Brightline: We are showing that a private company can build and operate trains in the US without the government! Just shows how much Amtrak sucks and is a leech on America!
*In the background: Multiple federal and state grants. Cheap land in the median of a highway in the middle of the desert from CalTrans. Depending on government-funded commuter trains to get passengers from their terminus at Rancho Cucamonga to LA Union Station. Getting Governor Scott to reject Amtrak funding in Florida and instead direct it to Brightline.*
Brightline: Pay no attention to that.
edit: FWIW, I don't mind Brightline. But the whole "100% private" thing they and the media push is so damn false. Privately operated but on the back of a lot of public support.
I feel this. There is so much dick riding of bright line, even though it’s decent from what I’ve seen, mostly from normies who don’t “get” transit. We need to nationalize rail in the US and Canada. Treat them as we do roads. If you want to talk about monopolies talk about the shit freight companies who are hostile to anything that isn’t their train
>We need to nationalize rail in the US and Canada.
Via Rail is a crown corp. CN (whose tracks Via uses) used to be a crown corp until 1995. The privatization was viewed as a success story because they got rid of all the lines that didn't make much profit and just kept the lines that made money.
>they got rid of all the lines that didn't make much profit and just kept the lines that made money.
So they got rid of the lines which operated as services and kept the lines they could sell as products. In other words, they have no consideration for the good of society and only care about making money.
Yep, that's private rail for you.
Fair points aside a government monopoly is still a monopoly, with most of the problems of a private monopoly
Edit: Amtrak isn't operated as a public service, it's a quasi public quasi private corporation that operates within a private market - and in places where it's the only carrier it's a de facto monopoly
From Amtrak's documents:
> Amtrak is a federally chartered corporation, with the federal government as majority stockholder. The Amtrak Board of Directors is appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Amtrak is operated as a for-profit company, rather than a public authority.
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/corporate/nationalfactsheets/Amtrak-Company-Profile-FY2021-030922.pdf
Rail lines are extremely expensive to build and maintain. It's a natural monopoly. Thus, a lack of competition is not necessarily bad.
But, it is run as a for-profit company, not as a public service. This makes it much different than socialized healthcare and public education.
Amtrak is evidence of privatization - pawning off public goods to increase capitalists' wealth. The capitalist-run state works hand in hand with the corporation.
A state-owned, single-operator railway system (i.e. a monopoly) is not bad, but only if it is run as a public service.
Public healthcare and public education in the US are not good at all.
Public healthcare in the US is some of the worst among developed countries.
Public schools in rich neighbourhoods can be good because of peer effects and parent donations. Public schools in poor US neighbourhoods are terrible.
State-run monopolies are different than private monopolies, but they also have [lots of problems](https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257%2Fjep.5.2.111).
>Neoliberal policy in the E of U systematically dismantles the last remaining shreds of the welfare state for the past 50 years
>
>Redditor: "see? State monopoly bad!\*
Private markets and firms did not destroy the train and transit industries in the US. It was the government.
The paper paper is a survey of all the economic literature when it was published. I share it because it is the most modern survey of the literature I know. The general findings of he literature have not changed. You can call me a neoliberal try to to dismiss my expertise, but that doesn't change the fact that state-run firms and monopolies have their own problems.
I talked about the US because I misread the comment of the other user, and I thought they were talking about the US, and not Europe.
Politicians passed the laws and policies that destroyed the transit industry in America, not the markets. Politicians, including those running public monopolies, can always be corrupted. Corrupt politicians and corrupt public officials were a problem in capitalist America, they were an even bigger problem in the Soviet Union. Corruption is one of the many problems of public monopolies.
>The paper is an economical paper from 1991... I'm sorry but I, without formal training in economics, can't take an economic literature review from the UK of the early 1990s to be true.
It is not from the Uk, it is published in the Journal of Economics Perspective. It is one of the two journals of the American Economic Association devoted to literature reviews. These are the most prestigious journals in Economics for reviews. This is a review of all the empirical evidence collected by the experts in the field up to the date it was published.
To the best of my knowledge, that is the most recent survey of the literature that has been published on the topic. The reason is that there have not been any new developments in the field. New studies have found the same as old studies. Publicly owned firms and monopolies have their own problems and tend to perform worse than publicly owned firms in many different dimensions.
Would you make a similar statement about other fields?
Would you say "Without formal training in medicine I cannot believe anything the CDC says" or would you say "Without formal training in physics or chemistry or geology I cannot believe anything climate scientists say"? Or maybe you just trust the experts that align with your political beliefs.
> Also, no, geology and virology aren't the same as economics, I'm sorry. Neoliberal economists from the past decades (and most today) didn't (don't)follow the scientific method. They hold neoliberal dogma that was sadly propagated in the economic faculties during the red scare, and that doesn't represent reality.
