In reply to Indy - Guy :
For what it's worth, I thought you were right on the money with that post.
But this is America, we talk a big game about taking care of our citizens, but we put corporations and massively corrupt foreign governments above our own citizens every single day, which also answers Javelins question about why the law is written the way it is with regards to financial responsibility after FEMA gets involved.
Indy - Guy said:Indy - Guy said:This post has received too many downvotes to be displayed.
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Thanks guys. It's the first time (that I'm aware of) that one of my posts has been hidden. Didn't think hinting that American citizens should be held at least as high as foreign citizens would be controversial. It must've hit a nerve. <== should be read with a hint of sarcasm.
I upvoted your post.
Foreign Policy is a bit different from domestic policy.
Typically in Foreign Policy you don't let perfect get in the way of good enough to win you allies or protect interests. You can combine public support and domestic interests to get funding sent overseas because who doesn't like beating back the Ruskies?
In domestic policy, it needs to be perfect in terms of legislative and political support. Lobbyists muddy the water. It's always a zero-sum game. Anything required or taken from me is given to someone else.
Look at how some of the "Right to Repair" legislation that's been happening has been hamstringed by last minute changes after lobbyists got involved.
I mean, railroads do have good reason for not wanting government involvement since before deregulation in the '80s, the government, through the Interstate Commerce Commission, bankrupted damn near every single railroad in the north east and New England, which had a ripple effect that threatened to wipe out other railroads all across the country.
Mustang50 said:Have all the government officials who say it is safe to come on down and take a big drink of water. If they won't they must resign.
or better yet...face charges
From the picture of the leake oil company, also noticed the name of the road next to it.
All the talk about trains, rail lines, unions, now taggart, "who is John Galt?"
(I am not saying the situations are the same but all the train talk made me think of that book )
NickD said:I mean, railroads do have good reason for not wanting government involvement since before deregulation in the '80s, the government, through the Interstate Commerce Commission, bankrupted damn near every single railroad in the north east and New England, which had a ripple effect that threatened to wipe out other railroads all across the country.
Two syllables: Conrail.
I have vivid memories of those ugly blue cabooses going down the track at the crossing down the street from my house.
On that map of the derailment site, I was talking with one of the guys at work, he used to work in East Palestine and he recalls that State Line Tavern. Apparently back in the day in Ohio you could drink 3.2% beer if you were 18 or 19, so all the kids under 21 from Pittsburgh would drive over the line to drink. He also said there was one guy who used to walk around East Palestine, "No Face Charlie" was his name. He was horribly disfigured in a power line accident that basically wiped off his whole face. Some years later he got reconstructive surgery, but for a long time he would just go out, usually at night, so no one would see him, and wander the streets of East Palestine.
Edit: Hmm. Just googled No-Face Charlie. Apparently he lived in western PA...I wonder if my co-worker got the towns confused...
https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/charlie-no-face-legend-true-story
they don't touch upon the most difficult part of the injuries suffered by Ray. If you're going to loose your face, then losing your right hand is an even more difficult loss.
Interstate Commerce Commission was put in place for the exact reasons it could be useful today.
Railroads abusing monopolies, not investing enough in safety, and not treating labor right.
Make stupid choice, win stupid prizes.
In reply to pheller :
Yeah for Europe vs US passanger lines, I bet if you broke it down by miles traveled by individual you'd be still be higher in the US.
In reply to pheller :
Except the ICC also controlled rates and operation of services and proceeded to run everyone into the ground. If you were losing money on something, you couldn't adjust the rates, because the ICC set all the rates, and you couldn't abandon that operation unless you received permission from the ICC, which they often wouldn't grant. So you were forced to continue running services that cost you money at the whims of a government agency. Look at New Jersey commuter operations, which strangled the life out of the Reading, Erie-Lackawanna, and Central Railroad of New Jersey until they completely collapsed. Or adjusting the rates of cement haulage for tractor trailers so that railroads couldn't compete, cutting the knees off the Lehigh Valley and Central Railroad of New Jersey. You had railroads actively offering passengers and customers money to not use their services, in hopes of declining the service enough so that they could finally be allowed to discontinue the service and stop the bleeding. They also mishandled a lot of mergers, making them overly complicated or tending to try and use them for other purposes. They spent ten years trying to make up their mind on the Penn Central merger, then decided that the best way to handle it was to make the bankrupt railroad buy out the solvent railroad and cram another bankrupt railroad into the midst as well. And then within six years of approval the whole thing was the largest bankruptcy in US history due to how poorly handled it was, and the fact that the results of preliminary studies were a decade out of date. Follow that up with a thrown-together attempt to prevent the collapse that they helped cause, which resulted in a monopoly of the northeast and bankrupting the Delaware & Hudson. Or the Rock Island/Union Pacific merger, where the ICC spent a decade trying to use the merger proceedings as the anvil to reshape the entire western half of the US network to their image, by which point the Rock Island had fallen into such disrepair that the Union Pacific bailed on the merger and the Rock Island immediately filed for bankruptcy.
The bankruptcies and collapse of the '60s and '70s weren't a result of monopolies, ignoring safety or poor labor treatment. They were partially caused by the ICC actively sabotaging any attempts at being profitable.
pheller said:Interstate Commerce Commission was put in place for the exact reasons it could be useful today.
Railroads abusing monopolies, not investing enough in safety, and not treating labor right.
Make stupid choice, win stupid prizes.
Define "abuse"
Define "investing enough"
Define "treating labor right"
Now realize that every person has a different definition of those terms than you do. Pretty much all of the disagreements we have as human beings comes down to word-thinking, and how we each define those words. Not saying it's impossible to come to some agreement, but its a lot harder than jumping on an internet chat board and pontificating that the government must do something.
