2 ms·

Why is this a problem though? It seems to be working out very well in Japan. Regardless of where the debt ends up, it seems like the people benefit.

• rtpg 4y ago
  In both cases the people benefit, but in one the people benefit and it's still public property, whereas in the other the public goods were sold to business people and the business people are now getting a cut. [0] If somebody is making money off of a transaction, that money is coming from somewhere. At the margins that is fine but when we're talking about 10s of billions of dollars it just looks like a handout from the general public to people who had enough money to invest in a transportation corporation during its privatisation. Counterfactuals are not resolvable though, but I think we can look at how this stuff was built out and decide if there are structures to do it without having to just let go of democratic control of vital infrastructure. [0]: yes I understand that there's a universe where the public-run version just falls apart and doesn't exist.