As it is now, a very small percentage of our tax dollars is actually used for our benefit. Perhaps some in this topic are happy with the status quo, but I'm not. I live in California, one of the most liberal states, which is why it's no surprise our budget is in the tanks. To "fix" the budget problems California has used such innovating strategies as delaying payment on some bills by a day or two so it will technically be part of next year's budget and they can procrastinate dealing with it for another year. Even worse though, they've implemented this plan they call "borrowing" for county and city governments, where they will collect taxes intended for local governments, that otherwise would go to local projects, and just keep it for the state. The government can do what private companies can only wish they could do, blatantly steal money, delay payment of their bills indefinitely, and suffer no consequences (as most on the CA legislature will probably be reelected). But I digress. My argument is, by switching to a more private model, with some (very limited) government oversight, we could switch to a system where our tax dollars more directly go into things that benefit us. Any organization, public or private, will want to abuse their power. The difference is that a government can stop a private company from doing so, but no one can stop the government from doing so. Do you think the private company in charge of road maintenance for 7 counties in Idaho can use the tax dollars they are given to fund a foreign occupation? (Before someone brings up the fruit industry and S. American politics, read "in charge of road maintenance for 7 counties in Idaho").
A GSE does not create a free market, and is hardly privatization. In regards to it being a good idea; look how well Fanny and Freddy have done A GSE gives a "private" organization the right to run their company into the ground, and leave the government and taxpayers to clean it up.
I, unlike most of you here it seems, lived in a rural area where I had to travel on 4 miles of country gravel road off of the 8 miles of rural highway to get to and from home everyday. When I worked and went to school there, I had to drive over 30 miles, only just to barely break even. When gas was $4 a gallon, I was actually spending more every week than I was making. How in the fuck would I have been able to do that if it was a private road? I'm not a paying a toll everyday to get home, thats absurd. People in less traveled areas would be completely shafted. Hell, when we were out in Western Kansas, over 60% of the roads aren't even gravel, because the terrible conditions made it too expensive for gravel even. They had to use sand! Those were shitty roads, but could you imagiune if some private business had taken it over? They WOULD shut it down? Sure doesn't seem bad to you now. "Hah, just some road out in the boondocks no one uses!" But when you realize that ALL of our food travels by public rural roads to get to where you live, how do you suppose we'd live? Public transportaion is one of the few things that is absolutely necessary for our life. I'm sorry but that's a fucking fact! When the poor farmer who literally breaks even every year on his farm, and doesn't get any money for his crops and livestock until they've reached their destination to be sold has to pay a toll to get his stuff there, how's he going to pay for it? Some debt installment plan? That's exactly some of the same crap that caused the American War of Independence.
That's assuming that these local maintenance companies want to adopt that business model. What if that is not profitable? What happens the price of gas suddenly rises to $4 again, and people stop buying it, and stop driving? And the maintenance business suddenly does a nose dive. And there's a major snow storm, and they can't afford to get us out? Government bailout?
Exactly! I have also lived on a very rural road (10 miles to my closest neighbor) in a very rural, very snowy state. This actually reminds me. I actually do have a small amount of experience with a "private" road: When my husband and I were house shopping, we looked at a house on a dirt road. It was a really nice house, but it was on a "private road". This was not a driveway, but an actual road that all of the homeowners on the road paid to maintain. The road was not paved and you couldn't travel on it without a 4 wheel drive vehicle. And the "maintenance" fee for this road? $400 a month. That was 11 years ago. I loved the house, but there was no way we could afford that.
They wouldn't receive subsidies or privileges, other than access to existing forms of revenue. There are different levels of government "sponsorship" of industries, it's not always rampant corporatism. Comparing roads to housing... come on. I agree, Itd be hard to privatize roads. I took the OP as saying the government fails even at the smallest things such as infrastructure, which most of us agree it should be providing. Therefore we shouldn't be trying to operate everything from the central state. Next time someone suggests privatizing a road or a bridge, realize that the Government has failed in their duty to maintain these system, arguably their biggest and most 'important' job. When someone suggests that it would be impossible, or a bad idea, to privatize these projects, just keep in mind that the Government isn't so great at it. And I could see privatiation of "a" road or bridge, not all infrastructure.
