Privatizing infrastructure completely would be a disaster. Imagine having quarter slots in the drinking fountains at parks, or the restriction of travel that would incur from tolls everywhere. i know that doesn't sound good to me one bit. You can not exclude non-payers from utilizing America's infrastructure. That is why it can not be a free market industry. There would need to be tolls between each road owned by a different company, and guards on the street collecting fees to walk or bike by. It would be too expensive and intrusive to try and charge every person for any use of infrastructure. The fundamental problem with your argument is you don't know. You don't know how private companies could exclude non-payers from their roads, but know they will. You don't know what kind of efficient mass transit systems will be created, but you know they will. You don't even seem to know how much the government subsidizes "food, cars, computers, airplanes, telephones, the internet and even electricity", but you know the free market takes care of things. -Food is vital, your right, which is why the government does subsidize the growing of it. Between 1996 and 2002, an average of $16 billion/year was paid by programs authorized by various U.S. farm bills " U.S. farm bills " - The government does support the building and selling of cars, because it's important to our economy. In three months alone the government shelled out nearly 3 billion on the Cash for clunkers program. Requested Voucher Dollar Amounts: CALIFORNIA $326,822,000,TEXAS $183,776,500,NEW YORK $156,292,000,FLORIDA $146,565,000, ILLINOIS $143,613,000,PENNSYLVANIA $138,651,500,OHIO $136,267,000,MICHIGAN $132,407,500 NEW JERSEY $103,375,500,VIRGINIA $98,523,500,NORTH CAROLINA $78,601,500,MARYLAND $74,903,000,MINNESOTA $73,160,500,GEORGIA $70,496,000,WISCONSIN $70,165,000,INDIANA $65,797,000,MASSACHUSETTS $64,855,000,MISSOURI $61,271,500,WASHINGTON $55,927,500 TENNESSEE $50,949,000,KENTUCKY $40,246,500,CONNECTICUT $40,114,000,ARIZONA $39,542,500 IOWA $37,728,000,COLORADO $37,676,500,OREGON $37,531,500,OKLAHOMA $37,422,000,SOUTH CAROLINA $37,207,500,LOUISIANA $33,376,500,KANSAS $31,496,500,ALABAMA $31,251,500,UTAH $24,102,500,ARKANSAS $23,402,500,NEW HAMPSHIRE $23,045,500,NEBRASKA $21,784,500,MAINE $16,579,500,NEVADA $14,582,000,NEW MEXICO $13,941,500,WEST VIRGINIA $13,477,000,MISSISSIPPI $12,463,500,IDAHO $11,655,000,,DELAWARE $11,235,000RHODE ISLAND,$10,690,500,,SOUTH DAKOTA $10,367,500,VERMONT $9,879,000,NORTH DAKOTA $8,938,000,HAWAII $7,333,500,MONTANA $6,461,000,ALASKA $4,868,500,WYOMING $2,513,000 PUERTO RICO $2,252,000,VIRGIN ISLANDS $1,553,000,GUAM $675,000,DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA $67,500 Latest Car News, Auto Shows and Concept Cars - Kelley Blue Book -The US Government has always played a role in the creation and regulation of computers and the internet. The internet was aided in it's creation by the US military, and the Department of Commerce has regulated it since. -The US government subsidizes every type of electricity! The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is an independent federal agency that tried to quantify government spending on energy production in 2007. The agency reports that the total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. An even better way to tell the story is by how much taxpayer money is dispensed per unit of energy, so the costs are standardized. For electricity generation, the EIA concludes that solar energy is subsidized to the tune of $24.34 per megawatt hour, wind $23.37 and "clean coal" $29.81. By contrast, normal coal receives 44 cents, natural gas a mere quarter, hydroelectric about 67 cents and nuclear power $1.59.The U.S. Government Subsidizes Every Type of Electricity You are ignoring that you can not exempt non-payers from infrastructure, like roads, by claiming ignorance. Saying "I don't know" is hardly addressing an issue, it is ignoring it. If you have no realistic suggestions as to how a free market could work for our infrastructural industries, then you have a very weak case that it can.
