Rebuild cost: $600m [0] I do hope We the People have zealous advocates. [0] https://news.sky.com/story/baltimore-trade-implications-from...
That seems an amazing value. Here in NYC, it costs $50-100M to build a subway elevator.
Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M
131–140 of 202 posts
Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M
#132There's a lot of excellent discussion in the comments on who should ultimately pay. One interesting aspect: if insurance gets too high, it incentivises corporations themselves to be the insurer. I mean the literal corporate limited liability. Would they not be incentivised to put each major asset into its own corporation, and in the event of a major loss that corporation becomes bankrupt?
It sounds like that is already the case.
Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M
#133Is there not some responsibility on the US govt to reasonably protect its infrastructure in a common maritime path? The harbor long preceded the bridge, and when the bridge was constructed, the harbor had massive container ships moving in and out. No dolphins or starlings around a single point of failure for an entire bridge span? Whole a bridge collapse like this is rare, bridge strikes are not uncommon. It seems li…
"I mean, how hard could it be?"
It's an incredibly rare event. Retro-fitting things in the water is crazy expensive. Somebody estimated that the force hitting the bridge was 30 Million Pounds. That's a lot of protection needed.
Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect the winning bridge design in Baltimore is going to include massive starlings, beyond what is normal, or some other mitigation factor for the last disaster. So maybe earthquake-proofing is a fair comparison, cost-wise.
They’re just going to put more dolphins around the pylons. They had a few already but they were poorly placed and had an opening a container ship could slip through.
"an opening a container ship could slip through" -- I'm going to use that to mock security people at my work
Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M
#135Is there not some responsibility on the US govt to reasonably protect its infrastructure in a common maritime path? The harbor long preceded the bridge, and when the bridge was constructed, the harbor had massive container ships moving in and out. No dolphins or starlings around a single point of failure for an entire bridge span? Whole a bridge collapse like this is rare, bridge strikes are not uncommon. It seems li…
Please tell me what you think the "modest" defense is to divert the mass of a fully loaded container ship?
Sometimes bad things happen that cannot be "modestly" prepared for. That is why these vessels are required to be insured.
Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M
#136I have wondered what the insurance structure for this is and how liable the vessel's owners and insurers are for damage to public infrastructure. Marine insurance is one of the oldest types of insurance and antique in some respects, with large vessels covered by several underwriting firms. So potentially this is a massive financial hit for multiple companies if there is not a limit on liability.
I watched this video last night and found it enlightening. He covers the multiple levels of ownership of the vessel, liabilities, insurance, insurance clubs, pooled insurance, and reinsurance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wim-_Q_59o
From "What is Going on With Shipping?"
Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
What helps push down prices of bridges, is to not build them in US. Or at least, it always strikes me how outlandishly expensive infrastructure projects are in the US (for me coming from Europe, originally).
outlandishly expensive infrastructure projects are in the US As someone in Europe I wonder where this notion comes from. Just about every major (and several minor) infrastructure project I can remember in my lifetime, in any of the European cities I've live in, has been both late and wildly over budget
Similarly, just look at HS2 project in the UK, couldn't even get half way through the project before scrapping it.
Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
The odds did tighten up after Leicester won the Premier League though. You couldn't get 5000-1 on say Watford winning in 2016-17, the best odds IIRC were more like 500-1. It seemed like bookies really did adjust their expectations or their risk appetite for long-tail events in this market. And they were probably correct to do so.
Are those two events/teams comparable so that one could expect the same type of odds? I'm not much into betting, but will not the odds change also based on how people are betting. So if many people started to bet on the unexpected result, due to for example that the unexpected Leicester team won last time, wouldn't odds tighten up automatically?
> Are those two events/teams comparable so that one could expect the same type of odds?
Yes IMO. It might be more rigorous to say: before 2016 there were always a handful of teams priced at 5000-1, after 2016 there were not. The league didn't objectively get more competitive.
> So if many people started to bet on the unexpected result, due to for example that the unexpected Leicester team won last time, wouldn't odds tighten up automatically
Definitely possible, and would explain the effect regardless of whether the punters were smart money Nicholas Taleb types who spotted that black swans were systematically underpriced, or gamblers dreaming of another Leicester payday.
Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M
#139What is Going on With Shipping? has a good video on 'who pays':
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wim-_Q_59o&t=10m17s
TL; DR: it can get complicated.
There is the owner of the vessel, the operator of the vessel, and the 'customer' of the vessel. An analogy used: when you have a delivery from Amazon, Amazon would be the 'customer' of the vessel, the delivery guy would be operator of the vessel, and he would have rented a vessel/vehicle from (e.g.) U-Haul. You would think that you'd sue the operator (delivery guy, and maybe the customer (Amazon)) if he wrecked your property, since he was driving it, but maritime insurance doesn't work that way: you sue the vessel owner (U-Haul).
Then there's owner of the bridge (insured by Chubb), and then the re-insurance that Chubb has. Re-insurers are generally part of P&I clubs as well, so there's pooling of risk above the pooling of risk (which generally are activated in stages):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_and_indemnity_insur...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpBOptxuDnk
Then there's force majeure:
* https://www.handybulk.com/what-is-force-majeure-in-shipping/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_majeure
* https://www.bimco.org/news/contracts-and-clauses/20210216-wh...
See also general average:
> The law of general average is a principle of maritime law whereby all stakeholders in a sea venture proportionately share any losses resulting from a voluntary sacrifice of part of the ship or cargo to save the whole in an emergency. For instance, should the crew jettison some cargo overboard to lighten the ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by both the carrier[2] and the cargo-owners.
Re: Dali owner file petition to cap liability in Baltimore bridge collapse at $43.7M
#140Why rebuild a bridge? Watch this and wee at the cost for a tunnel these folks managed to make: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EruSZNI4th4