Then they would be receiving government subsidies and privileges. Like I said, not free market privatization. Your saying we should make roads a GSE, like we have done for houses. Yet you have a problem when I draw a current example to make a relevant comparison... come on.
Just because its a GSE doesn't mean it's the same kind of market. I see your point, and its a fair one, but I just can't see roads being bought and sold like houses. Is it the American dream for everyone to own a road? And I never said it was "free market", I was talking about privatization, which is a process.
Roads have a pretty stable as far as cost to maintain. Roads are not torn apart and rebuilt every year. For the most part a well made road will last years, even under heavy traffic, before any major repairs need to be done. You'll have your pot hole every so often but nothing major needs to be done that often. A company that owns a road is going to want people to use it right? If they need people to use it to make money then why would they price themselves out of the market? If you really do own your own business, like you say you do, don't you try to find more customers? I own my own business as well and price my services so that anyone can afford them. Because of that my standard of living is beginning to go up as my business grows. You also make the mistake in assuming that only for profit businesses would be roadway owners. Under a free market system there would likely be a number of non-profit organizations, such as business associations, that own roads. There could be a number businesses that get together to purchase a road and offer free travel on it so that consumers will come shop at their locations. Neighborhood organizations could be developed that own the roadways in neighborhoods for the residents that live there. Or you could very well see a dramatic shift in the way Americans get around in the first place. The two ton hydrocarbon powered machines we all drive around to carry our groceries may go the way of the dinosaur as people switch to mass transit to get around. The idea of Personal Rapid Transit systems could catch on and these networks might be built. The road, as we know it, could just disappear altogether. Cars are only popular because of the subsidization of the automotive industry. No other industry in the world has someone build the necessary infrastructure needed for their products to operate. If government were not subsidizing their businesses perhaps we might choose more efficient means of transportation. Try thinking outside of the little box you live in. Private transportation infrastructure might be what we need to battle global pollution.
All this comment shows is how utterly ignorant you are about corporate ownership and the role stockholders play. Take a little time to learn what exactly a stockholder is before you start running your mouth. Again learn what a stockholder is and what role they play. Stockholders and those that trade commodities are two entirely different animals. A person without a job is going to have to make the same damn choices. Food or gas, food or registration stickers, food or...we can go on and on and on. The same choices are made whether it is private or public. And no, road companies would not try to price the road so only the "rich" can afford it. That's no way to make money. If that was the way to do business then Wal-Mart or Target or any other business that caters to low income individuals would certainly go under. Yes, fuel taxes do play a part in the number of people that choose to use mass transit. Is that the best option? I don't think it is. While use taxes are not as egregious as direct taxes I am just as opposed to those as any other. At least with a use tax you can choice to not pay it. I never said our transportation system was bad, I said it was inefficient and wasteful. And yes, my arguments are ideological in nature. But I do view private ownership of anything far better than public. No, I do not ignore the facts. I ignore the whole study because it is flawed. It has chosen to focus on fascist control of infrastructure. Fascism is a system of government in which private companies are enriched through special deals done with the government. The flaw with the study you pointed out is it only addresses problems within a fascist model. There was no real privatization of the water distribution. These cities simply picked one company to provide this service. This is not a free market solution. This study, then, is arguing against a phantom. Advocates of the free market do not advocate for special deals with corporations. We believe in competition in the market place. A city that does a deal with a single private company can expect these results. They will not act any better than the city does, an in fact, they often perform worse. It is market competition that drives down cost and improves quality. Without market competition you cannot achieve the results I am talking about. No. A free market solution involves zero government. Nada, zip, zilch, bupkis, nothing. If there is government rules or regulations in place then you do not have a free market. It's not a case of me contradicting myself; it's a case of you not understanding what a free market is or actually reading what I'm writing. No, not really. It just shows that they happened to pick a company that did the job right. But since I haven't had the chance to sit down and really read the study cover to cover and check its sources I cannot comment on this any further. What the hell are you talking about? "Associated Press" is not a reference. A reference includes the title, author and date of the article, study or book written. If at all possible a link is greatly appreciated too. If you took English in high school you would have learned how to properly reference something. You debunked nothing. California set price controls on the whole sale price of energy. The San Francisco Gate (note the link: This is a how one generally references inside of a post) gives a good timeline of how the crisis came about, however I disagree with its findings. The Cato Institute put out a good report in 2001 describing the causes of the crisis and ways to address it. Jerry Taylor and Peter van Doren writing for Cato (Lawsuits Prove That Gov. Davis Deceived Public About California Energy Crisis) puts a lot of blame for the crisis directly on former governor Davis. They also produced a study that details the causes and solutions to that crisis. The blame for these high prices can be attributed to a long drought, increased demand without increased supply and price caps set by the state.
