Let's apply a bit of mathematics in part and parcels of life: house renting.
Assuming 5 peoples want to rent a unit of house for $1800, 2 of them take the master room and pay $900 in total (which means $450 each); the rest take the common room and pay also $900 (which means $300 each). And the group of three ask:"Hey, it's unfair, by paying the same amount, we could have a master room!"
So you think "Aha, they got their point", that's another perspective looking into this matter. But if you think carefully, this argument is not sound. Because they do not only rent the room, but also rent the areas like living room and kitchen that are shared by all. Hence the cost cannot be calculated just based on room, but also based on head count.
It would be clearer with the following estimated cost break down:
Master room : $700
Common room: $600
Common areas: $500 ( = $100 per person for 5 persons)
If the group of three want to switch to master room, they have to pay $1000, but not $900. So now does the suggestion of switching still sound logical? :)
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Welcome to my virtual home. This is a little private space for me to put my thoughts and share my feelings since 2005. Due to my wide range of interests, there are perhaps too many tags. I would explain some of the less obvious tags:
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Monday, July 7, 2008
Rental cost
Posted by clim at 1:22 AM
Labels: About Daily | 生活百科
2 comments:
Still that does not make it fair as they will be arguing about how to allocate cost for common room.
IMHO best way of making it fair would be the well known cutting-cake method:
let group A be the group with 2 people and group B be the group with 3 people. Let either group (say group A) determine how much a room costs (e.g. 900 vs 900, 800 vs 1000) and let the other group (e.g. group B) have first pick.
A has incentive to let the room price be as fair as possible lest B takes advantage.
Interesting... well worth some time to think.
So it's like A setting price for both choices (B taking master room or common room) and let B decide? I hope I get it right.
Though in reality granting B such right may not be practical due to constraints. See how to compromise lo~ :)
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