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> Nowhere because the USA has an excellent internal flight and interstate highway system instead. Railways were already becoming uncompetitive by the 1920s and

> Nowhere because the USA has an excellent internal flight and interstate highway system instead. Railways were already becoming uncompetitive by the 1920s and now live on mostly in parts of the world where they already exist, where land is at a premium. The fact that railways were becoming uncompetitive in the mid-1900s is why high-speed rail was developed. The Japanese pioneered high-speed rail in the 1960s, dramatically increasing the speed that passenger trains could run. That not only made trains competitive again, but hands-down the best mode of transportation for distances of a few hundred kilometers. The result is that new high-speed rail networks are being built around the world, not just in places where rail is already prominent. In places where high-speed rail exists, it has taken most of the market share away from short-haul flights. If you want to get from Paris to Brussels (300 km), or from Beijing to Shanghai (1200 km), you take the train. This is despite the fact that Western Europe and China have excellent highway networks (China's highway network is now superior to the US interstate system) and plenty of airports. > China is still a communist country: we know how that story ends and why. China is not at all like the USSR. > NASA didn't impress him, but the 30,000+ products for sale in a mundane shop blew him away. China has an absolutely crazy abundance of consumer products. These days, Americans turn to Ali Express to get random widgets or knick-knacks of any kind. China is the place where you can pull out your smartphone, order pretty much anything, and have it arrive by courier 15 minutes later (okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but not much of one).

mike_hearn 2y ago
People take HSR sometimes because it's heavily subsidized, especially in China. Without government intervention rail can't compete against airports and roads. China's railway is in a staggering amount of debt due to mass overbuilding of the sort that would have bankrupted any normal company in a market economy long ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/vt7jrz/a_whopping_900b_debt_chinas_onceprofitable_high/ https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/vt7jrz/a_whopping_90... > China is not at all like the USSR ... China has an absolutely crazy abundance of consumer products Products for export, yes. It doesn't have a particularly strong consumer economy because its model is to keep Chinese labour poor whilst building up huge foreign reserves and gutting foreign competitors. That's why Chinese consumption is still far below the US: https://capx.co/xi-jinpings-coercion-is-destroying-his-own-economy/ https://capx.co/xi-jinpings-coercion-is-destroying-his-own-e... "private consumption accounts for just 39% of the economy – extremely low by world standards (the figure in the US is 68%). But there is no consumer confidence, with 80% of family wealth tied up in property and no meaningful social safety net."
- DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
  > People take HSR sometimes because it's heavily subsidized, especially in China. Most forms of transportation are subsidized. Good transportation infrastructure benefits the entire economy, so governments subsidize it. The fact that people can travel between cities easily and quickly facilitates business. > China's railway is in a staggering amount of debt due to mass overbuilding HSR is heavily utilized in China. A lot of the continued rail construction is because existing lines are butting up against capacity constraints. > Products for export, yes. I'm talking about products in their own shops. Chinese consumers have access to a much wider array of consumer products than Americans have. > private consumption accounts for just 39% of the economy Now, you're mixing completely different topics. Lower spending on consumption isn't because there aren't products on the shelves. It has to do with things like Chinese people's propensity to save, China directing more of its GDP into investment, and on the flipside, the United States' trade deficit.
  - deadfoxygrandpa 2y ago
    the low consumption as part of GDP also has to do with different ways of reporting GDP. they dont include some government funded services in the consumption share of GDP, when similar services are included in other countries consumption shares. china consumes 30% of cars, 20% of mobile phones, 40% of televisions, 25% of furniture, etc. in basically every consumer category they exceed 20%. how can that be true and at the same time they have an abnormally low "true" consumption rate? https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-household-consumption-expenditure-is-probably-higher-than-official-figures-by-zhang-jun-2024-07 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-household... https://asiatimes.com/2023/11/consumption-in-china-is-it-really-that-bad/ https://asiatimes.com/2023/11/consumption-in-china-is-it-rea...
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    Most forms of transport aren't subsidized. Air travel and road travel isn't. Cargo shipping isn't. > The fact that people can travel between cities easily and quickly facilitates business. Governments like claiming this but dig in and you'll find they have no robust evidence for it. It also just fails a quick reality check: if it were true then passenger railways would be profitable in their own right, as businesses would be happy to buy tickets for employees at their true costs. Yet passenger rail is never profitable and what we see in reality is lots of workers preferring to work from home than take even the subsidized railways into the cities. You can argue for trains as a lifestyle thing, maybe even an environmental thing although EV are changing that. But you can't argue for them economically. > HSR is heavily utilized in China. HSR is famously mostly empty in China. Go read accounts of anyone who has travelled on the newer lines. > Lower spending on consumption isn't because there aren't products on the shelves Nobody stacks shelves with products that will never be sold. Lower spending on consumption means the goods are being exported, and Chinese people aren't buying what they make because they don't have enough trust in the system to do so. Hence so much money being ploughed into real estate bubbles (an attempt to save money in something that's hard to confiscate).