You don't live in a northern state, do you? Roads in my state typically need to be repaved entirely every 3-4 years. We also require snow removal, which is extremely unpredictable. There is nothing stable about the costs to maintain our roads up there. There are some years where our snow removal budget is gone in December. There are other years, where we have money left over. Do you think fixing potholes is the only maintenance that goes into our roads? What about: Snow removal Salting Sanding Keeping street lights running Painting the lines Sidewalk repair Fixing cracks, potholes, and frost heaves Repaving Grading Mowing/Keeping the roads free of tree limbs Guardrails and fences Noise reduction barriers Accident clean up Police services (that's not free anymore) etc. That's just what we would pay for directly. Indirectly we have to pay all of the employee's salaries and the CEO's end of the year bonus. We will be paying for their company picnics and their sick days. We'd have to pay for all of their office supplies, their trucks and maintenance equipment, traffic cones and jersey barriers, etc, etc. And it's not like shopping at walmart- I can avoid walmart because I don't like their business practices. I have to use roads. I have no "free market" option if the road I take to work is owned by a business I don't want to do business with. Of course I want as many customers as possible, but I'm not going to operate at a loss to serve them. This is really funny, because in another thread you were just recently talking about your own business (and I quote): That doesn't sound like growth to me. It's pretty obvious why this is happening. You don't understand how to price your services, and you don't understand supply and demand. You will never succeed in business if you try to price your service so that "anyone" can afford it. Are you in business to make money or to provide people with free windshield repair? Look at private businesses like Lexus or Gucci. They thrive by offering goods that only a very small percentage of the population can afford. According to your business theory, those businesses would never survive. Why do you think a free market infrastructure would be any different? Let's say a particular stretch of road is extremely scenic. People will pay lots of money for the exclusivity of driving or living on that road. A private business is going to price that road very high, BECAUSE THEY CAN. Supply and demand. Is this what you call "free"? When your bank account determines what scenery you get to experience? When you can only go from one place to another if you can afford it? I'm not making any assumptions. YOU are the one assuming that non-profit businesses would be interested in roads. Somehow, I really doubt that. It's possible, but there will be a LOT of money to be made in our road systems, and private businesses are not going to stand back and let non-profits take that money. What happens if there is an economic downturn, and those businesses can no longer afford to pay for road maintenance, and they close down? And because it's a bad economy, there is no one willing to buy that road? Does the road just close down? Please explain to me how that would qualify as an "infrastructure"? LOL.. you mean like a homeowner's association? Christ, talk about fascism. That's a really odd recommendation from an anarchist. What if someone in the neighborhood doesn't want to join this association? Do we just remove snow on the entire road, except in front of their house? This is actually a really good point, and I agree that we need to stop subsidizing the automotive industry and let that part of the market settle out naturally. However, America is a HUGE spread out country. We are predominantly a rural country. If this were to happen, we would have major migration to our cities. And if you want to live or travel in a rural area, you will pay dearly for it.
