From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Corporate Shortsightedness?
Date: 20 Aug 92 22:58:38 GMT
Organization: LLNL

In article <BtApF9.7HB@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>In article <1992Aug20.165205.26485@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
@In article <9208201420.AA28526@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> nelson_p@APOLLO.HP.COM writes:
@@ The French TGV, and even NYC-Washington Amtrak, successfully compete
@@ with airline travel
@
@>  But they are also subsidized.  Perhaps you could cite some figures from
@>  Vranich's book on the subsidies.
@
@	The French TGV's actually make money (!); the debts incurred
@in setting up the lines are expected to be paid off in about 10 years
@or so of operation,

>  But note that this is only because the government stifles the
>  competiton, as I in reference to European air fares.   It's also
>  worth noting that due to huge government gasoline taxes the 
>  Europeans pay $2.50 or more for a gallon of gas.  While this might
>  produce desireable results in terms of limiting dependence on
>  imported oil or reducing pollution, it is, nonetheless, a subsidy
>  of European rail travel.

	To me, it would seem more like a case of charging the
appropriate user fees for roads. They have to be paid for too, y'know.

	How much do _you_ think that the gas tax should be so that
buying gas will cover all costs of constructing and maintaining the
roads?

@>  I don't know anyone who travels by Amtrak but I know lots of people

@	Where do you live???

>  About 30 miles west of Boston.  There's an Amtrak station about 8 miles
>  from where I live, whereas the nearest major airport is in Boston.  Still
>  the only people I know who *ever* traveled on Amtrak were my retired
>  parents who have the time to spare, and a guy at work who's a train
>  buff and went-cross country on Amtrak for his vacation.  The people
>  I know who have to travel for practical reasons fly or drive.  Amtrak
>  is too slow and too infrequent for anything but vacation travel 
>  along most of its route.

	I will concede this point.

	However, Amtrak has actually been _expanding_ some of its most
promising growth market -- its short-haul service -- in some places,
like here in California, where Amtrak added a new San Jose --
Sacramento train last December (I've actually ridden it for tourist
reasons). There are also plans to add more trains to the existing
routes.

	And there are plans to upgrade the NYC-Boston route, including
electrifying the segment between New Haven and Boston, and testing out
a Swedish model of train whose cars can tilt as the train goes around
curves (and there are _lots_ of them between NYC and Boston).

@	Anticompetitive regulations? This may be a case of trying to
@save the airlines from themselves, in this case, disastrous price
@wars.

>  The "disastrous price wars" are just another example of bungling
>  government intervention in the economy, in this case allowing 
>  bankrupt carriers to operate out of Chapter 11.  The regulations
>  allow(ed) airlines such as TWA, Continental, Eastern, PanAm, 
>  America West, etc to be protected from their creditors, thus 
>  allowing them to undercut the prices of the healthy airlines 
>  who have to pay their bills, and forcing them to meet these
>  artificially low fares to avoid losing market share.   Robert
>  Crandall (American's CEO) has spoken extensively on this and
>  I agree with him -- Chapter 11 protection for airlines should
>  have a very sharp time-limit on it, no more than a few months.  

	I've never heard that one before.

	It seems to me more like one of the down sides of capitalism.