5 ms·

Make these companies government owned and operate them like the post office.

sclarisse 4y ago
Not sure if adding sovereign immunity to the situation would help. Managers take shortcuts to get ahead in a lot of situations; consider, for instance, Chernobyl. It’s one of the reasons I think the “prioritizing profits” narrative rings hollow. Any profits they would have preserved by not-stopping for the first hotbox detector? Already burned by the costs of the closure and the response so far. If anything, chasing profits better would have prevented this.
- Macha 4y ago
  It's more so chasing short term profits. How many of the executives and decision makers responsible for the issues of the rail workers have moved on and don't need to deal with the consequences of this? Sure, it sucks for the final set of shareholders and execs holding the bill, but capitalism rewarded all their predecessors.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > Not sure if adding sovereign immunity to the situation would help. It would help me rationalise why no decisions maker ever goes to jail after their decisions kill people, even when they are private companies
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Remember the profit gets realized upfront and benefits the leadership. The disaster is the future guy‘a problem.
  - iinnPP 4y ago
    Surely related to another story on HN right now about long term and short term estimates. Like these powerful people can't look through history at what comes when the line is finally crossed for enough people.
    - Spooky23 4y ago
      Yup. It also goes to a lot of an irrational opposition to labor. People who make decisions like this don’t like the inconvenience of someone questioning her decisions.
- sophacles 4y ago
  I dunno, that seems to ignore the fact that norfolk southern, the operator of this train, a profitable company for quite a while now, literally lobbied to reduce the hazardous materials safety requirements because they weren't making enough profits. It also seems to ignore that the same company participated in claiming that the workers' often stated concerns for safety were just people being greedy and that they would lose some profit if they implemented safer conditions.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  > chasing profits better would have prevented this No. Chasing profits is the reason the train did not stop after the hot box detection. It would have been late.
- wolrah 4y ago
  > It’s one of the reasons I think the “prioritizing profits” narrative rings hollow. Any profits they would have preserved by not-stopping for the first hotbox detector? Already burned by the costs of the closure and the response so far. If anything, chasing profits better would have prevented this. It's not about this incident, it's about all the other times they did the same thing and got away with it. Every train that didn't stop in a similar situation and didn't cause a major problem was a win to the company. Whatever stopping a train costs, they saved that amount every single time they didn't do it, and if they did this regularly that number probably adds up. There's a concept in risk management called the swiss cheese model[1] where you think of your layers of protection like a stack of swiss cheese slices. Every individual layer has its holes, but as you stack them up the number of paths through the whole stack gets smaller and smaller. In a sufficiently protected system, causing a major problem should require multiple layers to fail or be bypassed. The trick of course is that this also generally means that when commercial pressure and/or individual laziness leads to one or more of the layers being bypassed it won't usually cause an immediate problem because other layers are still covering most of the holes, but the safety margin might now be a single layer instead of three so one more failure can cause a catastrophe. Layers of protection cost money so it's not exactly rocket surgery to understand why those focused on profits, especially those who are primarily interested in short term profits, constantly apply pressure to bypass or shortcut those layers as much as people feel they can get away with. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
bko 4y ago
If it's state controlled and an accident happens and there is a govt investigation, do you think it'll be more stern than one on a private company? Do you think enforcement of rules is stricter when enforced in house? I don't see the reasoning as to why state run services would be somehow safer. The state should set out the rules and enforce strictly
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  Do you feel like the investigation into Boeing Max disaster was stern and everyone responsible was punished?
  - bko 4y ago
    I guess it depends what you're comparing it to. Boeing paid 2.5 bn and shareholders were likely unhappy compare that to an amtrak train derailment where someone literally falls asleep killing people and he wasn't even fired. Don't get me started on police union investigations... https://nypost.com/2014/10/28/engineer-fell-asleep-before-deadly-train-derailment-feds/ https://nypost.com/2014/10/28/engineer-fell-asleep-before-de...
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      > Boeing paid 2.5 bn That's like $6 million per person they've killed, very cheap. In UK NHS paid over $45 million for non-lethal medical mistake. [1] > someone literally falls asleep killing people and he wasn't even fired If some accident has ever killed >50 people, it can never be the fault of one person on minimum wage. People fuck up, that's a fact of life, that's why we have co-pilots in planes, FAA was suppose to check Boeing's design, and one person going crazy can't launch the nukes. The article you linked details numerous failures by the company. You should assign responsibility up to decision makers that made tragedy inevitable, not down to pawns that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-64352268 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-64352268
- mschuster91 4y ago
jnovek 4y ago
Postmaster General Louis Dejoy was joking only a week ago that he'd like to see the Postal Regulatory Committee disappear. He's spent his ~3 years in charge cutting USPS to the bone. Government control does not necessarily mean oversight.
- JustSomeNobody 4y ago
  > He's spent his ~3 years in charge cutting USPS to the bone. That was his mandate when getting hired. If you want to prove government is inefficient, hire people to make it inefficient.
jtbayly 4y ago
From: https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/ https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rule... >Documents show that when current transportation safety rules were first created, a federal agency sided with industry lobbyists and limited regulations governing the transport of hazardous compounds. I really don't think government owning the company is going to help.
- hellotomyrars 4y ago
  I think this is putting the cart before the horse. Regulatory capture is a lot harder if there is no industry with corporate interests to do so.