I hardly got "owned," whatever that means. You do not understand what a stockholder is or what role commodity traders play. I'm not going to hold your hand and explain every little thing to you. Try doing some research to see what exactly a stockholder is or what a commodity trader is. Until you do that then I'm sorry, you didn't "own" anyone. Your previous comment only shows how little you understand about corporate ownership. I make the choice between eating and getting to work every day. I happen to be one of those "poor" people you talk about. I've been making that choice everyday since I was in high school. I put $5 in my tank just last night and spent $2 on a box of Top Ramen. That is my lunch and dinner for the next week. Go fuck yourself if you think I don't know what it's like to be poor. It's hardly backtracking. You can tax the hell out of anything to change the way people behave. That doesn't mean it is the best way of doing things. We can put a $25 a pack tax on cigarettes to discourage smoking, and it would work, but that's not the best way to do it. Once again you fail to understand my position. I don't expect you to fully understand free market theory; I've been studying it for five years now and I'm always learning something new. But don't try to tell me what I believe. Since you know very little about what my philosophical beliefs are you are in no position to dictate my belief structure nor can you claim I'm "backtracking" simply because I agreed with you that high fuels taxes encourages the use of mass transit. Of course they encourage the use of mass transit but that isn't the point. The point of the argument is the infrastructure itself and whether it is best supported by public or private means. ROTFL. So according to you inefficient and wasteful is good. Read what you post. No wonder you hate government, you think inefficent is good.[/quote] Where the hell do you come up with this stuff? I never once said that. How about we try this: Instead of twisting my words to mean something I never even remotely said how about responding to what I actually say. No. Again, I will explain this one last time. Fascism is the granting of special monopolies to private industry. Business and government working hand in hand for the enrichment of special interest. The free market, the thing I advocate, is unrestricted competition between private industry. Unrestricted competition lowers cost (thus helping the poor) and improves the quality of the services or products being delivered (which raises the standard of living). You can twist my words all you want; it just demonstrates how ignorant you are of economic facts and free market theory. This is fucking pointless. Your keep trying to twist what I'm saying, though done very poorly. I'm not going to continue this because its pointless. You will not actually respond to my arguments, like I have yours. Pat yourself on the back. You won. I cannot continue this because you're a fucking idiot.
That's a fair argument to say the least. I will say that all of these cost are pretty much known ahead of time. A company would naturally anticipate these cost to be incurred and would price their product as such. The argument for private roads is a sticky issue in libertarian circles because of their static nature. How do we privatize roads? No on is really sure what is the best means of doing so. Limited government libertarians (minarchist) argue that a government is needed to maintain the roads systems. Anarchist favor privatization. I favor privatization but for a different reason. I belief that our current transportation system exist because of the subsidization of the auto industry. Me hypothesis (thanks to whoever it was that corrected me on this) that had government not taken the view that cars are the best means of transport the automobile would not have become as popular as it is. My view is that privatization of roads will mean a dramatic shift in the way people move, which I believe would be for the better. Private roads would likely exist for awhile but they would eventually go the way of rail transport in this country. Remember in history class; back in the day long distance travel was always done by rail. Then commercial airline companies started and rail was regulated to the task of shipping goods. It was really the airplane that killed travel on trains. The privatization of roads would likely kill off the car, and good riddance if you ask me. The car is the number one polluter in the world. If government no longer subsidizes it I believe that transportation will shift over time from inefficient and wasteful cars and trucks to things like mass transit (buses, light rail, etc.) or small compact electric vehicles or maybe even a system called Personal Rapid Transit (PRT). PRT systems is something I ran into a few years ago and have been fascinated with ever since. The impact on our environment would be greatly reduced as people began switching from cars to more efficient modes of transport. I don't know what business you are in so I can't comment on what you do but I can comment on my own post. I've started a windshield repair company. When I made that post I wasn't sure anything was going to actually happen with it because it was taking so long to get started. I was waiting for approval from insurance companies so I could file claims for my customers. Two days ago I finally got the ok from all of the processing companies and that afternoon I went out and started getting some jobs. So far I have completed about six jobs, which has earned me about $300. It takes about six weeks for