tree68 greyhounds In 1931 they ordered the railroads to increase their rates on container services to non competitive levels. One might also wonder if there was a certain amount of lobbying by the truck industry...
greyhounds In 1931 they ordered the railroads to increase their rates on container services to non competitive levels.
One might also wonder if there was a certain amount of lobbying by the truck industry...
I first researched this subject around 1975 for my masters thesis at Northwestern University. The completed thesis is titled "The Transportation of LCL/LTL Freight by Railroad." (I got the MS in transportation.) I have maintained an interest in the subject ever since. I have never come across any evidence of payoffs or any other illegal or extra legal activity. Just government stupidity and ignorance. As the saying goes: "Never attribute to malice what is, in reality, the result of stupidity and/or ignorance."
The regulators didn't have a clue. But they had power they never should have had. They used that power badly. And we're still paying for that.
The regulators tried, foolish as it was, to assign fixed and joint costs to specific "Classifications" of freight. No one can possibly make such assignments with any degree of accuracy or authenticity. It cannot be done. This didn't deter the regulators one little bit. They just made the assignments and said the Hell with accuracy and authenticity. They had no idea it was a fool's errand. They just didn't understand they were trying to do something that can't be done.
That's a recipe for failure, and that's what we got. Courtesy of the US Government.
greyhounds I have never come across any evidence of payoffs or any other illegal or extra legal activity. Just government stupidity and ignorance. As the saying goes: "Never attribute to malice what is, in reality, the result of stupidity and/or ignorance."
Exercising influence on regulators, the government and the economy can be obtained in many other, more subtle means than direct payoffs, bibes, etc. The auto industry, especially GM, was extremely powerful during that time period.
charlie hebdo greyhounds I have never come across any evidence of payoffs or any other illegal or extra legal activity. Just government stupidity and ignorance. As the saying goes: "Never attribute to malice what is, in reality, the result of stupidity and/or ignorance." Exercising influence on regulators, the government and the economy can be obtained in many other, more subtle means than direct payoffs, bibes, etc. The auto industry, especially GM, was extremely powerful during that time period.
If you've got some information on GM's involvement in this issue I'll be glad to look at it. But right now, I think you're setting up a Straw Man to divert responsibility for this regulatory malfeasance from the regulators to another entity. The regulators should never have had the power to stop the adoption of intermodal container service, but they did. They used that power to great and lasting harm.
Here's a quote. (Note: VOS = Value of Service.)
"The problem with the VOS rate system developed by the Progressives was not that their system was demand-based, but that it was rigid. It could not recognize or accommodate the rise of rival modes, and it did not allow railroads the flexibility to meet local market imperatives. The classification tables might have originated from a basis of charging what the traffic would bear, but they had become ossified and so no longer reflected actual market circumstances. The Progressives wanted a system with surpluses over cost, but without differentiation, and thus without freedom to meet let alone undercut prices charged by competitors."
Gallamore, Robert E.. American Railroads (Kindle Locations 912-917). Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.
The regulators, lead by an attorney named Harry C. Ames, were determined to keep in place a railroad rate structure that was untenable given the advent of motor freight. They were "Rigid". And "Rigid" just won't work when creative destructiion is upon you.
So the innovative container service, with its new pricing, was shut down by government edict. And the government kept its foot on the neck of intermodal development for the following 50 years.
If you've got some other hard informatiion let's see it.
Primary sources are what matters, not just citing an opinion piece by Prof. Gallamore.
greyhoundsIf you've got some other hard informatiion let's see it.
I suspect that would be the bill from the restaurant where the lobbyists took the regulators for dinner.
What's missing is the "why." What (besides sheer hard-headedness) caused the regulators to take that line?
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Value of service pricing, sets price primarily but not exclusively, on the value perceived by customers rather than cost. In other words, value of service pricing is based on the utility factor of the service, which is estimated by customers.
tree68What's missing is the "why." What (besides sheer hard-headedness) caused the regulators to take that line?
I've long wondered if there is some inclination to want to help a new enterprise. Trucking was just getting started, and by handicapping an established business they were giving the new one a boost. Why? Was under-the-table money or some other consideration involved? Did they just want to stick-it to the big-money business?
