Privatizing Amtrak

I'm ok with Amtrack but not so sure about the post office.

With the way the railways operate, and the track ownership, Amtrak would be effectively dead except for maybe the New York to DC corridor. Not saying that's bad it is just the realities of train travel in the US.

Not viable as a purely privatized company. There's a reason it's government run.

If train travel was clean, quick, not ridiculously expensive for what you get, and not full of hobos and weirdos, I'd travel that way all the time. We need an actual rail system like other countries.

Sign me up for this.

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Not viable as a purely privatized company. There's a reason it's government run.

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That's because the product fricking sucks. Make it high speed and efficient and people would bypass the airports every chance they could.

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When has privatization ever decreased costs?

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What does that have to do with it?

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I'm ok with Amtrack but not so sure about the post office.

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I am absolutely certain it needs to be privatized.

Junk mail is the customer, not you.

I would expect innovations (which originally were scoffed at) would take place.

Plus, I'm not against a good living but postal employees are paid far beyond their value, thanks to the union. It's been like this for 30-40 years now.

Think about the amount of changes from Amazon over the past 5 years. When UPS, FedEx and USPS started costing too much, Amazon built their own infrastructure for last mile distribution. Yes they farm this out to independents but my goodness, my home cameras catch them delivering packages at 3am.

I would imagine Bezos would be one of the bidders for the Post Office.

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When has privatization ever decreased costs?

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There is about 100 years of Econ research that finds govt run enterprises are costlier than private enterprise

Now, that isnt to argue that privatization is always the answer, but “decreasing costs” is not the reason for public ownership. Market failure is the reason for public enterprise

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If train travel was clean, quick, not ridiculously expensive for what you get, and not full of hobos and weirdos, I'd travel that way all the time. We need an actual rail system like other countries.

Sign me up for this.

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I wish but it will never happen.

The freight companies own the tracks and prioritize freight and there is no way to economically build new ones so that will just never happen on a large scale in the US. Best case would be a short-range commuter line, that's why I said the New York DC corridor might be viable.

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Not viable as a purely privatized company. There's a reason it's government run.

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Only the government would pay $80 for hamburgers in the train lounge and sell them for $12.