the checks to start coming in but once they do I'll be in much better financial shape. Since I just started it will be a while before I see growth of any real sort. I have, however, owned a business prior to this one. I washed windows focusing on homes instead of store fronts. I priced my services very cheap, about $75 for a single story home for the initial cleaning, which I could complete in about two hours. I would then come by every two months to clean the outside of the windows for $15. After that first cleaning it would only take me about 20 minutes to do a house. Well, once you get about 400 of those a month you can see that you can really make some good money at it. Especially considering I only worked about six hours a day. Of course it took me three years to build up the company but whatever. No, it's pretty obvious you don't have the fully story. I won't hold that against you though. And yes, I've always priced my services so anyone can afford them. If anyone can afford them that means I can have unlimited customers. Of course my services are far different than Lexus or Gucci in your next comment. Their business model is such that they can do that. They are offering their products to a niche market, the luxury market. And that is fine. Because while they pander to the rich Kia is making a killing offering cars that anyone can afford. My sister makes less than I do and just bought a new Rio for less than $8,000. Not the best car in the world but it has a 100,000 mile, 10 year warranty and gets good gas mileage. Is it what you call "free" if I'm being charged for a scenic road I'm not using? Through taxes I'm paying for all manner of roads I don't use. Why is that any more fair than someone paying a little more to drive on a very scenic road? Or perhaps the road company that owns that road wants more people to travel on it and so it they lower their prices to attract more customers. It goes both ways. To assume that a non-profit would not be interested in roads is just as big assumption as assuming they would. Who are you to say they would not be interested in it? Perhaps a business association want a busy commercial street to be free to attract people to their stores. Why is that such a hard thing to imagine? The less traffic on it the less maintenance that must be done. Roads are very different than say a shopping mall. A retail center needs a lot of people to come through and spend in order to stay open. A road just sits there. The fewer people traveling on it the less you are going to have to spend to maintain it. I said perhaps. I fucking hate homeowners associations. No one really knows what shape free market roads will take because we don't have any now. It's all theory right now. My personal belief is that roadways will be replaced by more efficient means of transport and the argument would remain academic anyway. Actually we are a predominately urban country. According to a report published by the United Nations approximately 81.4% of the US population lives in urban areas, as of 2007 (United Nations World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision, p. 72, PDF).
In the case of education, agriculture, and housing a GSE can help make the American dream more accessable. It is not the American dream to own a road, which is exactly why the government should not pay companies to profit off charging for roads. Our past with GSE's shows that they seldom put their original goal of increased affordability, in front of every private companies goal of a more money. Current GSE's and their finances: Farm Credit System, $94 billion in assets; Federal Home Loan Bank System, $654 billion; Fannie Mae, $607 billion in assets plus $707 billion of mortgage-backed securities guaranteed; Freddie Mac, $386 billion assets plus $576 billion of mortgage backed securities guaranteed; Sallie Mae (student loans) $48.8 billion assets; Farmer Mac, $3.2 billion assets plus $1.5 billion of mortgaged backed securities guaranteed. Would you really like to see Infustructure Mae added to this list? The trend of GSE's is the make high risk investments they know that they can't back up with their own assets. They and the rest of the market know it's the tax payers stuck with the check when the company gets into trouble. What is the point of privatizing infrastructure, if the government still foots the bill and ultimate responsibility? It leads to what you call a moral hazard, and an example of such a situation is Freddy and Fanny. As far as I can tell the OP is calling for a free market in infrastructure projects, which your suggestion of a GSE is not. Not only is a GSE a cop out in that the "private" system still relies heavily on government aid. Every taxpayer becomes liable for the high risk decisions of CFO's looking to make a buck. Full or GSE privatization of our infrastructure would be detrimental to both our infrastructure itself and tax payer wallets.
http://www.ici.org/pdf/rpt_02_equity_owners.pdf So according to the ICI, 49.5% of American households own stock, does that mean all those people are "leeches"? I'm not sure what you mean here but, you do realize stock is the mechanism used to give employees a say in how the company is run? (A rhetorical question, you obviously don't know that) In the past, employees often had no say in how the company is run, but now a days many companies give stock options to even low level employees. If there is an issue of importance to them and they all band together, employees can often be a sizable voting block. (You probably didn't understand any of that though) Oh and fascism is always bad.