I kind of see a rough parallel with the rise of internet shopping and the demise of many brick-and-mortar stores. Internet shopping was given a tax break to "help a new enterprise." When I was working in the photo department at a drug store (after my first retirement), I waited on customers who would check out different camera models, then say something like, "I like this one, but I'm not going to buy right now." The store maintained the real estate, stocked the shelves, spent time waiting on the customer, paid taxes, and the internet business made the profit.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Paul of Covington tree68 What's missing is the "why." What (besides sheer hard-headedness) caused the regulators to take that line? I've long wondered if there is some inclination to want to help a new enterprise. Trucking was just getting started, and by handicapping an established business they were giving the new one a boost. Why? Was under-the-table money or some other consideration involved? Did they just want to stick-it to the big-money business? I kind of see a rough parallel with the rise of internet shopping and the demise of many brick-and-mortar stores. Internet shopping was given a tax break to "help a new enterprise." When I was working in the photo department at a drug store (after my first retirement), I waited on customers who would check out different camera models, then say something like, "I like this one, but I'm not going to buy right now." The store maintained the real estate, stocked the shelves, spent time waiting on the customer, paid taxes, and the internet business made the profit.
tree68 What's missing is the "why." What (besides sheer hard-headedness) caused the regulators to take that line?
Paul, I think you are on to a key point. Since the ICC regulated the rails and the incipient trucking industry in the 20s onward, protecting them from temporary, artificially low prices by the rails designed to bankrupt the truckers and nip competition in the bud, seemed a possible and worthy motivation. So rather than hobbling the rails, it's protecting a new industry that lacked deep pockets. Enhancing competition is a proper goal of regulation designed to preserve capitalism in the long term.
Paul of Covington I've long wondered if there is some inclination to want to help a new enterprise. Trucking was just getting started, and by handicapping an established business they were giving the new one a boost. Why? Was under-the-table money or some other consideration involved? Did they just want to stick-it to the big-money business?
Hence my reference to dinner. Trucking industry to regulators: "Hey, give a guy a break..."
I would opine that the mutual synergy of trucking plus railroads wasn't on anyone's radar.
charlie hebdo Paul of Covington tree68 What's missing is the "why." What (besides sheer hard-headedness) caused the regulators to take that line? I've long wondered if there is some inclination to want to help a new enterprise. Trucking was just getting started, and by handicapping an established business they were giving the new one a boost. Why? Was under-the-table money or some other consideration involved? Did they just want to stick-it to the big-money business? I kind of see a rough parallel with the rise of internet shopping and the demise of many brick-and-mortar stores. Internet shopping was given a tax break to "help a new enterprise." When I was working in the photo department at a drug store (after my first retirement), I waited on customers who would check out different camera models, then say something like, "I like this one, but I'm not going to buy right now." The store maintained the real estate, stocked the shelves, spent time waiting on the customer, paid taxes, and the internet business made the profit. Paul, I think you are on to a key point. Since the ICC regulated the rails and the incipient trucking industry in the 20s onward, protecting them from temporary, artificially low prices by the rails designed to bankrupt the truckers and nip competition in the bud, seemed a possible and worthy motivation. So rather than hobbling the rails, it's protecting a new industry that lacked deep pockets. Enhancing competition is a proper goal of regulation designed to preserve capitalism in the long term.
Sorry Charlie..
The ICC did not regulate trucking in the 1920's. Not until 1935 did they get involved in trucking. Well after the container fiasco. And then they screwed it up royaly. They didn't understand trucking either.
Let's keep the facts straight.
Yes, yes. But you miss the point because of an overly restrictive focus. Under pressure from the railroads, in1935 the lCC began to regulate trucking. But that does not mean that it did not make decisions to protect the growth of incipient trucking lines from being nipped in the bud by the railroads in the 1920s.
Their decision may well have been wrong, as in your thesis. However, those lower container rates might well have been raised once competition was reduced or eliminated. You do not take that into account as a potential outcome.
charlie hebdo Yes, yes. But you miss the point because of an overly restrictive focus. Under pressure from the railroads, in1935 the lCC began to regulate trucking. But that does not mean that it did not make decisions to protect the growth of incipient trucking lines from being nipped in the bud by the railroads in the 1920s. Their decision may well have been wrong, as in your thesis. However, those lower container rates might well have been raised once competition was reduced or eliminated. You do not take that into account as a potential outcome.
