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[quote user="Phoebe Vet"] Your belief is based on the theory that competition will regulate the market.  Unfortunately we have evolved into a society where the markets are controlled by a small handful of mega corporations who fear little from their competitors.  Those corporations see greater profit opportunity in buying their competitors than in competing with them. Rail, in particular, is an industry that is nearly impossible for a new player to enter because a company must either build their own ROW or pay a toll to use the ROW of their competitors.  Either way they are not serious competition. If the FEDS owned the mainlines and the railroads owned their yards, power, and rolling stock then anyone who could afford to buy equipment could afford to start a railroad.  It could be finance with some kind of ticket tax, fuel tax, mileage toll, or other user fee. Of course the downside of that is we can see what a terrible job the Feds do of maintaining the highway system.  They have lots of money to build, which is high visibility and popular with voters, but little money to maintain, which is low visibility and not even noticed by the voters. <div style="clear:both;"></div> [/quote] You have misread my beliefs.  Competitive markets optimize the allocation of scare resources.  Smart regulation at the federal and state level is necessary for a level playing field.  When governments intervene extensively in markets, they invariable get it wrong, although of course the winners don't see it that way. The notion that the economy is controlled by a handful of mega corporations is debatable.  There are 10s of thousands of corporations in the United States.  They compete vigorously.  That's why you can choose to buy a car from GM, Chrysler, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, BMW, etc.   The Fortune 500 corporations are large, to be sure, but most of them compete not only with U.S. corporations but foreign corporations as well.  In 2010 the Fortune 500 had a median return on sales of 5%, although 62 of them lost money.  Their average return on equity was approximately 10 to 11 per cent, which is not great when considering the risks associated with business.  This does not strike me as a picture in which a few players have a stranglehold on the economy, although oligrachies certainly exist.  This is one of the reasons that smart regulation is critical. Having the federal government own the rail infrastructure in the U.S. does not seem like a good idea.  On there other hand, having an independent equity third party own it, as is the case with electric transmission in some countries, and rent space on it to qualified users might be a good idea.  But the railroads would not allow it.
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