Quarter slots at fountains? Are you that stupid as to believe there would be pay fountains? Come on man, you're stretching it a bit. If you can get free water at a restraunt why would someone charge you for water at a park? And who is to say a park cost anything at all? Why do you completely ignore charities and non-profits from all of your arguments? You obviously are ignorant of modern technology if you think there are going to be toll booths on every corner. The Texas government wanted to build a massive toll road through the heart of Texas. How were they going to collect the tolls? Toll tags. They use them all the time. You have a tag that is linked to an account and as your car passes under the sensor it reads the information and charges you the appropriate fee. And why should I address "non-payers"? Non-payers are restricted now. If you do not have a license, pay your gas tax, pay your auto registration or any of the other fees associated with driving then you cannot travel freely anyway. To buy gas you have to pay the tax on it. If you do not you cannot have gas. If you are caught driving without a license or expired registration the long arm of the law fucks you in the ass. Yes, I know all about government subsidies but that doesn't change the fact that by and large these companies exist because of market activity. Grocery stores are not subsidized by anyone. They sell their products to whomever can buy them. The federal governments subsidization of "farming" has done more to increase the cost of food than to decrease it. The numbers from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics shows this fact. This article from Cato demonstrates how federal subsidies have exacerbated the high cost of food in this country. The Heritage Foundation brings out how two thirds of the farming industry thrives even though it doesn't receive any support from the government. Cash for Clunkers was a waste of money. It stimulated nothing. Government mandates on auto manufacturers haven't helped the industry at all. Government protection of unions bankrupted GM and Chrysler. The majority of money for doled out in the Cash for Clunkers program went to foreign automakers. All it accomplished was the destruction of low cost cars that could have been better used by the poor. While the internet might have initially been developed with the aid of government financing it is not the government that regulates or even supports it now. It is wrong to assume that without the government the internet wouldn't function. The internet isn't under the control of the US government -- yet. It is a network of private companies that provide the backbone, that provide the standards for web browsers and the mark up languages that power it. The computer industry is a perfect example of how an unregulated market functions. There are no government subsidies and no rules on how the technology should develop. IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Intel, AMD, Dell, HP -- all of these are market actors looking after their own self-interest and in the process we have more powerful computers that are cheap and affordable for everyone. That's a great argument. The US government subsidizes the most inefficient and expensive technologies out there. That is hardly a good argument for continued subsidization of them. Of course my argument wasn't against subsidization in the first place. Why you made it that I don't know. What I did say was and I quote: "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 said nothing about subsidization. I was talking about owning and providing those services. The government owns the roads, they build the roads, maintains the roads, they do everything with the roads. I'm not arguing subsidization, though you conveniently changed the topic, I was talking about direct ownership. Owning and partially subsidizing these things is two different beast altogether. So answer my questions. Why doesn't the government grow the food, build the planes or the computers or the cars? Why doesn't the government nationalize those if they are so important to our economy and security? Yes, I will admit there are subsidies and controls over much of our economy (such is the nature of a fascist state) but they are by and large in the hands of private companies. If private companies can be trusted with these other vital services then why not roads? I've given plenty of realistic suggestions. How they will play out is anyone's guess. No one can be sure what way the market will go. What will people demand? Will they stick to cars? Will they adopt mass transit? Will they start riding bikes? I can't answer those questions. No one can. It's impossible to know what a market will look like if it doesn't exist. I have serious doubts there would be "non-payers" but as I brought out earlier, there are non-payers now. Jim Fedako in his article Free Riders: Austrian v. Public Choice noted that "There are always “free riders†or “free loaders†in all human activities. That becomes just another datum assumed when choosing amongst alternative choices... Accept it and move on." There are always going to be people that get a "free ride" in any system. People get free rides now under our current system and there will be people that get free rides under a private system. I found a very interesting article by E. C. Pasour discussing this very topic. If you care to read it, and I urge you to, then you can find it here. Eric Peters has written a very wonderful article about the Dulles Greenway toll road that was 100% financed and built by private companies. What is truly sad about this roadway is that it might sink, instead of swim, not because of the free market but because of government regulations.