Oh, I didn't miss any point. I just was tired and wanted to go to sleep. One of those, "I'll get to it tomorrow things." It seems you believe the regulators had to prevent competition in order to promote competition. This makes zero sense.
You pose a most implausible hypothesis. You're tying to justify the unjustifiable in an effort to support government regulation. You're imagining "Predatory Pricing". That's a fantasy concept wherein one firm drives the price down to reduce or eliminate its competition. Then it kicks the price back up and enjoys monopoly profits. It never has worked because it can't work. (At least without government helping it work.)
To make this work would require barriers to the entry of competitors. The high prices and profits will draw in new or revitalized old competitors unless the government establishes barriers to their market entry. The railroads could not, on their own, stop a truck line from operating.
Your predatory pricing fantasy flat out ignores the essence of motor freight. It's main assets, the trucks, are mobile. They can go here, there, and everywhere. Truckers do chase the money. If a railroad were to raise its prices truck assets would be diverted to, and created for, that market and the frieght would go back to the highway. That's just the way it works.
Additionally, since the ICC had control over rail rates it could have simply disallowed any increase. I don't see that control as having been beneficial to the American people, but it did exist.
You have no substantiation for any of your claims. You're just creating straw men to cover for a really destructive bad government action.
This is the first time I've read anyone claim that the ICC involvement with motor carriers was the result of pressure from the railroads. Actually, the motor freight industry sought regulation so as to limit competition amongst themselves. The ICC couldn't just regulate motor carriers. Congress had to pass legislation to give it that power. That happened and competition was greatly reduced. To the great harm of the American people. Anytime an industry actually seeks economic regulation, as the truckers did, it's very suspicious as to their motives.
BTW, my quote from Gallamore is from a book, not an "Opinion Piece." The book, which you should read, was started by John R. Meyer who was a faculty member at Harvard. Unfortunately, Meyer died before completing the book. Gallamore took it over and finished the book. Meyer had been Gallamore's advisor as Gallamore wrote his PhD disertation on the economic results of parallel railroad mergers. But you simply dismiss their book as an "Opinion Piece." If I had a vegetable garden I'd hire you to build a scarecrow. You're really good at straw men.
Thanks for the compliment. I know an opinion piece. Even great researchers write them and they are OK in their place.
You dismiss many valid concepts. I will not speculate as to motivation.
charlie hebdoWhy would the GM execs be credible sources?
Institutional knowledge and memory and at this point with all the lawsuits filed and settled they have no reason to cover up the past.
Some of you are probably old enough to recall Nader v. General Motors.
As I understand it, when Ralph realized he was being spied on he went to all the big automakers and asked them what was going on. He got the following responses:
Ford: What? That's crazy, we're not spying on you!
Chrysler: What? That's crazy, we're not spying on you!
AMC: What? That's crazy, we're not big enough to spy on you!
GM: We can neither confirm or deny the validity of your question.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Greyhounds: Can I have a copy of your Masters Thesis? Either as an attachment to an email, pdf or word or text with jpg, gif, or whatever figures, or photocopy via snail-mail? I think it will be very useful to me for discussions here in Israel.
Unfortnately, I do not have copies here in any form of my own SB and SM thesis, which are probably still in the stacks in the MIT Library. SB Thesis: Diesel Locomotive Load Regulator Control. (Not an entire field survey, merely opimizing a new design for the transition from the GP-7 to the GP-9.) SM: A Binaural Recording System for Concert-Hall Evaluations.
Email: daveklepper@yahoo.com
Mailing address:
David Lloyd Klepper, Yeshivat Beit Orot
Shmuel ben Adiya 1, Jerusalem 97400, Israel
The importrant Babylonian Talmud had a great deal of economic law that is directly related to this regulation issue, involving transportation of goods.
daveklepperUnfortnately, I do not have copies here in any form of my own SB and SM thesis, which are probably still in the stacks in the MIT Library. SB Thesis: Diesel Locomotive Load Regulator Control. (Not an entire field survey, merely opimizing a new design for the transition from the GP-7 to the GP-9.) SM: A Binaural Recording System for Concert-Hall Evaluations.
