51–60 of 179 posts
Please don't compare activities in the private market to public infrastructure. They serve different purposes and the latter is there for the good of humanity, not to make a profit, be innovative or be disruptive.
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For market based goods, the US does deliver pretty phenomenal, innovative and minimally priced outputs. Groceries, energy, technology, etc. "Local services" are almost always driven by non-market based considerations. Politics, not economics, determines contract awards for public works. It's as far from the market as you can get. And our society receives commensurate "value."
Heh. True in some ways, not in some others. Groceries for example - yes, I can buy chicken at Walmart for much cheaper than I would in the EU, for instance. But the chicken I’d buy in the EU would be of much higher quality. If I want a comparable chicken (not cage raised, not full of hormones, etc), I’ll end up going to Whole Foods or similar upscale store and end up paying roughly the same as I would in the EU.
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$100k isn’t a high estimate at all. The article says they were costing $1k a day . > All we knew is they were each being paid about $1,000 every day.
Ok that's great and all but don't try to derail the major point which is that this pay is an extremely small fraction of the cost.
The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed country. And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country. It chooses to prioritize the private sector over the public sector. Other countries choose otherwise. Each model has its advantages and disadvantages. This (efficiency of building public transit) is the outcome of the US model.
1. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/PublicSe...
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How was that possible and why does it not seem to happen today? What changed? Is it still privately owned?
I don't think GP is correct in saying that the NYC subway was privately funded and built - the funding was largely public, with the resulting infrastructure leased to private companies to operate. The initial IRT subway was funded by the city with bond issuance, which then contracted the construction and operation of the railway to private bodies. Later expansions were funded by a mix of public and private funds - bu…
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How was that possible and why does it not seem to happen today? What changed? Is it still privately owned?
Even back in the "dual system" days when two companies operated the majority of the subway, most of the lines / tunnels were built or financed by the city: https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Chapter_1:_Dual_System_of_Rap... Later on, the city built its own third competitor to the two private operators, and eventually ended up purchasing them both. These days the entire system is owned by the state of New York (which took…
The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed country. And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country. It chooses to prioritize the private sector over the public sector. Other countries choose otherwise. Each model has its advantages and disadvantages. This (efficiency of building public transit) is the outcome of the US model.
The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed country. And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country. It chooses to prioritize the private sector over the public sector. Other countries choose otherwise. Each model has its advantages and disadvantages. This (efficiency of building public transit) is the outcome of the US model.
It seems like European infrastructure construction is more centralized than its American counterpart. In the Bay Area, there are two competing transit providers, each funded by the same taxpayers. Every city seems to run its own show, and CAHSR infamously rejected offers from European companies to do construction. It's just my view from 10000 feet, but the average city council has few civil engineers on board, so may…
The US half tries to fund and administer infrastructure at the federal level, state level, as well as local level, depending on the state.
As an American, I find the EU to have phenomenally good infrastructure, but I think that's because decisions aren't being made in Brussels, they're being made concurrently in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, London, etc.
I feel that the US would do well to emulate the EU, and centralize the funding, regulation, and administration of its respective systems in each member state.
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I can't find it ATM, but recently there was a good article that linked this phenomenon to the disappearance of unions. As unions disappear in the private sector they become increasingly dependent on the public sector to employ their laborers. Because union members vote and because unions so visiblly represent the working-class, in many cities the best way to be pro labor is to support union labor. In areas were union…
Thank you. This was exactly the kind of I-never-would-have-looked-at-it-that-way answer I was looking for.
1) The institution of civil service was the solution for solving the problem of graft. Plunkitt even says that if politicians didn't fight the wave of civil service rules spreading across the country, it would put all politicians out of business. The red tape of the bureaucracy is the price we pay for getting rid of traditional graft.
2) But the civil service didn't magically erase the needs that were met by Tammany Hall-style politics. Back in the day "corrupt" politicians like Plunkitt were open about their graft, and voters voted them in regardless. Why? Because they provided the promise of job security; that if you do X you'll get Y--something the free market never guarantees at the individual level. The need and desire for job security never went away when the civil service came about, it just made it more difficult for voters and politicians to make an open, conscious exchange.
One easy way for politicians (intentionally or naturally, in response to dynamic political feedback) to provide a simple quid pro quo is to bloat public works projects. It can't be a coincidence that as relative wages for blue-collar construction work have declined, public works projects have gotten more expensive. That is, we've _tolerated_ more expensive public works projects to relieve/because it relieves the employment and wage pressures put on laborers in the private sector. That's easier to do than to affirmatively institute employment and wage supplementation programs.
We spend alot of time explaining the phenomenon in terms of loss of talent, experience, regulatory capture, etc. But perhaps the best and simplest explanation is precisely what Plunkitt was trying to drill into people's heads--nobody is going to vote themselves out of a job, no matter their claimed political preferences. I bet most Second Avenue Subway workers were as "disgusted" with the bloat as every other New Yorker, but their _real_ political preferences (and those of their families and friends) were better measured by who and what they voted for than by what they said. People's ire is easily blunted when receiving a nice, steady paycheck.
None of which is to defend honest graft. Plunkitt thought the only way to meet the needs of the small guy was through honest graft. There are better ways, I think, which are more efficient and therefore permitting greater overall social benefit. But those ways aren't achievable if we don't recognize and attend to the underlying economic and political forces, which will tend to steer things in certain directions whether we like it or not. The reasons things haven't changed despite the obviousness of the problem is because of these very real, counterveiling political forces. Those forces are far greater than just a few rich special interests.