Don't bother replying. He'll just try some childish trick to twist your words. I'm sure he will claim you are now in favor of fascism or some crap like that. Throwing pearls at swine.
I don't want to dismiss your entire post, but to be honest, I'm just too busy at the moment to respond to everything point by point. I think you make some good points about privatization, but mostly I just think it's impossible to do with roads. So we can just disagree on that. I know we don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, and this is completely off topic, but I want to give you some genuine business advise. I've been a professional photographer for over 10 years, and I know it's not windshield repair, but it's a very similar type of service that relies heavily upon my physical labor and some tools, so I do kind of know what I'm talking about. You can not have an infinite amount of customers, because you only have a finite number of hours in a day, and there are only a finite number of people who are going to need your services. There is a minimum amount you have to charge to cover all of your overhead. In a legitimate business that includes: Liability & Damage Insurance Taxes Office/general invoicing supplies Computer/phone/electricity/etc. Tools and back-up equipment That's at a minimum, if you are working from home, with no separate place of business (is your house zoned for that?). Are you charging enough so that you can save to rent out or buy a workshop? That's how you grow. You'll need to start your own savings plan, because you won't have a 401K plan to put into, and you won't have anyone matching your contributions, so you should put at least 20% of your gross earnings away into savings. Especially since you are young, and as you say... social security is drying up. And if you ever need health care, insurance extremely expensive if you are self employed, so make sure you factor that into your overhead. I can't stress this enough. It's a reason why many, many small businesses fail. Even if you don't need it now, make sure you factor it into your pricing, so you can at least save just in case. In my industry there are tons and tons of people who get a camera and open a "photography business" by charging super cheap prices and undercutting everyone else. They don't last very long, because they always fail to take all of those expenses into consideration. Not only that, but it's a great way to build a bad reputation among your colleagues, and they won't recommend you if their workload is too much. You can ultimately run your business according to your own business plan, but the numbers you've given here just don't seem to add up. I can see you haven't take a lot of expenses into consideration when coming up with your pricing. This what I mean by we are a "rural country". Area wise we are very large but the majority of the people live in cities. Which means, most of our roads are rural and expensive to maintain.
First, there were roads before there were cars. Cars did not lead to roads. The necessity of a safe path from one place to the next lead to roads. Roads were used long ago by the roman empire, and in America before the car. Horse and buggy's need a road to. Even though your argument of mass transit being able to replace cars is unlikely, let's entertain the notion. How do I get from my house to the bus stop, train station, ect? Switching to mass transit would help the environment in the long run, but it would not help decrease infustructure projects cost. It would cost even more if the light rail provider had to pay private owners of all the streets it intersects and pases. Light rails don't need roads, but they do need tracks, tunnels, and bridges just like roads do. A light rail system would cost seattle a whopping 300 million dollars per mile of track! What about people that perfer simply walking or biking to their destinations, they will still need road ways. Maybe you are operating under the assumption of teleportation being invented Privatization of infustructe, doesn't mean we will make the expensive switch from cars to mass transit. Second, You continue to explain your model of infustructure with phrases like "Perhaps a business association want a busy commercial street to be free to attract people to their stores." and continue to ignore legitimate arguements like "What if someone in the neighborhood doesn't want to join this association? Do we just remove snow on the entire road, except in front of their house?" How would you exempt the non-payers? There lies the rub, and the reason infustructre must remain a governtment, and tax payer funded industry. You can't place people on house arrest or stop them from walking the streets in there city. You can not exclude the non-payers, and therefore can not have a free market in infustructre.
