While the system may be complex, I don’t think the issue at hand with Franken’s proposal is complicated at all. He thinks the railroads are price gouging, and he intends to stop them.
The reason he thinks they are gouging is because he believes they are a monopoly.
And he believes that every monopoly will gouge their market just because they can.
So I don’t think Franken is just fooling around here. He and others see this as the right time to move the railroads into more regulation. It is a constant tug of war. These things are never settled forever.
BucyrusSo I don’t think Franken is just fooling around here. He and others see this as the right time to move the railroads into more regulation. It is a constant tug of war. These things are never settled forever.
Bucyrus,
I completely agree with your conclusion. However, railroads have been dealing with regulation for a long time. Since the Staggers act many things have changed in their favor and in our, the consumers favor. Now perhaps railroads are better able to deal with this than we give them credit for. I hope so.
John
John,
Yes, let's hope the railroads have become better at defending against regulation after fighting it for so long. But when I say it is a tug of war, I mean that everything gained since Staggers could go away overnight. The freight railroads seem to be flush with success these days, and that attracts opportunists and predators of all types.
Bucyrus But when I say it is a tug of war, I mean that everything gained since Staggers could go away overnight. The freight railroads seem to be flush with success these days, and that attracts opportunists and predators of all types.
Bucycrus, I don't begin to have the understanding of railroads you have. And I don't pretend to be an expert about the politics of regulation but at least I have a little experience there. We had the ICC for a great many years and at a great expense over those years. In the end it destroyed the two most successful railroads in the country and was on the way to destroying more. Of course it did have some help -- in fact a lot of help -- from the road building programs and the decline in the coal business and other similar things. However, for all of that the ICC was a negative factor, and an expensive negative factor, for efficient transportation. I sure hope we don't go down that particular road to ruin again.
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