[2068] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] [UA-SCATR] New Card initiative
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chris Rezek)
Mon Jul 10 14:51:21 2006
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:50:58 -0400
To: Dheera Venkatraman <dheera@mit.edu>, Peter Finin <pfinin@alum.mit.edu>
From: Chris Rezek <crezek@alum.mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.62L.0607101311150.374@rle-12-113.mit.edu>
Cc: mit-talk@mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
I am generally a fan of free markets. However, a completely free
market system would not meet the needs of MIT's students and
staff. In particular, the combination of nutritional requirements
(general health plus restricted diets), hours of operation, price,
and swing capacity require a mix of free-market and centrally-managed
dining options. Plus either a direct subsidy from central MIT (=
from tuition) or some kind of meal plan. You can read the full list
of needs here:
http://web.mit.edu/committees/fswg/recommendations.html
Quite a challenging collection. I think Berlin has done a decent job
of balancing all the requirements. While there is always room for
improvement, I think the dining situation today is significantly
better than it was in 1998, when the IDR completed and when Aramark
still had its monopoly.
Chris
At 01:18 PM 7/10/2006, Dheera Venkatraman wrote:
>On Mon, 10 Jul 2006, Peter Finin wrote:
> > Jeff Roberts said:
> >> I only have to observe that the argument for having a more
> >> market-driven type of food service system, that operates without any
> >> subsidy or mandatory up-front payment, is a very thoughtful and
> >> reasonable one, in theory. Unfortunately, no provider has been able
> >> to make it work -- or perhaps has never really been willing to try. I
> >> think that students who are interested enough in this (not you and me,
> >> Jacob, unfortunately we're too old for this) need to ask the right
> >> questions in order to figure out why.
>
>well, no, i totally agree with the market idea. if the provider is good
>enough to attract a market, they will profit and all will be happy. if the
>provider sucks, doesn't have variety or quality, they won't make a profit
>or lack business. their business will die and leave MIT. and that's
>*fine*. that's how it *should* work. if MIT or the business is not
>profiting, close it down. open something else if you like, but don't
>create mandatory plans to crappy places.
>
>if no provider can provide decent quality stuff to want to make students
>dine daily at their locations, they might as well go away. i don't care
>for their existence. between crappy food and no food on campus,
>it makes no difference to me. i find my food elsewhere 99% of the time as
>it is. and if any student is complaining that they can't walk 5 minutes to
>star, they are lame. now if we can so have the luxury of having actually
>good food on campus at a decent price, they'll earn my business.
>
>and steam cafe also long lost most of it's coolness points with me. they
>used to be cool, but like every other food business around here their
>quality took a plunge a few months ago.
>
>-dheera
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