5 ms·

I think this is one of the major limitations of framing everything in terms of profit. Sometimes a society needs to build services and run them at-cost for it t

by r14c 3y ago

I think this is one of the major limitations of framing everything in terms of profit. Sometimes a society needs to build services and run them at-cost for it to make sense.

epistasis 3y ago
If nuclear was our only choice for zero-carbon energy, I would say that we should change the subsidies and prices to make it profitable, or at least at-cost. The problem with nuclear isn't that it's at-cost, the problem is that construction projects balloon into financial disasters that are too risky. Check out what happened to France's Areva due to constructing the Olkiluoto. It is literally owned by the French government to bail it out from their financial disaster. Or what happened to Westinghouse and parent company Toshiba due to trying to construct AP1000s. We have better alternatives that are cheaper and are not such massive single points of failure. Right now the US government is throwing money hand over fist at nuclear, and if the industry can make a go of it and manage to construct some more, great, I have no problem with that. But nuclear is fundamentally inefficient, expensive, and bad source of power compared to the alternatives. It's always always overpromised and underdelivered. Seemingly nobody in the industry has every made an honest construction estimate. I mean, of course there were a few successful construction projects, but on average it's been a disaster. Throw another $100B at it, see if somebody finally figures it out after 70 years, but it seems pretty doubtful. Nobody left in the industry seems to be capable or smart enough to deliver.
renewiltord 3y ago
Yeah, transit advocates say that too, but it's the same thing: once you advertise that you don't want to make a profit, you'll find that people can make sure you make a loss. At-cost is the same as cost-plus and has the same problem: the only way for the guy building something for you to extract value from the thing is to raise the cost high enough. It's a weird thing. American transit advocates will cry themselves hoarse that public transit should be free or run at a loss but almost every system in the world that's good (TfL, HK Metro, JR East) makes money. But every American system loses money hand over fist and sucks. This makes it quite clear to me. It's very easy to be shitty losing money. It's very hard to be shitty and make money.
- sudosysgen 3y ago
  Most of those systems tax property increase when infrastructure is built and operate in dense cities with extremely anti-car regulation that gives them a guaranteed consumer base. Do the same in the US and it will magically become profitable, because there will be no alternative.
  - renewiltord 3y ago
    Sure. There are policies you can change. But if you believe these things shouldn't make a profit you won't put those things into place. It looks like anyone who wants transit to not make a profit just wants it to suck.
    - sudosysgen 3y ago
      Levying taxes directly to the transit agency and punishing car usage doesn't incentivize the transit agency to make the transit not suck, it's just a different way for accounting in public funding.
      - renewiltord 3y ago
        I'm sure you have a complex model for this, but transit agencies that aim to make losses all suck and the ones that aim to make profits are good. So if someone is telling me the agency should make a loss, they want it to suck. The correlation is strong and whatever your model is, it isn't capturing some variable.
        sudosysgen 2y ago
        I don't have a complex model, it's just your test that is capturing the wrong variable. Every network you listed is "profitable" because the subsidies they get are in the "income" column instead of the "subsidy" column. The distinction between profitability or making a loss is purely nominative. In the US for example, the HK transit authority would be "aiming to make a loss" because its largest source of income are the taxes it is allowed to levy. Since in the US it's the government that levies the taxes which are counted as subsidies, the HK transit authority in the US would be classified as loss-making. Additionally the MTR in HK has pseudo-governmental powers in that it gets to expropriate, rezone, and resell land at a higher price, which would also be counted as a subsidy in the US and therefore it would be considered to be loss making. So the problem isn't that my model isn't capturing a variable, it's that your test isn't capturing a variable and is taking in erroneous data points due to diverging definitions of your metric.

by r14c 3y ago

I think this is one of the major limitations of framing everything in terms of profit. Sometimes a society needs to build services and run them at-cost for it to make sense.

epistasis 3y ago

If nuclear was our only choice for zero-carbon energy, I would say that we should change the subsidies and prices to make it profitable, or at least at-cost. The problem with nuclear isn't that it's at-cost, the problem is that construction projects balloon into financial disasters that are too risky. Check out what happened to France's Areva due to constructing the Olkiluoto. It is literally owned by the French government to bail it out from their financial disaster. Or what happened to Westinghouse and parent company Toshiba due to trying to construct AP1000s. We have better alternatives that are cheaper and are not such massive single points of failure. Right now the US government is throwing money hand over fist at nuclear, and if the industry can make a go of it and manage to construct some more, great, I have no problem with that. But nuclear is fundamentally inefficient, expensive, and bad source of power compared to the alternatives. It's always always overpromised and underdelivered. Seemingly nobody in the industry has every made an honest construction estimate. I mean, of course there were a few successful construction projects, but on average it's been a disaster. Throw another $100B at it, see if somebody finally figures it out after 70 years, but it seems pretty doubtful. Nobody left in the industry seems to be capable or smart enough to deliver.

renewiltord 3y ago

Yeah, transit advocates say that too, but it's the same thing: once you advertise that you don't want to make a profit, you'll find that people can make sure you make a loss. At-cost is the same as cost-plus and has the same problem: the only way for the guy building something for you to extract value from the thing is to raise the cost high enough. It's a weird thing. American transit advocates will cry themselves hoarse that public transit should be free or run at a loss but almost every system in the world that's good (TfL, HK Metro, JR East) makes money. But every American system loses money hand over fist and sucks. This makes it quite clear to me. It's very easy to be shitty losing money. It's very hard to be shitty and make money.

sudosysgen 3y ago
Most of those systems tax property increase when infrastructure is built and operate in dense cities with extremely anti-car regulation that gives them a guaranteed consumer base. Do the same in the US and it will magically become profitable, because there will be no alternative.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  Sure. There are policies you can change. But if you believe these things shouldn't make a profit you won't put those things into place. It looks like anyone who wants transit to not make a profit just wants it to suck.
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    Levying taxes directly to the transit agency and punishing car usage doesn't incentivize the transit agency to make the transit not suck, it's just a different way for accounting in public funding.
    - renewiltord 3y ago
      I'm sure you have a complex model for this, but transit agencies that aim to make losses all suck and the ones that aim to make profits are good. So if someone is telling me the agency should make a loss, they want it to suck. The correlation is strong and whatever your model is, it isn't capturing some variable.
      - sudosysgen 2y ago
        I don't have a complex model, it's just your test that is capturing the wrong variable. Every network you listed is "profitable" because the subsidies they get are in the "income" column instead of the "subsidy" column. The distinction between profitability or making a loss is purely nominative. In the US for example, the HK transit authority would be "aiming to make a loss" because its largest source of income are the taxes it is allowed to levy. Since in the US it's the government that levies the taxes which are counted as subsidies, the HK transit authority in the US would be classified as loss-making. Additionally the MTR in HK has pseudo-governmental powers in that it gets to expropriate, rezone, and resell land at a higher price, which would also be counted as a subsidy in the US and therefore it would be considered to be loss making. So the problem isn't that my model isn't capturing a variable, it's that your test isn't capturing a variable and is taking in erroneous data points due to diverging definitions of your metric.