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Disputed does not mean disproven. There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good, and reasonable people who think it would be bad, and perhaps

by pc86 1y ago

Disputed does not mean disproven. There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good, and reasonable people who think it would be bad, and perhaps we can discuss pros and cons without acting like asses?

FollowingTheDao 1y ago
I agree. So here is a map of who owns the railways so we can ascertain who would be affected by the merger. https://stb.maps.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=96ec03e4fc8546bd8a864e39a2c3fc41 https://stb.maps.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap... I think this is bad becasue it will kill CSX as their lines will be less used for cross country deliveries. CSX already had ana anti-trust suite against Norfolk which was rejected during this administration. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/supreme-court-wont-hear-csx-antitrust-suit-against-norfolk-southern https://www.freightwaves.com/news/supreme-court-wont-hear-cs...
- jordanb 1y ago
  CSX and BNSF will basically be forced to merge to have any hope of competing against the mega-UPNS
bigbadfeline 1y ago
> There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good No there aren't, unless you interpret "good" as "good for extracting monopoly prices from the people". The US economy is overly monopolized as it is even without this buyout. More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above.
- pc86 1y ago
  "People who disagree with me about a railway company merger cannot possibly be reasonable, and instead must be mustache-twirling villains" is certainly an interesting take. Good luck with that.
  - bigbadfeline 1y ago
    > "People who disagree with me about a railway company merger cannot possibly be reasonable, So according to you, I somehow stated that disagreement with me makes somebody unreasonable, and in support of that you provided... a fictional quote. Your strawman isn't simply unreasonable, it's aggressively dishonest. > "and instead must be mustache-twirling villains" is certainly an interesting take. Now you offer hallucinations about "mustache-twirling villains"... Do you have something, anything, reasonable to say? Like address the topic? $85 Billion with a B? Did you forget about it? Peaceful disagreement DOES NOT make an argument reasonable. Are you going to argue about that too?
    - pc86 1y ago
      > > There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good > No there aren't You did state that disagreement makes you unreasonable.
      - bigbadfeline 1y ago
        > You did state that disagreement makes you unreasonable. No, I didn't, and there's no such claim in the words you so selectively quoted. Outside of that, I used the specific facts of the case to show that it's unreasonable to call the merge good.
- gruez 1y ago
  >More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above. Why is $85B automatically bad? Is it just because it's a large sum of money?
  - bigbadfeline 1y ago
    > Why is $85B automatically bad? I didn't say automatically, I referred to "my words above" - that kind of money, and the profits on top of it, can only come from monopoly pricing and it's a strong sign that the business in question is operating in near monopoly conditions. In most of the world, railroads (and other roads) are government owned because it's hard to make that kind of business competitive plus there are natsec issues to address. The privatization trend is recent.
    - jabl 1y ago
      > In most of the world, railroads (and other roads) are government owned because it's hard to make that kind of business competitive plus there are natsec issues to address. The privatization trend is recent. In many parts of the world, railroads were originally private enterprises. The US is perhaps exceptional here in that they never nationalized theirs.

by pc86 1y ago

FollowingTheDao 1y ago

I agree. So here is a map of who owns the railways so we can ascertain who would be affected by the merger. https://stb.maps.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=96ec03e4fc8546bd8a864e39a2c3fc41 https://stb.maps.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap... I think this is bad becasue it will kill CSX as their lines will be less used for cross country deliveries. CSX already had ana anti-trust suite against Norfolk which was rejected during this administration. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/supreme-court-wont-hear-csx-antitrust-suit-against-norfolk-southern https://www.freightwaves.com/news/supreme-court-wont-hear-cs...

jordanb 1y ago
CSX and BNSF will basically be forced to merge to have any hope of competing against the mega-UPNS

bigbadfeline 1y ago

> There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good No there aren't, unless you interpret "good" as "good for extracting monopoly prices from the people". The US economy is overly monopolized as it is even without this buyout. More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above.

pc86 1y ago
"People who disagree with me about a railway company merger cannot possibly be reasonable, and instead must be mustache-twirling villains" is certainly an interesting take. Good luck with that.
- bigbadfeline 1y ago
  > "People who disagree with me about a railway company merger cannot possibly be reasonable, So according to you, I somehow stated that disagreement with me makes somebody unreasonable, and in support of that you provided... a fictional quote. Your strawman isn't simply unreasonable, it's aggressively dishonest. > "and instead must be mustache-twirling villains" is certainly an interesting take. Now you offer hallucinations about "mustache-twirling villains"... Do you have something, anything, reasonable to say? Like address the topic? $85 Billion with a B? Did you forget about it? Peaceful disagreement DOES NOT make an argument reasonable. Are you going to argue about that too?
  - pc86 1y ago
    > > There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good > No there aren't You did state that disagreement makes you unreasonable.
    - bigbadfeline 1y ago
      > You did state that disagreement makes you unreasonable. No, I didn't, and there's no such claim in the words you so selectively quoted. Outside of that, I used the specific facts of the case to show that it's unreasonable to call the merge good.
gruez 1y ago
>More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above. Why is $85B automatically bad? Is it just because it's a large sum of money?
- bigbadfeline 1y ago
  > Why is $85B automatically bad? I didn't say automatically, I referred to "my words above" - that kind of money, and the profits on top of it, can only come from monopoly pricing and it's a strong sign that the business in question is operating in near monopoly conditions. In most of the world, railroads (and other roads) are government owned because it's hard to make that kind of business competitive plus there are natsec issues to address. The privatization trend is recent.
  - jabl 1y ago
    > In most of the world, railroads (and other roads) are government owned because it's hard to make that kind of business competitive plus there are natsec issues to address. The privatization trend is recent. In many parts of the world, railroads were originally private enterprises. The US is perhaps exceptional here in that they never nationalized theirs.