3 ms·

Elon Musk says Post Office, Amtrak should be privatized

13 points by rntn 2y ago

oldpersonintx 2y ago
[dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
shlomo_z 2y ago
I don't really understand this concept. Can someone please explain what the possible ramifications of this would be? What does it mean for the US Govt? What does it mean for US Citizens?
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/22/1087654279/how-shock-therapy-created-russian-oligarchs-and-paved-the-path-for-putin https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/22/1087654279/how...
- doublerabbit 2y ago
  A lot and nothing. Kind of makes the government less liable for the shit show that occurs from. Trains late? No longer a government issue, complain to the ticket guard. Those new rail upgrades, carriage upgrades? Only if the owner wants them. Price increases? You betcha. Political bias, the Horizon scandal is a good one. How long did it drag on for? And did anyone get charged? The ones who should-of got off scot-free and the innocent had their lives ruined. If the electing company wants to milk the infrastructure you'll going to have a bad time. Else wise it does enable progressively improvements that wouldn't necessary be prioritised under government control. We know companies don't like spending money so forget those. In other-words privatisation is not inherently bad when kept in check. It has its advantages ultimately though where its public infrastructure it should really be owned by the people. Our "Royal Mail" was privatised and has been bought yet again by a Czech billionaire recently.
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  1) The Post Office exists to enact a requirement in the Constitution but I'm not sure that means anything anymore. We could expect: 1) An increase in delivery costs in general, due to loss or restructuring of a competitor with relatively low prices and the market, like so many in America, not exactly being robust in the competition department anyway, 2) Possibly a near-total end to mail delivery in rural areas, 3) if not #2, it'll probably be because Congress authorizes the government to pay way more than the same stuff from the current USPS costs, to pay private companies to handle rural delivery, subsidized by urbanites (as it already is, but this'll cost more). In short, the likely outcome is somewhat worse service (outside chance of much worse service) at higher total prices, plus another claw of private industry in government, wasting our money and making our lives worse, that they'll fight hard to keep there (see also: HR Block) 2) Amtrak is not in the constitution. Privatizing it certainly means most routes close (I'm pretty sure lots of lines only exist to buy support from Congress—they're awful, talking routinely delayed by 50% or more of the stated travel time, because they don't have right-of-way on their tracks and have to defer to freight traffic, plus they travel slowly even when under way because they're on freight rails) and maybe just a few, mostly on the East Coast, survive... maybe. If we're lucky, regional state-led government transportation organizations take over those lines. If that latter thing is the way this goes, it might actually save money while keeping the most-important lines (again, there are very few of those) open, but at the cost of jobs and transportation options (despite their sucking, those lines do see riders, often but not always low-income and/or retired) in places outside the Northeast, and largely "red" states.
- tsukikage 2y ago
  Compare the British experience of privatising their railways. What happens in practice is that other countries' state-run railways take ownership, extract profit and use it to help subsidise the non-privatised railway systems back home. The outcome is about what you'd expect; it is unclear why this pattern is expected to be a win for the British public, and the policies are now slowly being reversed.
- soraminazuki 2y ago
  In general, privatizing critical public infrastructure is a terrible idea. Their purpose is supporting lives. As such, the priority should never be about turning profits. On the contrary, many of them have to operate at a loss. Imagine food, supplies, and information not reaching remote places because providing the means to do so is "unprofitable." That can easily upend the lives of tens of millions of people.
techpineapple 2y ago
I have this weird and flawed theory that "Democrats breed Republicans and Republicans breed Democrats". The essence of the theory is that Republican policies like privatizing the post office, tend to anger or disenfranchise rural folks who may end up moving to the city and then becoming or have kids that become Democrats, and Democrat policies do the reverse, maybe because Democrat policies can be defined as fundamentally conservative (preserving existing institutions) it drives liberal minded people to vote Republican on economic issues. Part of this is because I think in a sense if you think about forward looking vs reverse looking or expansionary vs staying the same, Democrats are socially liberal and economically conservative and Republicans are socially conservative and economically liberal (traditionally / late 20th century) this sort of cross keeps a sort of tension. Anyways, it is interesting to me that Republicans seem to embrace policies that can also be described as shooting themselves in the foot.
cuuupid 2y ago
I don’t know enough about the USPS to comment, but I just want to take a moment to hate on Amtrak. I know there is a huge “we love trains!” crowd among urbanists but Amtrak takes longer and is FAR more expensive on most routes than planes. Ultimately going all-in on airports was probably the better play than high speed rail. I commonly see people say stuff like “what if you could get from NYC to Miami in 2 hours?” That would require a train ~15x faster than our current highest speed rail service, but only a ~30% faster commercial plane. One of the highest frequented routes on Amtrak is NYC <> DC. This usually puts you out 200-300$ unless you can book months in advance (which essentially would defeat the point of a train but I digress) and takes 3-4 hours. By comparison a plane will take about an hour and if I book one just two days out that’s only $200. If I have a week or two of notice it quickly drops below $100. It seems to me that people hate planes mostly because of airports and schedules not being convenient. This is a totally different problem than method of transportation, and one that is far easier to solve. It would be infinitely easier and cheaper to make airports fast and efficient compared to expanding and maintaining high speed rail across the US. It is not fair at all to put USPS and Amtrak in the same bucket as while Amtrak is subsidized by the government it is insanely expensive. Americans are essentially paying Amtrak for the right to charge us ungodly prices in the name of “trains are cool.”
- motorest 2y ago
  > I know there is a huge “we love trains!” crowd among urbanists but Amtrak takes longer and is FAR more expensive on most routes than planes. This is not an Amtrak problem. That's a well known trait of conventional trains. With high-speed trains running at 300km/h, there's a well known tradeoff point where high-speed rail is a far better option; up to 600km-800km. Beyond that, airplanes are still the preferable option. The higher the train speed, the longer you need to travel for air travel to become the preferable option.