First of all, water isn't free any more. Remember? It's part of the free market. No one is ignoring charities and non-profits. But without taxes, charities would be working overtime to take care of our seniors, who now have no medicare or social security. They will working overtime to take care of the homeless, and children who have no health care, and families who have no food. Charities are for helping people with necessities. Parks and fountains are LUXURIES. Name one free-market enterprise that gives away luxury items for free?? Those are the things that cost the most. And really? You want to teach economics? Your business sense is just.... You only seem to be taking our passenger cars into consideration. Roads are used for more then just driving cars. First of all, what about walkers and bikers? What makes you think a private business is going to let someone walk or bike on their PRIVATE PROPERTY without paying first? Second of all, our roads are used for transporting goods. Necessary goods, that need to come in from all over the world. Not only will you and I have to pay to use our roads, but so will every business out there that transports anything. So even if you never so much as step foot on a road in your life time, you will be paying for it every time you buy anything. The government does not own our roads. WE own our roads. You want to take them away from us, and give them to profiteers. If you owned a house, would you sell it to someone and then turn around and rent it out? No matter how hard I try, I can not wrap my brain around the logic. Exactly... Dulles Greenway wants to run their business LIKE A BUSINESS. They want to take into account "peak periods, off periods, commuter discounts, or other variables which would be part of a truly free-market system." This is exactly what I have been saying will happen with a free market system. YOU have been arguing that this won't happen because costs will "remain stable". Again, I have no problem with a toll road operating in addition to a publicly owned infrastructure. But this road is not failing because of the government. It's failing because people do not want to pay for something they already own.
Can't wait! I already have to pay 75 cents for three minutes of air at a gas station to fill up my tires.
This. Plus I'll add a little. The company says they have problems keeping a profit because during non-peak periods hardly anyone wants to travel on it, and they say the solution is to charge more during those hours? That logic doesn't work for a road! With the higher price, further people will be pushed back onto the public road, or "unfair competition", thus nullifying and actually offestting the profits they planned to gain from it. They would drive themselves under.
1.It's not a stretch to assume that the for profit companies will charge for their products.When you order a "free" water at a restaurant the company has planned for the expense, and adds it to the cost of your meal. Maybe the park will have an entry fee that covers the "free" water in the fountains, but they will recover their costs and then some from the customer. Are you that stupid as to assume a business will not charge their customers? 2. By "Non-payer" I do not simply mean those that won't pay their bill. I am referring to those that do not wish to use the services offered. A crucial part of a free market is the consumers being able to choose what goods and services they want to spend money on. A man with a large 4x4 vehicle may pay for roads but does not wish to pay for snow to be shoveled from his roads. Now the fact you have been ignoring; is how do you exclude this non-payer from enjoying the snow plow paid for by others while he drives on the roads. Some people don't own cars, and simply want to walk and bike on the roads. It would be impossible to effectively charge all of these people for the services they want, and exclude them from services they don't pay for. You can not have a free market if you can not exclude people from your services. There is no reason to by something if you can use it anyway. 3. You can not point to things like food and electricity as examples of how the free market rules. Just like with roadways the government controls all of those industries not the free market. The government decides which companies survive by giving them funding, subsidies, and contracts.That is ownership.
Yeah, ok. Completely dismiss the idea of non-profit environmental groups or local organizations building parks and green spaces for people to use. That's a great argument. Try not to lecture someone on something you have no information about. You are trying to judge my business sense from a few sentences. You have no idea how I run my business or how much money I've made in my life. Sense you have no idea about any of that I'd ask you to shut your mouth. What makes you think they wont? Big fucking deal. You pay anyway. Oh, and I guess if road transport becomes too expensive the market will simply adjust and find better ways of transporting freight. You seem to ignore the fact that the market has a never ending need for faster, cheaper and more efficient. If trucking is too expensive then the market will find better, faster and more affordable ways of moving things around. Such is the nature of the market. Continue to believe that nonsense. You are not the government. You do not own the government. The government owns you. That is the basic premise behind government. They own your labor, your wages and even your life. If you don't believe me then try telling them you will not show up for jury duty, pay your income tax or your property taxes. If you "own" something then you have the right to dictate how it is used. Try telling the government what to do with anything and see how far that gets you. Are you serious going to argue property rights with me? HA! I laugh at that! You adhere to a philosophy that dead square against property rights and you are going to lecture me on such matters? Give me a break. I never argued the cost to the consumer would be stable. I said the cost of maintenance would be stable, that is, the company would budget for things like snow removal, maintenance, repairs, etc. There is a great example of how a toll road manages traffic through the tolls charged in California. The point is to maximize the flow of traffic keeping it steady. During peak hours more is charged while in off hours less is charged. And again, my argument is and always will be, that roads are inefficient and are only used because they are subsidized by the government. If it were not for that subsidization transportation in this country would be much more clean and efficient as people found better ways to move around. I do not really give a damn how much a road cost in the private sector because that cost will either be restrained through market action or the road will be replaced by something better. To assume that roads are the only way we should get around, or that they are even the best way of moving around is ridiculous.
Such as? Your argument is a joke. Your basically arguing that if it wasn't for government subsides private industries would have already came up with some cost effective, environmentally friendly personal and mass transit systems. Do you really think teleportation will be around soon? There is no transport even on the horizon that will be able to replace roads entirely, and your arguement that privatization of roadways would make them obsolete is a joke.
