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[quote user="greyhounds"][quote user="1435mm"]Blaming the ICC is superficial.  The ICC did what Congress told it to do, who did what the voters told it to do.  There was no independent thought on the part of either the ICC or Congress for which I am thankful.S. Hadid [/quote] I don't agree. I don't see the intent of Congess or The Public as what the ICC did. It was never their intent to stop inovation and productivity improvement (which were certainly the result of ICC actions.) Nor was it their intent to financially destroy much of the railroad system. Which is what the actions of the ICC helped do. When the ICC stopped the development of an intermodal container system in the early 30's it did tremendous harm to the US economy. That was not the Will of The People or The Congress. It was a bunch of government lawyers who thought they knew more than anybody else. Unfortunatly, they had the power but not the ability to use it wisely. They may have been given the power, but the expectation was that they would use it well. They didn't.[/quote]You would want a country where the government and Congress not only act independently of the voters, but do so effectively?  I blanch to think where that could lead. In a democracy, at the end of the day, the people hold the power and bear the ultimate responsibility for whatever their government does.  Yes, the government makes lots of small decisions that would be contrary to the wishes of the public, if they were put to the public, but that's the nature of the system we freely chose.  I think you're asking questions that are far too narrow.  The decisions by government lawyers were not "Let's stifle productivity" but, "How do we deliver the mandate that public has given us, which is riven with conflicts and pretty much impossible to deliver?"What does the public care about?  Not promoting innovation per se or productivity per se.  I dare you to find even one national-level election this November or November 1906 where those themes made a real difference in the race.  The public cares about the amount of money in their paychecks and the amount in the check to the taxman.  Groups of like employment or like location care about preserving investment in careers and locations and have no qualms about expecting America to pay for it, e.g., dairy farmers and milk price supports.  Congress and the ICC delivered to the public exactly what they specified: cheap transportation, subsidies for small shippers and rural shippers, and wages marching steadily upward.  This was all had to be paid for, and conveniently it didn't even require taxes, there was value in the existing investment in railroads that could be sucked out.  Even if the public had been aware of the fact that its decisions were steadily grinding the railroad infrastructure and equipment into the ground, and understood it, and even cared, they'd in all likelihood have done it anyway as it would become a problem of a future generation, not theirs.  And that fits very neatly with a profoundly American ethos that believes technological breakthroughs, unfolding bounty of nature, and endless economic growth, will always appear at the climax of the film and save the day.  As it turns out the public was pretty clever.  They got what they wanted in the 1910s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, and they still have a railroad system!  Granted they had to cough up a few billion for Conrail but that's chump change in the whole scheme of federal money.  The two bad outcomes were that irresponsibility was rewarded and as a result, 100 years later, we don't have a national freight transportation policy.  I keep thinking we'll pay the price for that in lost competitiveness to other countries but fortunately for us they continue to be even more short-sighted and confused than we are. S. Hadid
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