It's ominous that Barton can't figure out where your undergraduate thesis is.
Graduate thesis (1957) is here.
You had Leo Beranek as your thesis advisor!
The reason I say 'ominous' is that I don't find either reference in DSpace; 'requesting a thesis' involves it being scanned, and the rules for getting a thesis scanned involve sending them a paper copy or a PDF (!) So it may be important that we either track down a copy of the 'load regulator' thesis (through better MIT search, hopefully), or have you re-create as much of the argument and discussion as you can.
daveklepper Greyhounds: Can I have a copy of your Masters Thesis? Either as an attachment to an email, pdf or word or text with jpg, gif, or whatever figures, or photocopy via snail-mail? I think it will be very useful to me for discussions here in Israel. Unfortnately, I do not have copies here in any form of my own SB and SM thesis, which are probably still in the stacks in the MIT Library. SB Thesis: Diesel Locomotive Load Regulator Control. (Not an entire field survey, merely opimizing a new design for the transition from the GP-7 to the GP-9.) SM: A Binaural Recording System for Concert-Hall Evaluations. Email: daveklepper@yahoo.com Mailing address: David Lloyd Klepper, Yeshivat Beit Orot Shmuel ben Adiya 1, Jerusalem 97400, Israel The importrant Babylonian Talmud had a great deal of economic law that is directly related to this regulation issue, involving transportation of goods.
Dave, thank you for the request.
I THINK I have one extra hard copy left. It's just print. If I can find it after several moves, a divorce and two girlfriends, I'll send it to you. Snail mail. Got to keep one copy for myself although I know it will go in to a landfill after my Earthly Demise. Other copies are at Northwestern U and one with my thesis advisor. I've never mailed anything to Israel or anywhere else overseas except for some lottery tickets that I'd send anonymously to a soldier serving in the 1991 Gulf War. (Yes, I sent them before the drawing. Then I'd send him the results. I don't know if any of them won.) You're a fellow former US Army officer and If I can find it I'll send it to you.
As a Believing Christian I'm not familiar with the Babylonian Talmud. Maybe I shoud be, but I'm not. It's very interesting that it dealt with transportation. Will you please say more?
Dave: As someone with at least a passing interest in biblical scholarship I'd also like more info on the Babylonian Talmud.
Overmod daveklepper Unfortnately, I do not have copies here in any form of my own SB and SM thesis, which are probably still in the stacks in the MIT Library. SB Thesis: Diesel Locomotive Load Regulator Control. (Not an entire field survey, merely opimizing a new design for the transition from the GP-7 to the GP-9.) SM: A Binaural Recording System for Concert-Hall Evaluations. It's ominous that Barton can't figure out where your undergraduate thesis is. Graduate thesis (1957) is here. You had Leo Beranek as your thesis advisor!
daveklepper
Leo Beranek was quite the slacker, after all he was only 101 when his last paper was published. (Saw that in the Acoustical Society magazine)
Overmod: I think you and I need to sit down with Dave sometime and get him started on telling stories.
Erik_MagOvermod: I think you and I need to sit down with Dave sometime and get him started on telling stories.
Yesterday!
And every one of them would be reason to ask him to tell 50 more...
charlie hebdoAs someone with at least a passing interest in biblical scholarship I'd also like more info on the Babylonian Talmud.
In my opinion, there is no better reference in English than the Schottenstein Edition; the basic link to which is here.
Depending on your interest you can get this volume by volume; it's probably in major libraries for reference (and if not, it should surely be).
Thank you.
I took three courses with Leo Beranek: Basic Acoustics, Electroacoustics, and Architectural Acoustics. Noise control was nominally under him but actually taught by Jordan Barusch and Norman Doling (Sp?). I was a Bolt Beranek and Newman employee May 1 1957 - June 1 1971. My name is in all three of his concert-hall books as one obtaining data and in the latter two referenced paper or papers. My thesis advisor for my Diesel Locomotive Load Regulator paper was Karl Wildes. My thesis advisor for my Concert Hall Evaluation Recording System paper was Ken (Kenneth?) Stevens, with Harvard's Ted Hunt as an unofficial advisor, since I used Harvard's Acoustics Laboratory for tests that were not actually performed in Boston Symphony Hall.
