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Re: Not a bad deal for this taxpayer?
Author: BOB2
Date: 01-21-2011 - 04:21
A bargain price is paid for what at the worst will be some nice prime public parkland?
There is no simplistic "auction" based commodity type free market in transportation, since there are real constraints and constrictions of optimal geography and significant physical and financial barriers to entry, that prevent such an "ideal" "free market" conditions. There are also largely regional and sectional railroads monopolies, who participate in a diverse transportation market, dominated by a massively publicly subsidized investment in a system of highways, which give significant indirect operating subsidies to the advantage of trucks. So this simplistic libertarian economic drivel is irrelevant to most real conditions in transportation economics.
In the real world of transportation economics these "imperfect" markets dominate, with lots of externalities, avoided, or unpaid, and plenty of "free riders" like the trucking industry.
We benefit from some of this with cheap goods, but it is not a truly "free market" by any means. There are many barriers to entry, there are unique optimal routes, many opportunities for market dominance, price discrimination, price gouging, and market manipulation. These complexities, imperfect conditions, real market distortions are not made to simply vanish by some vacuous sophomoric libertarian fairy tale rhetoric. Life is complex, geography is complex, and the economics of transportation are complex, so sometimes you have to take more than the introductory Econ 1 class to understand and deal with that complexity.
This is a pretty good deal for taxpayers compared the just the hidden political "costs" and sweetheart deals I've seen squirreled away in many highway contracts? Maybe this can work as a viable transportation asset under public lease to an operator, maybe not? If not, it's a nice bikeway route and some nice parkland for not too bad a price, either. And, this is more transparent, open, and a better deal than anything that is happening with the incompetent CHSRA, so chill.... It's a great line, a unique asset, and maybe it will be put to a good use?
EGBOK......
There is no simplistic "auction" based commodity type free market in transportation, since there are real constraints and constrictions of optimal geography and significant physical and financial barriers to entry, that prevent such an "ideal" "free market" conditions. There are also largely regional and sectional railroads monopolies, who participate in a diverse transportation market, dominated by a massively publicly subsidized investment in a system of highways, which give significant indirect operating subsidies to the advantage of trucks. So this simplistic libertarian economic drivel is irrelevant to most real conditions in transportation economics.
In the real world of transportation economics these "imperfect" markets dominate, with lots of externalities, avoided, or unpaid, and plenty of "free riders" like the trucking industry.
We benefit from some of this with cheap goods, but it is not a truly "free market" by any means. There are many barriers to entry, there are unique optimal routes, many opportunities for market dominance, price discrimination, price gouging, and market manipulation. These complexities, imperfect conditions, real market distortions are not made to simply vanish by some vacuous sophomoric libertarian fairy tale rhetoric. Life is complex, geography is complex, and the economics of transportation are complex, so sometimes you have to take more than the introductory Econ 1 class to understand and deal with that complexity.
This is a pretty good deal for taxpayers compared the just the hidden political "costs" and sweetheart deals I've seen squirreled away in many highway contracts? Maybe this can work as a viable transportation asset under public lease to an operator, maybe not? If not, it's a nice bikeway route and some nice parkland for not too bad a price, either. And, this is more transparent, open, and a better deal than anything that is happening with the incompetent CHSRA, so chill.... It's a great line, a unique asset, and maybe it will be put to a good use?
EGBOK......