In reply to NickD :
Exactly.
Whenever there's a news story about something I'm fairly knowledgeable about, I look for how many ways they totally botch the reporting of it. Then I remind myself that for every news story on a topic I know very little about, the news is also getting that story just as wrong.
Fully agree.
We're probably in the mess because of things that are far outside simple regulation. Like, maybe rules governing lobbyists and the role of outside money in influencing policy?
I feel like America is in this loop of getting the smartest guys in the room, and then ignoring all of their suggestions because it might reduce profits.
In reply to NickD :
Oooof. Certainly not the best model of government intervention.
Thanks for the lesson.
I'm sure there is some happy medium of regulatory oversight, nationalizing of assets, making railwork more attractive from a labor perspective, and keeping people safe. It's just doing all that without focusing too hard on profitability.
volvoclearinghouse said:Indy - Guy said:Indy - Guy said:This post has received too many downvotes to be displayed.
Show/hide post
Thanks guys. It's the first time (that I'm aware of) that one of my posts has been hidden. Didn't think hinting that American citizens should be held at least as high as foreign citizens would be controversial. It must've hit a nerve. <== should be read with a hint of sarcasm.
I upvoted your post.
...and I just tried to upvote your upvote and this is what I got:
I also just tried to upvote pheller's post as we tend to be pretty far apart on our views and yet I thought his post was very good aaaaand zero net score so somebody has been throwing down votes around like frisbees lately.
RX Reven' said:volvoclearinghouse said:Indy - Guy said:Indy - Guy said:This post has received too many downvotes to be displayed.
Show/hide post
Thanks guys. It's the first time (that I'm aware of) that one of my posts has been hidden. Didn't think hinting that American citizens should be held at least as high as foreign citizens would be controversial. It must've hit a nerve. <== should be read with a hint of sarcasm.
I upvoted your post.
...and I just tried to upvote your upvote and this is what I got:
I also just tried to upvote pheller's post as we tend to be pretty far apart on our views and yet I thought his post was very good aaaaand zero net score so somebody has been throwing down votes around like frisbees lately.
I got nothing.
In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :
That would make sense. It was at -1, you gave a +1, that equals 0. The next upvote would make it show 1.
Downvotes are bullE36 M3
pheller said:Fully agree.
We're probably in the mess because of things that are far outside simple regulation. Like, maybe rules governing lobbyists and the role of outside money in influencing policy?
I feel like America is in this loop of getting the smartest guys in the room, and then ignoring all of their suggestions because it might reduce profits.
The most valuable guys in the room are the ones that figure out how to keep profits going ever higher. Not my personal opinion, I generally feel very much not that, but in a shareholder value economy if you're not improving your market share from 300% to 310% (purposeful hyperbole) then what are you even doing. As long as we place more value on profitability than we do quality, durability, and just generally being right... well, we're gonna get more of the same. I'd start by removing federal protections for the rail companies from their employees. I'm not one to walk around pointing out people for making too much money but we're all familiar with the Cheap-Good-Fast triangle and a company is shareholder profitable when it is Cheap and Fast.
I'm reminded of a story I read in The Atlantic years ago that dove into GMs reputation in the 70s and their falling market share against Toyota, despite tariffs, and how GM sent people to learn from Toyota and then discarded the knowledge when it didn't conform to what they'd already decided to do. Did GM ever recapture the most popular car title from Toyota? Personally, if I wanted quality, I can't say that I'd take a GM over a 'yota and most anecdotal evidence says that the extra cost of a 'yota is worth it. What did GM accomplish? If these railroads didn't have monopolies, would they be able to fairly compete for their business with these practices?
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:Downvotes are bullE36 M3
Very, very, very few posts generate enough to be blocked. The ones I've seen totally deserved it. It has made moderation measurably easier and less stressful for the mod team by keeping arguments and inflammatory posts in check.
Javelin said:AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:Downvotes are bullE36 M3
Very, very, very few posts generate enough to be blocked. The ones I've seen totally deserved it. It has made moderation measurably easier and less stressful for the mod team by keeping arguments and inflammatory posts in check.
I will accept that. Moddin is similar to pimpin, I imagine.
I just found this post. I'm 17 miles northwest of the incident. Two towns west, this railway passes right along side a company of a former employer. The security camera shows the axle on fire as it passes the building. At that time, there was about 300 ppl in the building about 100 -200 yards from the track. Could have been devastating ( more so).
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:Downvotes are bullE36 M3
I almost downvoted your post for the lolz. (I didn't.)
NickD said:I mean, railroads do have good reason for not wanting government involvement since before deregulation in the '80s, the government, through the Interstate Commerce Commission, bankrupted damn near every single railroad in the north east and New England, which had a ripple effect that threatened to wipe out other railroads all across the country.
No, the railroads hurt themselves by forming duopolies and tetropolies, ironically prioritizing consistent moneymaking and status quo over improvements (much like today). In the 70s, there was massive flooding in the northeast that destroyed quite a lot of rail and they began fusing out of fear the federal government was going to nationalize all of them.
Well There's Your Problem has a 3 hour long podcast about it, complete will all the books and sources from people who worked it at the time. It's incredibly engaging, because it basically amounts to the dumbest possible ways corporations could ever "work"- at one point, they were literally randomly slicing entire rail lines off of a "planning stage" in the names of "equalizing" everything into 3 distinct rail lines to prevent said fear of takeover. It didn't work, conrail was still made, and despite all desires of the fed at that time Conrail actually made money.
I'll openly admit, it might also be THIS other 3 hour long podcast specifically about electric trains, and if you openly proclaim Nobody has time for that I don't blame you lmao
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