From July 1971 to June 1996 I was President of the White Plains, NY firm Klepper Marshall King. However, in the Spring 1992, Leo Beranek contributed financially to my vacation Israel trip for data for his 1996 and 2003 concert-hall books.
The title Professor should be inserted before all the above names.
Regarding the Babylonian Talmud, there are editions in both Hebrew and English. A very good bookstore is Levine's on the north side of W. 30th Street between Broadway and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
In most parts of the USA there are Chabad or Habad centers, often on or near college and University campuses, and their Rabbis are usually excellent teachers, teaching in English from an Orthodox perspective. Hillel houses on college and universities have classes usually from a non-Orthodox or inclusive perspective.
Reading the Talmud in original Hebrew or in English translation can be dificult at times, and having a teacher is recommended.
But the Babylonian Talmud remains the main source of interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call "The Old Testament," for us Orthodox Jews in living our daily lives.
I hope this isn't straying to far into religion. I'm not trying to present dogma or belief, just answering a question.
Perhaps to make this all more relevant, I can point out the following, and have obtained agreement from very astute teachers:
GM's part, in addition to rubber and oil interests, but certainly the main actor, in takeover of streetcar systems for conversion to bus operation, was not a conspiracy but simply good, by Capitalist economics, practice. The concent decree had zero to do with rail-to-bus conversion but only with the exclusion of other bus manufacturers.
But by Talmudic Law, Halacha, it was a sin. Because a store owner is forbidden to enter or even stand in the doorway, a competitor's store, to solicit business. And GM was in the business of selling cars, and secondarily buses. All this was competition for streetcar companies, and thus Talmudic law says that GM's entering the public transportation busines through indirect and direct subsifiary ownership, was a sin.
At the same time, when both the NYCentral and PRR entered the container-on-flatcar business, why were not they astute enough to enter into partnerships with local trucking companies but instead owned the pick-up and delivery trucks themselves? We could have had the intermodal revelution a lot earlier.
And maybe if that had occoured, some abandoned railroad lines and even railroad-operated passenger service, might still be around.
And Talmudic law would have prevented the destruction of half of Colorado's Towwer Gate.
I would argue quite differently -- GM's interest in 'streetcar companies' was far more to ensure a future for truly useful public transport than to substitute cars for the multitude by necessity.
Remember that the revolution in buses - the Yellow Coach monocoque with angle drive and, soon enough, Detroit Diesel power, was as revolutionary as combining Electro-Motive and the Winton diesel engine. All the 1950s advantages of GM's buses are just as true today as they were then -- easy peak vs. off-peak service, air-conditioning, alternate routes a cinch, dedicated routes with alternative use a possibility, all sorts of alternative things to do with them when not needed in service... there are more.
Would you object to the Good Roads movement because it made interurbans less profitable? Ban jitneys for stealing streetcar nickels? Go after those evil electric utilities for ruthless suppression of horse cars?
One thing I've always thought the conspiracy theorists missed is that it's NOT in GM's interest to deprecate public transport. They're after the Insolent Chariots market of upper-middle-class keeping-up-with-the-Joneses and then they'll-know-you've-ARRIVED-when-you-pull-up, where buying the new car every year is a social 'given' ... and no one would ever, ever stoop to buying a 'used' car. Yet anyone who would be riding public transport is there because they didn't want a car or the expense in running or parking it ... or couldn't afford or waste money on anything new. (And they don't go to the stealer to service their used car, either, and huge fortunes can and have been made in supplying aftermarket parts.)
If you look at the speed with which interurban track and maintenance went downhill after the Government dis incentivized utility ownership, and recollect the fate of BMT after ONE publicized wreck, you can read their future without necessary recourse to GM or oilmen or Firestone machination. On the other hand there are very few instances where even modern 'rail' buses succeeded over rubber-tired ones -- and some very modern ones were tried.