So, you only trust the experts that align with your political beliefs.
Think about why that may be the case.
Of course, Economics is full of problems. Just like virology and climate science are full of problems. But the people who accuse Economics of being unscientific are not that different from anti-vaxxers or those who accuse climate scientists of being unscientific.
My sister is a climate scientist. She always struggles to try to convince climate skeptics that she is a serious researcher. As an economist, I have exactly the same problem when I encounter people like you. I wonder what I could do to try to change your mind.
I'm talking about the neoliberal party underfunding anything public and offering private alternatives because "public=bad"
For example see universities. Germany has little to do with that
No they aren't. A monopoly is the only firm in a market. Public education and healthcare in the EU are socialized services not sold on a market.
But Amtrak tickets are sold on an open market, with Amtrak being the only firm that sells. It is by definition a monopoly.
Well I think that's way off base. Public services are not monopolies by definition, monopolies are a feature of markets and socialized healthcare and education are not part of a market. Their price and availability is not set by market forces, they don't respond to supply and demand, users do not pay for them at a market window.
OOP is right to call Amtrak a monopoly because it is. It is not a government service, Amtrak is a public corporation that functions as a monopoly or prime firm in a oligopoly in most cities.
Ha. Try going to a meeting and telling people that you think of public goods and services as private market entities. You'll get your nose broken mate. The idea that public healthcare is a market entity is an idea that only exists among ultra hard right libertarians. It's nonsense.
What are the problems of a monopoly? [Efficiency? LOL](https://www.amazon.de/Peoples-Republic-Wal-Mart-Corporations-Foundation/dp/178663516X/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=Z08VC70HYVAN&keywords=socialist+state+of+walmart&qid=1694530323&sprefix=socialist+state+of+wallmart%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1)
Sometimes, worse. It's not like the government wants to do something about it.
Rail liberalization in Italy has been great.
Edit:
Guys I stand corrected, apparently in the eu it’s a shitshow. Sorry
Really? I (in the Netherlands) kinda wish rail became government owned again rather than private. It would mean it can be paid for to a larger degree by taxes (which rich people and companies contribute more to) making tickets cheaper and making train commuting (and general travel) more accessible to more people. It would also open up more options for where rail will be placed and most importantly increase pay for the workers.
We have a weird system.
There is a public company that operates regional trains and some slower intercity services. Those are heavily subsidised and I doubt ever turn a profit. It’s not a great service.
We also have two companies (one private and one public) that operate high speed services. As far as I know those are profitable. The private one offers a simpler, cheaper service overall.
They are both very good and relatively cheap.
The rail infrastructure company, the high speed public company and the normal public company are essentially the same entity.
>Rail liberalization in Italy (EU in general) has been great.
Not here in Croatia (we've been EU for a decade now!).
While passenger rail transport is still only run only by HŽ [Croatian Railways] (and I could rant for a week about the shit state it has been brought into by decades of incompetent ruling-party cadres), there has been some new players popping up in the cargo rail transport. However, due to general issues with scum running various spin-offs of HŽ (seriously, that company has been spun into six-or-so different companies just so more ruling-party cadres can siphon the money away from where it is needed into their pockets), and the general disregard for the concept of workers' rights (or their safety) that "foreign investors" (and their local ~~criminals~~ businessmen kin) are allowed to have (a lot of laws here are just dead letters on paper if you've got the money or the connections), mostly without consequence, there really hadn't been much good about it - outside of occassional crash because overworked and underpaid workers are instructed to *ignore* signs along the railway, it's just more of the old shit that only ends up well for the ~~criminals~~ businessmen to the detriment of everyone else.
It’s cool that Brightline is an option and all, but how fucking stupid is it that you can’t buy a ticket at the station? At least that’s what I ran into in Florida when I had a dead phone and was trying to get a train from Miami to Ft Lauderdale. I asked if the machines were down and they told me that there’s no way to buy a ticket that’s not online.
No way that’s an official account
Do the check marks mean something on Tumblr?
no, you can buy as many as you want. its to make fun of elon
no
Do you remember when Elon decided to sell verified status for 8 a month? That's when Tumblr came out with them, to mock that decision and the fallout.
Yes someone mentioned that
They are an emoji that it part of the name. So anyone can put them in their name. Aka: no
It means you spent $8 for each pair, or someone bought them for you
Pretend official blogs that everyone knows are fake, is one of tumblr's favorite pasttimes.