13 points by rntn 2y ago

oldpersonintx 2y ago

[dead]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

shlomo_z 2y ago

I don't really understand this concept. Can someone please explain what the possible ramifications of this would be? What does it mean for the US Govt? What does it mean for US Citizens?

toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/22/1087654279/how-shock-therapy-created-russian-oligarchs-and-paved-the-path-for-putin https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/22/1087654279/how...
doublerabbit 2y ago
A lot and nothing. Kind of makes the government less liable for the shit show that occurs from. Trains late? No longer a government issue, complain to the ticket guard. Those new rail upgrades, carriage upgrades? Only if the owner wants them. Price increases? You betcha. Political bias, the Horizon scandal is a good one. How long did it drag on for? And did anyone get charged? The ones who should-of got off scot-free and the innocent had their lives ruined. If the electing company wants to milk the infrastructure you'll going to have a bad time. Else wise it does enable progressively improvements that wouldn't necessary be prioritised under government control. We know companies don't like spending money so forget those. In other-words privatisation is not inherently bad when kept in check. It has its advantages ultimately though where its public infrastructure it should really be owned by the people. Our "Royal Mail" was privatised and has been bought yet again by a Czech billionaire recently.
alabastervlog 2y ago
1) The Post Office exists to enact a requirement in the Constitution but I'm not sure that means anything anymore. We could expect: 1) An increase in delivery costs in general, due to loss or restructuring of a competitor with relatively low prices and the market, like so many in America, not exactly being robust in the competition department anyway, 2) Possibly a near-total end to mail delivery in rural areas, 3) if not #2, it'll probably be because Congress authorizes the government to pay way more than the same stuff from the current USPS costs, to pay private companies to handle rural delivery, subsidized by urbanites (as it already is, but this'll cost more). In short, the likely outcome is somewhat worse service (outside chance of much worse service) at higher total prices, plus another claw of private industry in government, wasting our money and making our lives worse, that they'll fight hard to keep there (see also: HR Block) 2) Amtrak is not in the constitution. Privatizing it certainly means most routes close (I'm pretty sure lots of lines only exist to buy support from Congress—they're awful, talking routinely delayed by 50% or more of the stated travel time, because they don't have right-of-way on their tracks and have to defer to freight traffic, plus they travel slowly even when under way because they're on freight rails) and maybe just a few, mostly on the East Coast, survive... maybe. If we're lucky, regional state-led government transportation organizations take over those lines. If that latter thing is the way this goes, it might actually save money while keeping the most-important lines (again, there are very few of those) open, but at the cost of jobs and transportation options (despite their sucking, those lines do see riders, often but not always low-income and/or retired) in places outside the Northeast, and largely "red" states.
tsukikage 2y ago
Compare the British experience of privatising their railways. What happens in practice is that other countries' state-run railways take ownership, extract profit and use it to help subsidise the non-privatised railway systems back home. The outcome is about what you'd expect; it is unclear why this pattern is expected to be a win for the British public, and the policies are now slowly being reversed.
soraminazuki 2y ago
In general, privatizing critical public infrastructure is a terrible idea. Their purpose is supporting lives. As such, the priority should never be about turning profits. On the contrary, many of them have to operate at a loss. Imagine food, supplies, and information not reaching remote places because providing the means to do so is "unprofitable." That can easily upend the lives of tens of millions of people.