Not sure if adding sovereign immunity to the situation would help. Managers take shortcuts to get ahead in a lot of situations; consider, for instance, Chernobyl. It’s one of the reasons I think the “prioritizing profits” narrative rings hollow. Any profits they would have preserved by not-stopping for the first hotbox detector? Already burned by the costs of the closure and the response so far. If anything, chasing profits better would have prevented this.

Macha 4y ago
It's more so chasing short term profits. How many of the executives and decision makers responsible for the issues of the rail workers have moved on and don't need to deal with the consequences of this? Sure, it sucks for the final set of shareholders and execs holding the bill, but capitalism rewarded all their predecessors.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> Not sure if adding sovereign immunity to the situation would help. It would help me rationalise why no decisions maker ever goes to jail after their decisions kill people, even when they are private companies
Spooky23 4y ago
Remember the profit gets realized upfront and benefits the leadership. The disaster is the future guy‘a problem.
- iinnPP 4y ago
  Surely related to another story on HN right now about long term and short term estimates. Like these powerful people can't look through history at what comes when the line is finally crossed for enough people.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    Yup. It also goes to a lot of an irrational opposition to labor. People who make decisions like this don’t like the inconvenience of someone questioning her decisions.
sophacles 4y ago
I dunno, that seems to ignore the fact that norfolk southern, the operator of this train, a profitable company for quite a while now, literally lobbied to reduce the hazardous materials safety requirements because they weren't making enough profits. It also seems to ignore that the same company participated in claiming that the workers' often stated concerns for safety were just people being greedy and that they would lose some profit if they implemented safer conditions.
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> chasing profits better would have prevented this No. Chasing profits is the reason the train did not stop after the hot box detection. It would have been late.
wolrah 4y ago
> It’s one of the reasons I think the “prioritizing profits” narrative rings hollow. Any profits they would have preserved by not-stopping for the first hotbox detector? Already burned by the costs of the closure and the response so far. If anything, chasing profits better would have prevented this. It's not about this incident, it's about all the other times they did the same thing and got away with it. Every train that didn't stop in a similar situation and didn't cause a major problem was a win to the company. Whatever stopping a train costs, they saved that amount every single time they didn't do it, and if they did this regularly that number probably adds up. There's a concept in risk management called the swiss cheese model[1] where you think of your layers of protection like a stack of swiss cheese slices. Every individual layer has its holes, but as you stack them up the number of paths through the whole stack gets smaller and smaller. In a sufficiently protected system, causing a major problem should require multiple layers to fail or be bypassed. The trick of course is that this also generally means that when commercial pressure and/or individual laziness leads to one or more of the layers being bypassed it won't usually cause an immediate problem because other layers are still covering most of the holes, but the safety margin might now be a single layer instead of three so one more failure can cause a catastrophe. Layers of protection cost money so it's not exactly rocket surgery to understand why those focused on profits, especially those who are primarily interested in short term profits, constantly apply pressure to bypass or shortcut those layers as much as people feel they can get away with. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

bko 4y ago

If it's state controlled and an accident happens and there is a govt investigation, do you think it'll be more stern than one on a private company? Do you think enforcement of rules is stricter when enforced in house? I don't see the reasoning as to why state run services would be somehow safer. The state should set out the rules and enforce strictly

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
Do you feel like the investigation into Boeing Max disaster was stern and everyone responsible was punished?
- bko 4y ago
  I guess it depends what you're comparing it to. Boeing paid 2.5 bn and shareholders were likely unhappy compare that to an amtrak train derailment where someone literally falls asleep killing people and he wasn't even fired. Don't get me started on police union investigations... https://nypost.com/2014/10/28/engineer-fell-asleep-before-deadly-train-derailment-feds/ https://nypost.com/2014/10/28/engineer-fell-asleep-before-de...
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > Boeing paid 2.5 bn That's like $6 million per person they've killed, very cheap. In UK NHS paid over $45 million for non-lethal medical mistake. [1] > someone literally falls asleep killing people and he wasn't even fired If some accident has ever killed >50 people, it can never be the fault of one person on minimum wage. People fuck up, that's a fact of life, that's why we have co-pilots in planes, FAA was suppose to check Boeing's design, and one person going crazy can't launch the nukes. The article you linked details numerous failures by the company. You should assign responsibility up to decision makers that made tragedy inevitable, not down to pawns that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-64352268 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-64352268
mschuster91 4y ago

jnovek 4y ago

Postmaster General Louis Dejoy was joking only a week ago that he'd like to see the Postal Regulatory Committee disappear. He's spent his ~3 years in charge cutting USPS to the bone. Government control does not necessarily mean oversight.

JustSomeNobody 4y ago
> He's spent his ~3 years in charge cutting USPS to the bone. That was his mandate when getting hired. If you want to prove government is inefficient, hire people to make it inefficient.

jtbayly 4y ago

From: https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/ https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rule... >Documents show that when current transportation safety rules were first created, a federal agency sided with industry lobbyists and limited regulations governing the transport of hazardous compounds. I really don't think government owning the company is going to help.

hellotomyrars 4y ago
I think this is putting the cart before the horse. Regulatory capture is a lot harder if there is no industry with corporate interests to do so.