The Talmudic proscription is against the taking of another's livelihood, which is little if any different from the act of knowingly stealing. It is NOT against providing a superior product, or for that matter advertising its advantages... or buying out competitors at a fair price. (I agree with you that Biblical fairness does not mean buying at some fire-sale forced price, but it is not necessarily an owner's self-inflated 'profit opportunity' either ... that's stealing-in-the-heart from another direction.)
Rigging the suppliers was wrong ... and GM paid for it. If I recall correctly EMD ran a similar scam with 'genuine GM parts' and rebuilt assemblies for decades, until our Government made the whole captive warranty market technically illegal by policy. Which policy I think is as it should be... as long as the parts ARE honestly known serviceable and safe as applied. (And it's yet again a violation of Commandment to sell unsafe as safe...)
daveklepper Perhaps to make this all more relevant, I can point out the following, and have obtained agreement from very astute teachers: GM's part, in addition to rubber and oil interests, but certainly the main actor, in takeover of streetcar systems for conversion to bus operation, was not a conspiracy but simply good, by Capitalist economics, practice. The concent decree had zero to do with rail-to-bus conversion but only with the exclusion of other bus manufacturers. But by Talmudic Law, Halacha, it was a sin. Because a store owner is forbidden to enter or even stand in the doorway, a competitor's store, to solicit business. And GM was in the business of selling cars, and secondarily buses. All this was competition for streetcar companies, and thus Talmudic law says that GM's entering the public transportation busines through indirect and direct subsifiary ownership, was a sin. At the same time, when both the NYCentral and PRR entered the container-on-flatcar business, why were not they astute enough to enter into partnerships with local trucking companies but instead owned the pick-up and delivery trucks themselves? We could have had the intermodal revelution a lot earlier. And maybe if that had occoured, some abandoned railroad lines and even railroad-operated passenger service, might still be around.
Dave, that's really interesting. Our laws, customs, cultures, etc. are greatly influenced by religious teachings. Acknowledging that is just accepting reality.
I'm going to disagree with you on the container issue. The new truckers were taking the freight from the railroads, not the other way around. The truckers were the ones diverting customers, not the railroads. The containerization, with its new, lower, rates and better service was an innovation made possible by a new technology. And A very effective response to motor freight.
The rail containers greatly reduced costs, as they have done with ocean shipping. Due to competition, most of the cost savings were passed through to the rail customers. But the railroads managed to hang on to some of the money. So the shipping public received better service at a lower charge while the railroads made more money. It just doesn't get any better than that.
But the regulators wanted to preserve a "Rate Structure" that was untenable given the advent of motor freight. People supportive of rate regulation are prone to fabricate reasons (excuses?) for the government regulators' actions. Such as, they were trying to protect the nascent trucking industry. These government apologists have absolutely no substantiation for their fabrications.
The American people were significantly harmed by their government's action in that logistics cost were driven up. It was wasteful.
The railroads weren't the ones standing in their competitors' stores trying to grab business. The truckers were doing that to the railroads. And the US Government blocked the rails' response for an absurd reason.
The railroads did use local truckers. Most of the container freight was from freight forwarders. These useful middlemen selected the most efficient way to move the freight for their customers and used whatever mode, rail or truck, was most appropriate. They could pick their own trucker to and from the rail terminal. Freight forwarders drove the regulators nuts. They brought some free market competition to freight movement and the regulators just hated that. Forwarders were regulated in 1940, to the detriment of the public.
As to GM and its city busses, it's another straw man. National City Lines was a company with a business plan. They'd buy decrepit streetcar systems and convert them to bus operation. They'd do this where busses were a better option, which was about everywhere. The busses had advantages or they wouldn't have replaced the streetcars.
GM got involved because it made busses and financed its products' purchases. Just like when people buy a car. The government trouble came from GM's agreement with NCL on exclusivity. The financing was conditioned on NCL buying only GM busses. That exclusivity is what the government objected to.
The case was settled when GM was fined $5,000 (They took up a collection at the office?) and the responsible executives were fined $1.00.
This case has been convoluted in to some kind of anti streetcar conspiracy.
Starting in 1938, much of NCL's equity funding came from GM, Firestone and three large oil companies. Coincidence?
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