<p>“We LOVE our gas pumpers here. Take them away? Never…you’ll have to pry them from our cold, dead hands…”</p>
<p>I’m not quite ready to go that far. While I occasionally really appreciate them (cold winter days/nights, driving rain), mostly I’m ambivalent about them, but there are times that I am absolutely furious that I have to wait forever while the 2 or 3 attendants try to serve 20 cars. All in all, I’d rather do away with them.</p>
<p>Consolation: I had always assumed those pumps were temporarily broken. I had no idea that gas stations would actually disable the auto-fill feature. Now that’s ■■■■■■■■.</p>
<p>I’m not an expert on other states’ laws, but I think some states require that they be disabled (ostensibly for safety reasons) - at least that’s what I’ve been told. If so, I wonder if that’s an infringement on rights as well?</p>
<p>Okay, affruff, you definitely are discussing bigger issues/principles.</p>
<p>I would imagine that gaspumping is the least of your concerns.</p>
<p>Have not read through the thread and do not often fill up in NJ…</p>
<p>however I put gas pumping in the same job category as grocery clerks, tollroad clerks, subway toll collectors etc. These are jobs that people with very little skill can do and these people need jobs. In my own little way I can help them keep their jobs by using these people in these services. It may take more time…but thats okay.</p>
<p>^One reason I avoid the self-serve supermarket lines, and usually choose the store that employs developmentally disabled folk from a local workshop as baggers.</p>
<p>There’s a cafe near my house that is run by all developmentally disabled people. They cook, shop, wait tables, etc. The thing that I think is cool (maybe others won’t) is that it’s located on a traditional Main Street location with the butcher, baker, etc. all on the block. Each of those other establishments works with the cafe to help them get their provisions and use them properly, and also to look out for the employees of the cafe. I think it’s just lovely.</p>
<p>When I was visiting California about a month ago, I waited for someone to come fill up my gas and found out you self-serve. By chance, a random person at the gas station said she had lived in NJ about 30 years ago and it was also a shock to have to serve yourself. It’s a shock both ways you know! Guess we are too dumb… except the state’s average test scores wouldn’t show it =P</p>
<p>@sax</p>
<p>It’s interesting you note how unskilled labor jobs are scarce. Before certain spikes in minimum wage laws, elevators were manually operated since labor was cheap. I’d imagine there’s a similar story behind how gas stations are mostly self-service nowadays.</p>
<p>In fact, if you go to some third-world countries (e.g. I went to Iran), they still have gas attendants since labor is cheap.</p>
<p>In any case, the gas attendants in NJ are mandated by law rather than the desire of economic participants (i.e. consumers). This allocates resources to less useful purposes and thus causes a loss of a job in some other sector. These laws do not create jobs, they just move them around to less useful/less efficient purposes.</p>
<p>afruff…can you give me a more concrete example of your last paragraph? </p>
<p>How does hiring a gas station attendant cause a loss of another unskilled job in another sector? What am I missing?</p>
<p>afruff is making solid economic arguments and I don’t disagree with them at all. </p>
<p>Of course the law forces all NJ residents to pay 6 cents more for full service, including the minority of residents who would prefer self service. Most laws do that. We also pay more for laws that mandate safety features and emissions controls in cars, nutrition facts on food labels, minimum training for airline pilots, etc etc etc. That is what laws do. There is always a minority of people who will oppose any law. That kind of stuff happens in a democracy. </p>
<p>In a federal republic, some states will have laws that seem anachronistic to residents of other states but are extremely popular in the states with those laws. Just because 48 states have one law and 2 states have the opposite law, it doesn’t follow that the 48 are right and the 2 are wrong. Maybe they are all right in their own way. We in the US should appreciate this. Metric system anyone?</p>
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<p>I totally agree with that… I’m not against this gas law, or think it silly, just for the sake of doing so, rather I’m against it because nobody from NJ has presented a single valid argument for keeping it. </p>
<p>We’ve heard how everyone in NJ demands self-service and wants to keep it. If that’s true then you don’t need this law… let capitalism do it’s thing and get rid of this silly socialist policy.</p>
<p>We’ve heard about how people think it’s a good idea because it “creates jobs.” That’s total nonsense and only ends up hurting the economy by creating a false market for non-skilled labor. If this labor market is actually required (because of the supposed demand mentioned by the NJ residents) then again, you don’t need this law. </p>
<p>I enjoyed the example of the cafe run by developmentally disabled individuals, but that’s a totally different economic situation. They’re running a cafe… which is a service that people are willing to pay higher prices for (vs making and serving the food themselves). The business does well because they provide a needed service at martket competitive prices. Although some customers might spend their money there purely to support those specific workers, I’m sure they wouldn’t stay in business if their products (quality) and service weren’t competitive with the market. </p>
