Flags, have fast passes that give you expedited wait times at the popular rides. They say roughly 3-5% of people buy those passes. First, note that the price is $35. This site estimates you could save 4 or 5 hours waiting throughout the course of the day. That means people value their time waiting in line at Six Flags between $7-$8.75/hour, not $34.95. Why is that? If the $34.95/hour is indeed correct, shouldn’t Six Flags charge a lot more?
Second, note that the vast majority of people do not buy them. Now, let’s talk about this. If we are to assume, like airport travelers, amusement park customers value their time 34.95/hour, why do so few of them buy the tickets? More importantly, if everyone wanted to buy them, they could just raise the normal price, and use the difference to buy more rides to reduce waiting times.
Similarly, if people really feel their time waiting at the airport is worth $34.95, charge them that much, and then hire more TSA agents so that the wait time is proportionately minimized. As the gentleman said, that is more than their entire budget. If people were willing to put their money where their mouths are, they could hire an more agents to reduce the time waiting? Why don’t they do that? Is it because despite what people say, their time is worth, they do not really value it at that rate? Even if you just instituted a tax to raise $5 billion dollars with the effort to reduce waiting times by half.
I don’t know what the cost is, I haven’t tried to figure that out. I do know it’s not $34.95/hour though.
Please explain.
What you have pointed out is that people don’t like working past a certain point. This is news to no one. It also has little to with the absolute value of time. Context matters a great deal here. In context, 20 minutes at an airport is not worth very much.
Sure, some people do. But considering the current unemployment levels, plenty of people would work, or would work more.
Eris, I have a question for you. What is an hour of my dog’s time worth? For reference, he is a 12-year old Cocker Spaniel mix, currently unemployed, likes to sleep and eat, house broken. What is his time worth?
The TSA is pointless. It stops nothing. So why have it?
Has the TSA been detaining cute spaniel mixes now? Will the travesties never cease?!
And don’t forget to calculate into the equation the loss of personal privacy into these supposed “those people” who actually care about the cost vs the benefit since there might not be one.
I don’t see this as much different from:
You’re walking down a public (government owned) street, therefore you may be carrying a bomb and heading off to the white house, thus I need to strip search, cavity search, and surgically search you just in case
From what I understand, there’s no cost there because privacy isn’t really used to earn money. You keep things private all on your own for free.
Do you have a figure on the number of attacks that the TSA has prevented? The number of lives that it has saved?
Has it
a) destroyed more lives than saved
b) saved more lives than destroyed.
I’m going with a. Compromises human dignity under the guise of a terrorist attack that has not been a reasonable threat since 9/11
That yes, cargo loaders could blow up a plane if they wanted to. And cornerbacks could let the receiver past them if they wanted to. But they don’t want to. And that’s not going to change. So baggage handlers and cornerbacks are safe to trust.
More than 0. Already did.
You’ve consistently ignored the evidence that it has stopped things. It’s been presented repeatedly. Why don’t you reread the thread and click all the links?
B.
Eris, suppose I was asked to total up the value of all real estate in America. Suppose I found out there are 3 trillion square feet of real estate out there. Then I multiply that by Manhattan’s rate of $450 per square foot and came to $1.3 quintillion. Now suppose I had an axe to grind and wanted to make the number as high as possible to make a point.
Two questions:
- Would you call bullshit on my numbers?
- Where did I go wrong?
I read your post, and your citation.
The citation, nowhere, makes any sort of claim that it thwarted any sort of attacks.
Do you mean to tell me that the 1,200 guns they kept off planes is equivalent to thwarting 1,200 terrorist attacks?
Not a single weapon or other item snagged at the TSA led to a thwarted terrorist attack.
Sure, they’ve kept some weapons off planes (and some other weird things). However that is not evidence, at all, of preventing any sort of attack that basic security would not have already caught.
Ticketing is trivial (particularly given the availability of online pre-printing). Plane preparation is already built into the schedule – the plane is at the departure airport X amount of time before the announced departure, and it makes not a whit of difference to passengers whether X is ten seconds or ten hours. Baggage is the only factor that might require waiting time, and in any case can be avoided either by packing light and carrying everything with you (which people are doing anyway as a result of airline fees) or by accepting the possibility of waiting at the other end (which isn’t really an issue, since you’re at your destination doing whatever you were going to do anyway until the airline delivers the luggage that arrived on a later flight).