techpineapple 2y ago

I have this weird and flawed theory that "Democrats breed Republicans and Republicans breed Democrats". The essence of the theory is that Republican policies like privatizing the post office, tend to anger or disenfranchise rural folks who may end up moving to the city and then becoming or have kids that become Democrats, and Democrat policies do the reverse, maybe because Democrat policies can be defined as fundamentally conservative (preserving existing institutions) it drives liberal minded people to vote Republican on economic issues. Part of this is because I think in a sense if you think about forward looking vs reverse looking or expansionary vs staying the same, Democrats are socially liberal and economically conservative and Republicans are socially conservative and economically liberal (traditionally / late 20th century) this sort of cross keeps a sort of tension. Anyways, it is interesting to me that Republicans seem to embrace policies that can also be described as shooting themselves in the foot.

cuuupid 2y ago

I don’t know enough about the USPS to comment, but I just want to take a moment to hate on Amtrak. I know there is a huge “we love trains!” crowd among urbanists but Amtrak takes longer and is FAR more expensive on most routes than planes. Ultimately going all-in on airports was probably the better play than high speed rail. I commonly see people say stuff like “what if you could get from NYC to Miami in 2 hours?” That would require a train ~15x faster than our current highest speed rail service, but only a ~30% faster commercial plane. One of the highest frequented routes on Amtrak is NYC <> DC. This usually puts you out 200-300$ unless you can book months in advance (which essentially would defeat the point of a train but I digress) and takes 3-4 hours. By comparison a plane will take about an hour and if I book one just two days out that’s only $200. If I have a week or two of notice it quickly drops below $100. It seems to me that people hate planes mostly because of airports and schedules not being convenient. This is a totally different problem than method of transportation, and one that is far easier to solve. It would be infinitely easier and cheaper to make airports fast and efficient compared to expanding and maintaining high speed rail across the US. It is not fair at all to put USPS and Amtrak in the same bucket as while Amtrak is subsidized by the government it is insanely expensive. Americans are essentially paying Amtrak for the right to charge us ungodly prices in the name of “trains are cool.”

motorest 2y ago
> I know there is a huge “we love trains!” crowd among urbanists but Amtrak takes longer and is FAR more expensive on most routes than planes. This is not an Amtrak problem. That's a well known trait of conventional trains. With high-speed trains running at 300km/h, there's a well known tradeoff point where high-speed rail is a far better option; up to 600km-800km. Beyond that, airplanes are still the preferable option. The higher the train speed, the longer you need to travel for air travel to become the preferable option.