<p>Finally, the example of toll workers has been mentioned several times… but imagine if similar logic that’s being applied to these gas pumpers was applied to the toll workers. Systems such as EZPass would have never been allowed. For those not from the area, EZPass is the automatic RFID system that lets you drive right onto and off of toll highways without stopping (and in some newer cases without even slowing down). There is still a small market for human toll collectors (mainly because a human can accept a ticket and process cash change faster than a machine could), but the human toll collector is largely a thing of the past for most cars (or at least anyone that’s signed up for EZPass). </p>
<p>In that case, the state clearly didn’t care too much about protecting those essentially skilless jobs (nor should they) so why do they consider gas pumpers to be so much more important? I think it’s again probably because of the psychological impact with the consumer. With the toll case it’s a clear choice between keep driving a 65 under a tower of electronic gizmos and have the toll charge to your account automatically or slow down in a line, wait, then stop at the toll booth and pay manually with cash (that you had to dig out from somewhere), get change and then get on your way. However, with the gas people in NJ don’t get to see that they’re being charged extra for the gas service (since it’s included in the price) and thus the perception develops that’s it’s “free.” </p>
<p>I’m sure that if I was allowed to open up a test gas station with a big sign with my prices that said “Regular Unleaded 3.77 (we pump) 3.70 (you pump)” support for this socialist pumping law would disappear quite rapidly.</p>
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Certainly what would happen is what’s happened in all the other states - people will make the economic decision as to whether it’s worth the extra money (and oftern times the extra wait) to pay extra for the service and the end result will almost certainly be that most will end up pumping themselves to save money. </p>
<p>Regarding posts indicating there’d be no reduction in the cost of gas if the station switched to self-serve, I disagree. The fact of the matter is that these stations clearly have additional costs if they employ people to do the pumping and those costs are borne by the customers. If those people no longer had to be employed then the customers would no longer need to bear the costs.</p>
<p>The only advantage this law has is to remove that ability for the consumer to make their own determination which, from some posts here, some people are happy with - they don’t need to face the decision as long as the law is in place.</p>
<p>It’s just all what you’re used to. We moved from NJ to Fla. and I sat there the first day waiting for the guy to come out, and then realised that I was going to have to do it myself. (just had a laugh the other day with a former Bostonian who had the same experience) Its OK in Florida but who wants to pump your own gas in NJ when its 5 below zero in December? Its just table service vs. buffet.</p>
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<p>For a broad analysis of misallocation and how jobs cannot be created by laws, read this easy-to-understand online book:
[Economics</a> in One Lesson](<a href=“http://jim.com/econ/]Economics”>http://jim.com/econ/)</p>
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<p>act of vandalism=gas law mandating full service
glazier=gas station attendant
shopkeeper=gasoline-purchasing consumers who do not want full service
tailored suit=whatever the money saved from paying self-service could have been spent on (e.g. a suit)</p>
<p>If full-service is truly desired by paying consumers, the pro-gas-law people would not have to complain since gas stations would have full service. Furthermore, gas is one of the largest costs borne by the poor and middle-class. This law essentially is a tax on the poor. Not that any tax is just (I’ll leave that for another topic).</p>
<p>thanks for the link, I will read it.</p>
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<p>Some people don’t mind and would rather save money (if you decide live in the Northeast then chances are you’re not terrible bothered by colder weather in the winter anyway).</p>
<p>Gas costs 6 cents more per gallon because of the law. At most my family uses 20 gallons a week. That’s $1.20 per week. About $60 per year for not having to pump gas all year for two cars. Not a bad price to pay, and certainly not an issue of great public importance.</p>
<p>You could all be entirely correct in your economic analysis, but, guess what? I couldn’t care less. It’s not that important.</p>
<p>Plus, think about this. In the time you all have spent this afternoon explaining why this law is bad, you could, instead, have invented a new kind of widget that, once it goes into production, would make millions and employ thousands.</p>
<p>Talk about opportunity costs.</p>
<p>Donna</p>
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<p>It’s a slippery slope violation of civil rights. Oh yes it is.</p>
<p>I bet billions of dollars in production are lost per year because of the waiting time required on the interstate in NJ that inefficient attendants create.</p>