I don't think its impossible. I do think it is difficult. Believe me there arguments about the privatization of services such as roads, electric distribution, water and sewer get heated among libertarians. It's not an easy task to come up with a workable solution to privatization but it can be done. I do believe that any moves towards privatization of these services will cause some price increases and disruption of services in the short term. The long term benefits, however, will outweigh the short term troubles. My take is getting away from government subsidized roads will kill the roads and the car off, at least as far as personal transport is concerned. I'm not saying it will be an easy transition but one that I think will ultimately be better for everyone. Quicker commute times and far less impact on the environment. The car is the single biggest polluter in the world. It is a waste of natural resources as it is inherently inefficient. I believe that in the future most roads will be torn up and the land reclaimed for homes, parks, farms or just open spaces. I really believe that highways will go the way of the dinosaur as more efficient mass transit options arise to take their place. Thanks for the advice but I know how to price my services and run a business. I've been a small business owner for ten years now. I appreciate your concern, however. Windshield repair is my newest venture and is will pay off well in the end. Shorter hours and more money. That is true but my argument is that privatization will shift the American travel experience from cars which destroy the earth to a more economically sensitive mode of transport. I don't know what shape that will take but consumers would demand alternative transportation and the market would respond accordingly. We have the technology now for personal rapid transit system but its impossible for them to be implemented. People do not want to give up their cars. I can respect that. But I do not believe the automobile is the future of transport and so long as the government continues to subsidize a bad idea we will always have it around.
Yes, there have been roads for thousands of years. And roads were the height of technology then. They are not now. There are better modes of transport than a road. A road is a waste of natural resources as they devour much needed farm land or housing spaces. I believe that roads for the most part continue to exist because they continue to be subsidized by the state. Light rail is a waste of money. The only people willing to build light rail systems is governments because they are big projects that consume a lot of money. They are not the best means of transport and not something I'm advocating at all. I don't know what the full privatization of transport would bring us but it's not going to be restrictive. People need to move around. That is a fact. Why would private industry build a system that excluded people from travel if literally everyone is a possible customer? The market responds to demand in services. The demand for travel is very high so the ability to make money off of proving a low cost efficient means of getting around is very enticing. The arguments presented have always been "transportation is too vital to our nation and our economy to leave in the hands of private businesses." If that is the case then why isn't the government growing our food? Isn't food just as vital? Why doesn't the government build our cars? They are essential are they not? Why isn't the government building our computers? Are not computer essential to our well being today? Look at everything that is controlled by computers. They are a critical part of our infrastructure. Why is the government not taking control of those? What about airplanes? Shouldn't the government be building all of the airplanes? They are critical to our economy as well. Without air transport business would suffer, mail and packages would be delayed. What about telephone services? Why doesn't the government provide that critical need? How can we trust private companies to provide these critical services, vital to our economy and our national security, if your argument is right? If these things, which if any one of them stopped working for any period of time would severely damage or destroy our economy, are so vital then why do we continue to allow the free market, and not the government, to provide them? I believe you think that only government can provide a means of transport because that's all you've know. You've never know private roads or private mass transit so the idea is crazy to you. You can come up with all of the arguments you want but in the end the truth is that the free market can do just as good, if not better, a job than the state. The free market works for food, cars, computers, airplanes, telephones, the internet and even electricity is largely supplied by private companies. These are all vital to our well being, our economy and even our national security yet we allow private companies to provide these services. Expensive switch for who? For the consumer? Not likely. The expense of building an efficient mass transit system would be born by an entrepreneur and his investors. The consumer will only use it if they feel it works best for them. I'm not ignoring it. In fact I believe I've answer that question with "I don't know." I don't know for sure what shape transportation would take once the free market began providing it. No more than anyone 150 years ago would have known how airplanes would have been utilized. Nor do we know what space travel is going to be like. The problem is us free market types are having to argue theory against known things.