WHAT HAPPENS TO AN INFERIOR GOOD? The intercity bus is a canonical example of what economists call an "inferior good," meaning one that consumers make less use of as they get richer. Because on average, goods are normal (that's the Engel aggregation principle, should readers be studying for their economics prelims) resources get reallocated away from inferior goods over time. That reallocation is not without consequences, as Greyhound riders in northern Wisconsin are discovering.

On a slow summer evening, the 52-year-old driver is taking a handful of passengers over what is soon to become a ghost route.

As of Aug. 18, Greyhound will no longer visit any of the stops on tonight's itinerary: Bonduel, Shawano, Wittenberg, Birnamwood, Aniwa, Antigo, Summit Lake, Elcho, Pelican Lake, Monico, Rhinelander, Lake Tomahawk and Minocqua. Empty seats are the reason.

The more things change ... at one time these were stops on the Chicago and North Western's Flambeau 400, which did a neat job of consist-swapping in Green Bay so that the dining car, lounge, and extra coaches that came north from Chicago could return the same day, with only a few coaches going beyond Green Bay to the south shore of Lake Superior at Ashland. This bus service sounds a lot like the bus service that replaced the Flambeau during the winter, making the train a casualty of Amtrak that did not have a last run on April 30, 1971.

The story notes that Greyhound has not been a profitable company for some time. Repeat after me: losses are signals that resources are more valuable to society in their competing uses. Opportunity costs exist.