You must be an idiot if you think there aren't better way of doing things or that people cannot develop them quickly. There are many technologies on the horizon that are better than cars. Hell, anything is better than cars. A few of the already proven systems are subways and light rail (they work but they are expensive; not something I favor but who am I to say what people want?), research continues to be done into the idea of personal rapid transit, then you have bus systems. I cannot tell you what the future holds any more than you can and to insist that I do so isn't a fair argument either. I'm not a fortune teller and neither are you. You maintain that roads and cars are the only way to move. That is shortsighted and narrow minded. And you continue to assume that private companies cannot provide road transport, even though private industry has proven to be the innovator of everything, has proven to be the mechanism that best facilitates efficiency and low cost. There is nothing magical about roads that exempts them from economic laws. There is nothing about roads that somehow makes them impossible to provide in the free market. Your narrow minded and simplistic way of looking at things doesn't allow you to see the greater potential from privatized roads. You focus in on your known reality. You've never known private roads so you insist they cannot happen. Yet that flies in the face of history. No one knew we would be flying around in jets but they happened. No one believed we would be in space but that happened. In fact no one believed that private companies could build space ships for space tourism but that is happening right now. Just because you've never seen it before doesn't mean it cannot happen. And to argue that it "cannot work" because you have never seen it is just as lame an argument as what you are accusing me of. You say that I can't provide any evidence that private roads would work. Well, you cannot provide any evidence that they cannot. Your arguments of "because they are vital and expensive" are not real arguments. You have no hard evidence to say one way or the other. You can point to government roads but government roads are not proof that private roads cannot work. In fact there are many private roads that do work and continue to work. Toll roads are increasingly common in this country for a myriad of reasons. The most important reason is the revenue that they generate. The excess revenue generated from toll roads are used to fund other building projects or repair existing roads. If even governments recognize the efficiency of toll roads (in controlling congestion and speeding up travel times) then why it is so hard to imagine a private company doing the same thing? A simple search will show that there are hundreds of public-private roads being built. A private company will build and maintain a toll road for a period of time collecting all of the fees and sending a portion to the state. Usually after a period of time the franchise of that road runs out, usually when it is paid for, and the state takes it over. If governments all over the world recognize that it is better to let private companies build the roads and maintain them for a period of time then why not just let private companies take over all roads? The city of Chicago recently privatized the Skyway toll road allowing a private company to sign a 99 year lease for $1.83 billion.
Are you that stupid to assume that only for profit companies are going to build parks? Again, you continue to ignore environmental groups and non-profits from your arguments. Perhaps a private park is actually run by a for-profit company but pays for it with concession stands or the like. I approached the local city council with this idea, though in the form of a non-profit. The park would build concession stands that would sell drinks and food. The baseball fields and soccer fields would be sponsored by local companies and the park owners could host a number of events, such as softball tournaments, soccer tournaments and just plain old fund raising drives and more that would raise money for the maintenance of the park. You aren't charging for all of these services you want. Your argument that one guy might want snow or someone might want to walk isn't a real argument at all. And you also assume that roads would only be paid for through tolls. There is a private road in Japan that isn't paid for by tolls at all. It is paid for by local businesses that are located along it who pay a fee to be connected to it. Hardly. As brought out earlier most of the farming industry isn't subsidized at all by the government and does just fine. Most subsidies that are out there are not because the industry cannot support itself, its because they know they can buy a few politicians to feed at the public trough. Subsidization doesn't mean that a business cannot survive without the government. It simply means they have found a way to get free money from the taxpayers.
As I've asked many times in this thread, how can you have a free market road system? What if the road that I live on is purchased by Walmart, and I don't want to do business with walmart? I don't know about you guys, but I live in a rural area. There is ONE road for me to take from my house into town, to work, to buy food, whatever. I can't choose the best quality road, or the lowest priced road, because I wouldn't be able to fucking go anywhere. With your "free market" road system you are limiting my choices, not adding to them. Isn't that why the free market works so spectacularly? If you give people choices, the market will settle out natural. It's easy to keep repeating things you've read on Libertarian websites: free market is better! Private business is more efficient! Government wants to control us! But are you actually thinking about what you are saying? Did you even read the thread you just replied to? The ONLY people for whom our roads would be "free market" would be the private corporations buying and selling them. It would definitely be a free market for them. But the free market is supposed to benefit the consumer, not huge corporations. I think that concept is entirely lost on some people here. There is absolutely NOTHING that's "free market" about taking away my public resources and my ability to move around freely.