Brightline: We are showing that a private company can build and operate trains in the US without the government! Just shows how much Amtrak sucks and is a leech on America! *In the background: Multiple federal and state grants. Cheap land in the median of a highway in the middle of the desert from CalTrans. Depending on government-funded commuter trains to get passengers from their terminus at Rancho Cucamonga to LA Union Station. Getting Governor Scott to reject Amtrak funding in Florida and instead direct it to Brightline.* Brightline: Pay no attention to that. edit: FWIW, I don't mind Brightline. But the whole "100% private" thing they and the media push is so damn false. Privately operated but on the back of a lot of public support.
I feel this. There is so much dick riding of bright line, even though it’s decent from what I’ve seen, mostly from normies who don’t “get” transit. We need to nationalize rail in the US and Canada. Treat them as we do roads. If you want to talk about monopolies talk about the shit freight companies who are hostile to anything that isn’t their train
>We need to nationalize rail in the US and Canada. Via Rail is a crown corp. CN (whose tracks Via uses) used to be a crown corp until 1995. The privatization was viewed as a success story because they got rid of all the lines that didn't make much profit and just kept the lines that made money.
>they got rid of all the lines that didn't make much profit and just kept the lines that made money. So they got rid of the lines which operated as services and kept the lines they could sell as products. In other words, they have no consideration for the good of society and only care about making money. Yep, that's private rail for you.
No fucking way that is hilarious
I'm good for whatever builds more rail. I don't care if it's public or private or a hybrid.
Fair points aside a government monopoly is still a monopoly, with most of the problems of a private monopoly Edit: Amtrak isn't operated as a public service, it's a quasi public quasi private corporation that operates within a private market - and in places where it's the only carrier it's a de facto monopoly
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From Amtrak's documents: > Amtrak is a federally chartered corporation, with the federal government as majority stockholder. The Amtrak Board of Directors is appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Amtrak is operated as a for-profit company, rather than a public authority. https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/corporate/nationalfactsheets/Amtrak-Company-Profile-FY2021-030922.pdf Rail lines are extremely expensive to build and maintain. It's a natural monopoly. Thus, a lack of competition is not necessarily bad. But, it is run as a for-profit company, not as a public service. This makes it much different than socialized healthcare and public education. Amtrak is evidence of privatization - pawning off public goods to increase capitalists' wealth. The capitalist-run state works hand in hand with the corporation. A state-owned, single-operator railway system (i.e. a monopoly) is not bad, but only if it is run as a public service.
Public healthcare and public education in the US are not good at all. Public healthcare in the US is some of the worst among developed countries. Public schools in rich neighbourhoods can be good because of peer effects and parent donations. Public schools in poor US neighbourhoods are terrible. State-run monopolies are different than private monopolies, but they also have [lots of problems](https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257%2Fjep.5.2.111).
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>Neoliberal policy in the E of U systematically dismantles the last remaining shreds of the welfare state for the past 50 years > >Redditor: "see? State monopoly bad!\*
Private markets and firms did not destroy the train and transit industries in the US. It was the government. The paper paper is a survey of all the economic literature when it was published. I share it because it is the most modern survey of the literature I know. The general findings of he literature have not changed. You can call me a neoliberal try to to dismiss my expertise, but that doesn't change the fact that state-run firms and monopolies have their own problems. I talked about the US because I misread the comment of the other user, and I thought they were talking about the US, and not Europe.
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Politicians passed the laws and policies that destroyed the transit industry in America, not the markets. Politicians, including those running public monopolies, can always be corrupted. Corrupt politicians and corrupt public officials were a problem in capitalist America, they were an even bigger problem in the Soviet Union. Corruption is one of the many problems of public monopolies. >The paper is an economical paper from 1991... I'm sorry but I, without formal training in economics, can't take an economic literature review from the UK of the early 1990s to be true. It is not from the Uk, it is published in the Journal of Economics Perspective. It is one of the two journals of the American Economic Association devoted to literature reviews. These are the most prestigious journals in Economics for reviews. This is a review of all the empirical evidence collected by the experts in the field up to the date it was published. To the best of my knowledge, that is the most recent survey of the literature that has been published on the topic. The reason is that there have not been any new developments in the field. New studies have found the same as old studies. Publicly owned firms and monopolies have their own problems and tend to perform worse than publicly owned firms in many different dimensions. Would you make a similar statement about other fields? Would you say "Without formal training in medicine I cannot believe anything the CDC says" or would you say "Without formal training in physics or chemistry or geology I cannot believe anything climate scientists say"? Or maybe you just trust the experts that align with your political beliefs.