mike_hearn 2y ago

People take HSR sometimes because it's heavily subsidized, especially in China. Without government intervention rail can't compete against airports and roads. China's railway is in a staggering amount of debt due to mass overbuilding of the sort that would have bankrupted any normal company in a market economy long ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/vt7jrz/a_whopping_900b_debt_chinas_onceprofitable_high/ https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/vt7jrz/a_whopping_90... > China is not at all like the USSR ... China has an absolutely crazy abundance of consumer products Products for export, yes. It doesn't have a particularly strong consumer economy because its model is to keep Chinese labour poor whilst building up huge foreign reserves and gutting foreign competitors. That's why Chinese consumption is still far below the US: https://capx.co/xi-jinpings-coercion-is-destroying-his-own-economy/ https://capx.co/xi-jinpings-coercion-is-destroying-his-own-e... "private consumption accounts for just 39% of the economy – extremely low by world standards (the figure in the US is 68%). But there is no consumer confidence, with 80% of family wealth tied up in property and no meaningful social safety net."

DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
> People take HSR sometimes because it's heavily subsidized, especially in China. Most forms of transportation are subsidized. Good transportation infrastructure benefits the entire economy, so governments subsidize it. The fact that people can travel between cities easily and quickly facilitates business. > China's railway is in a staggering amount of debt due to mass overbuilding HSR is heavily utilized in China. A lot of the continued rail construction is because existing lines are butting up against capacity constraints. > Products for export, yes. I'm talking about products in their own shops. Chinese consumers have access to a much wider array of consumer products than Americans have. > private consumption accounts for just 39% of the economy Now, you're mixing completely different topics. Lower spending on consumption isn't because there aren't products on the shelves. It has to do with things like Chinese people's propensity to save, China directing more of its GDP into investment, and on the flipside, the United States' trade deficit.
- deadfoxygrandpa 2y ago
  the low consumption as part of GDP also has to do with different ways of reporting GDP. they dont include some government funded services in the consumption share of GDP, when similar services are included in other countries consumption shares. china consumes 30% of cars, 20% of mobile phones, 40% of televisions, 25% of furniture, etc. in basically every consumer category they exceed 20%. how can that be true and at the same time they have an abnormally low "true" consumption rate? https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-household-consumption-expenditure-is-probably-higher-than-official-figures-by-zhang-jun-2024-07 https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-household... https://asiatimes.com/2023/11/consumption-in-china-is-it-really-that-bad/ https://asiatimes.com/2023/11/consumption-in-china-is-it-rea...
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Most forms of transport aren't subsidized. Air travel and road travel isn't. Cargo shipping isn't. > The fact that people can travel between cities easily and quickly facilitates business. Governments like claiming this but dig in and you'll find they have no robust evidence for it. It also just fails a quick reality check: if it were true then passenger railways would be profitable in their own right, as businesses would be happy to buy tickets for employees at their true costs. Yet passenger rail is never profitable and what we see in reality is lots of workers preferring to work from home than take even the subsidized railways into the cities. You can argue for trains as a lifestyle thing, maybe even an environmental thing although EV are changing that. But you can't argue for them economically. > HSR is heavily utilized in China. HSR is famously mostly empty in China. Go read accounts of anyone who has travelled on the newer lines. > Lower spending on consumption isn't because there aren't products on the shelves Nobody stacks shelves with products that will never be sold. Lower spending on consumption means the goods are being exported, and Chinese people aren't buying what they make because they don't have enough trust in the system to do so. Hence so much money being ploughed into real estate bubbles (an attempt to save money in something that's hard to confiscate).