1.You said it yourself, every system you named is grossly expensive. These projects are almostly soley done by the government, because costs associated are so high. Costs are not going down, and apply to Subways, Lightrails, and even your precious PRTs. Costs in certain categories have risen sharply over the years. Increases in many of these categories, including those associated with land acquisition, environmental mitigation, utility relocation, financing, engineering, insurance, administration and construction management, are likely to apply to PRT as well as conventional transit systems. You can call these systems proven and workable, but they are expensive and not likely to replace roads any time soon. Subways- are extremely expensive to put in, and the only cities currently working with them are cities where they are already present. NY just spent $527,000,000 million to build just 1 new subway station! PRT- per mile of track= $10,000,000-50,000,000 million dollars. This is only to pay for the track, not even adding cost of the cars, computer systems, land acquisition, environmental mitigation, utility relocation, financing, engineering, insurance, and administration management. Finally, it is also worth noting that the Morgantown, WV system, the only PRT-like system constructed in the United States, exceeded estimated construction cost by four times. Busses- NEWS Flash, busses use roads just like cars! The need for roads is not lessened by the addition of more busses. Lightrail-Average cost per mile of track reached $70,000,000 million. Seatles newest light rail system cost $179,000,000 million dollars per mile! I am very much Pro mass transit, but it's naive to think busses and subways will replace roads. Sources- http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/big/PRTfinalreport.pdf , Panoramic – South Ferry Station - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com, Light Rail Costs Approach $70 Million per Mile (2000) 2. Short of teleportation or flying I do have to use the road in front of my house! Do you disagree?! There are no choices when it comes to roads, and it therefore isn't a "free" market! 3. Yes, toll roads work well to collect money to pay for more roads. Why would we give that money to private companies, instead of using it to support our infrastructure further?
Saying that for profit companies would be involved in infrastructure, like parks, is not ignoring charities it is addressing the OP's topic. I work for a non-profit, and therefore think about them quite often. It is not easy to maintain a non-profit because you rely on charity. In 2008 my company had a 40% increase in our financial aid costs. At the same time less people are donating, becuase of the economic downturn. It's not easy to stay in business as a non-profit. I have one question, did they build that non-profit park after you approached local city council? Businesses charge for their services. How will they charge the pedestrians? Say one business on that road doesn't want to work with that road company. Tough luck it's the only one! That is not free market buddy. Once the road is laid down, what is to stop the road company from increasing there prices sky high after their first contract ends. The business would have no options, they need to be connected to that road as its the one they're on. That is again not a free market. So your solution is giving tax dollars and toll money to Big Business CEO's instead of it being invested back into the infrastructure of America. I haven't heard a shred of evidence that the American tax payer could ever profit from a privatized infrastructure system.
Why are humans so willing to trust the rich and powerful (Political and religious leaders are good examples), most whom they never met or actually know, but so unwilling to trust ordinary strangers like business owners or even random people you see walking around? Really, either way you end up trusting strangers....how do you differentiate?
That's not an argument against my position! It's not easy to stay in business as a for-profit business either! The company I work for right now is down by 30% over last year. The only thing that does well is government which steals much needed money that could be used for further growth. The money confiscated from us by taxes could be better used in the private economy but the government steals it and loses it in the bureaucracy. No. But they did implement some of my ideas to cut cost to the taxpayer. They sell the rights to connect to the business. If you don't want to start a business there then you don't. If you don't want to pay their fees anymore then you have to move. It's no different than renting a space in a strip mall. If you don't want to pay the rent anymore then you have to move. Giving them tax dollars? Where did you get that idea? They would have to pay for the rights to the road, like in Chicago they paid $1.8 billion for the lease of that road -- more than it cost to build. The road is maintained through fees paid which are used to maintain it.
That's an interesting position to take now, I believe non-profits and private companies can do well in some situations, but infrastructure isn't one of them. As you said government is the only thing that does well. That is why they are in control of the roads. NO surprise there. I'm sure all of the business owners will love hear that now they need to negotiate contracts with both the streets and the property manager. Many of the Privatized systems do give subsidies from tax payers dollars. You cite one case where Chicago is in dire need of the money upfront so they take the deal. No some private company is going to profit off the roads that tax dollars built for the next century. You have not given a shred of evidence that would show how the average america could ever benefit from giving the roads of to Big Business.