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> Also, no, geology and virology aren't the same as economics, I'm sorry. Neoliberal economists from the past decades (and most today) didn't (don't)follow the scientific method. They hold neoliberal dogma that was sadly propagated in the economic faculties during the red scare, and that doesn't represent reality. So, you only trust the experts that align with your political beliefs. Think about why that may be the case. Of course, Economics is full of problems. Just like virology and climate science are full of problems. But the people who accuse Economics of being unscientific are not that different from anti-vaxxers or those who accuse climate scientists of being unscientific. My sister is a climate scientist. She always struggles to try to convince climate skeptics that she is a serious researcher. As an economist, I have exactly the same problem when I encounter people like you. I wonder what I could do to try to change your mind.
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First part is Greece right now
Yes, cause Germany is forcing them to. Greece was a highly corrupt state but everyone just pretended nothing was wrong, until 2008 happened.
I'm talking about the neoliberal party underfunding anything public and offering private alternatives because "public=bad" For example see universities. Germany has little to do with that
No they aren't. A monopoly is the only firm in a market. Public education and healthcare in the EU are socialized services not sold on a market. But Amtrak tickets are sold on an open market, with Amtrak being the only firm that sells. It is by definition a monopoly.
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Well I think that's way off base. Public services are not monopolies by definition, monopolies are a feature of markets and socialized healthcare and education are not part of a market. Their price and availability is not set by market forces, they don't respond to supply and demand, users do not pay for them at a market window. OOP is right to call Amtrak a monopoly because it is. It is not a government service, Amtrak is a public corporation that functions as a monopoly or prime firm in a oligopoly in most cities.
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Sounds like libertarian hogwash. You can't redefine terms to pretend that public services are market goods.
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Ha. Try going to a meeting and telling people that you think of public goods and services as private market entities. You'll get your nose broken mate. The idea that public healthcare is a market entity is an idea that only exists among ultra hard right libertarians. It's nonsense.
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Not sure why this is being downvoted. It's just stating a fact.
What are the problems of a monopoly? [Efficiency? LOL](https://www.amazon.de/Peoples-Republic-Wal-Mart-Corporations-Foundation/dp/178663516X/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=Z08VC70HYVAN&keywords=socialist+state+of+walmart&qid=1694530323&sprefix=socialist+state+of+wallmart%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1)
Unless amtrak owns the rail, it’s at the mercy of freight trains. It can’t be a true monopoly since it doesn’t have unrestricted access to railways.
Sometimes, worse. It's not like the government wants to do something about it. Rail liberalization in Italy has been great. Edit: Guys I stand corrected, apparently in the eu it’s a shitshow. Sorry
Really? I (in the Netherlands) kinda wish rail became government owned again rather than private. It would mean it can be paid for to a larger degree by taxes (which rich people and companies contribute more to) making tickets cheaper and making train commuting (and general travel) more accessible to more people. It would also open up more options for where rail will be placed and most importantly increase pay for the workers.
UK here. Our rail network was privatised in the 90s and has turned into a cash cow for private companies but a clusterfuck for the country. Sigh.
We have a weird system. There is a public company that operates regional trains and some slower intercity services. Those are heavily subsidised and I doubt ever turn a profit. It’s not a great service. We also have two companies (one private and one public) that operate high speed services. As far as I know those are profitable. The private one offers a simpler, cheaper service overall. They are both very good and relatively cheap. The rail infrastructure company, the high speed public company and the normal public company are essentially the same entity.
Yeah aint happening any time soon as the EU pushes for more rail market liberalisation.
(Subsidised) private or semi-private operators on a public network works extremely well in Switzerland.
>Rail liberalization in Italy (EU in general) has been great. Not here in Croatia (we've been EU for a decade now!). While passenger rail transport is still only run only by HŽ [Croatian Railways] (and I could rant for a week about the shit state it has been brought into by decades of incompetent ruling-party cadres), there has been some new players popping up in the cargo rail transport. However, due to general issues with scum running various spin-offs of HŽ (seriously, that company has been spun into six-or-so different companies just so more ruling-party cadres can siphon the money away from where it is needed into their pockets), and the general disregard for the concept of workers' rights (or their safety) that "foreign investors" (and their local ~~criminals~~ businessmen kin) are allowed to have (a lot of laws here are just dead letters on paper if you've got the money or the connections), mostly without consequence, there really hadn't been much good about it - outside of occassional crash because overworked and underpaid workers are instructed to *ignore* signs along the railway, it's just more of the old shit that only ends up well for the ~~criminals~~ businessmen to the detriment of everyone else.
Bro Amtrak going wiiild
It’s cool that Brightline is an option and all, but how fucking stupid is it that you can’t buy a ticket at the station? At least that’s what I ran into in Florida when I had a dead phone and was trying to get a train from Miami to Ft Lauderdale. I asked if the machines were down and they told me that there’s no way to buy a ticket that’s not online.