They're not bad at economics, they're simply lying about what their goal was. That $150mil didn't just blip out of existence like in a video game, it ended up in people's pockets.

I would bet good money that many of those pockets belonged to friends and family members. Neoliberals have been using this tactic for decades as a way to turn public funds into private profits.

Something I read in discussions about San Francisco Bay Area transit which I did not see in your comment: perception of fare jumpers being responsible for an outsize proportion of antisocial behavior lead to commuters feeling unsafe.

For the record, I support UBI and like the sound of free transit.

You also neglected to factor in the economic benefit of people taking a trip they don't pay for vs not taking that trip at all because they can't pay. Those people might be taking the train to work, which increases economic activity and value of the entire system, or to school, which is an investment into the future of the system, or to do shopping or eating at restaurants, both of which add value to the system. But I'm also one of those people that think public transit should be free since giving people the ability to freely move around an area can only have net positive outcomes.

Subway fare dodgers steal $285 million per year, so spending $150 million to try to stop or prevent that in the future isn't that unreasonable. It turns out to have not paid off because they only caught people who owe an equivalent to $100k.

I imagine that they assumed the increased surveillance would prevent some unknown amount of future fare dodging which can't be quantified because the overall trend seems to be increasing.

Getting back into economics in a few weeks, sounds like a great starting point to review and get my head back into it. Disclaimer- I am half asleep.

You are discussing MR vs R, but wording is confusing. You are saying spend a dollar to get 0.10, not spend a dollar to make 1.10. Spend a dollar and profit $0.1 - good. Spend a dollar and get a dime - no.

A common mistake for those who learn econ - especially first year - is that it is taught in isolation. Set price for profit max, trade increases productivity and makes the average better - loss>profit shut something down. But it doesn't teach the wider considerations - people who are affected, long term run v short term.etc.

In this example, and I don't have the numbers:

• what is the profit, and what are the fixed costs?

• what long term revenue is being lost, what else will be lost when it isn't prosecuted?

• what message does doing nothing send to those paying. What other behaviors are these non payers displaying?

• what is the cost of a lawful and ordered society?

• does it need to be profitable, does police action only matter if it makes money, or is it a cost to service?

• what equipment, training and experience did law get to do this, and can it be used elsewhere? What systems were put in place (security.etc) that supports other practices.

Make no mistake - seems well excessive. But there is a wider consideration.

The struggle here is that you're talking about money earned after the fact and not including game theory. It would be a tough experiment to conduct, but say you spent $150 million to save $104. What if you didn't spend that $150M? Would you have an extra $40k in the bank? Or would the $104M in losses actually end up more like $1.2B because, slowly, everyone realised there was no reason to pay a fare?

I don't know what the case is here, but I imagine some economists have determined that $150M is enough to balance between actually getting people to ride the subway (increasing fare will eventually drive down revenue) and a substantial enough threat to prevent jumpers (no cops in the way means tons more jumpers).

This is so serendipitous, but the same day this post hit Lemmy, a Hidden Brain podcast episode titled "Broken Windows" started playing. The topic of this podcast hits home pretty hard with regards to how the NYPD managed transit fares in this story.

Broken Windows refers to a theory proposed in 1982 following the eponymously titled experiment. In this experiment, researchers placed 2 cars near the same area in Palo Alto, California and watched to see what happened. One of the cars was new, while the other was poorly maintained and old. Both were left unlocked.

The public started interacting with the old car, opening it, stealing from it, and eventually trashing it. The new car was left intact.

That was until the experiment's author broke the window of the new car. People started noticing that this car wasn't so new or maintained, and they started to steal from and vandalize it too.

This Broken Windows theory led to a lot of police reform in the ensuing 80s and 90s, to the point where Rudy Giuliani picked up the theory so his NYPD could follow it.

The idea is that where disorder lies in society, those bad actors who seed more disorder tend to go. Ironically this Hidden Brain episode also talks about rider fares like this article.

So, even though disadvantaged people may skip the fare for a public good out of dire need or poor life circumstances, the thinking is that intentionally chaotic people definitely skip the fare and seek it out. The idea is to catch bad actors who have other, larger crimes registered on their profile by focusing on the smaller ones.

I'm wondering if, in your calculus here, if you might include the offset damage done to society if more bad actors are caught in initiatives like this. Food for thought.

it's a nicely written post and although I do believe the costs made to reduce the faire skippers is out of proportion I also believe you should mention another important fact.

That is that the more money that is being put in to prevent it the lower the damage will be. A good example is tax evasion. The bigger the chance of getting caught is, the less people who will attempt it. Thus if you reduce the preventive measures this will automatically go up. But yea again I do not believe 150m weighs up to 100k.

Actually I might've forgotten another factor. I believe and please do correct me if I'm wrong. Is that a lot of misbehaving people on the trains also skip the train fair. So it be 2 birds in one stone, safety and revenue.