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this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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Infrastructure delivers more economic impact with less grifting when it's not designed and run to make a profit on its own.
Right? When did we start becoming concerned with a public service being "profitable"? I've heard this applied to the US Postal Service a lot recently.
"The postal service is losing money!"
No, the postal service costs money. It's a service. It doesn't aim to make a profit. It costs money, and we are in turn rendered a service that is useful.
I swear people are delusional.
Conservatives want to kill the postal service because it competes with for profit services they own and invest in. See: DeJoy
Which of course is stupid, because USPS is actually great and provides a much better and more reliable service than any private competitor even in its current underfunded state.
Yet nobody ever expects the road system to turn a profit. Why should trains be any different?
I first remember it becoming an issue when a failed businessman turned president wanted to run the country like one of his failed businesses.
I remember Postal Service profitability being a political issue under the second Bush, too. Trump didn't start that. He probably even benefited from the previous rounds because he bought a historic post office in DC when it was sold off and he turned it into a hotel. That's the same hotel where people stayed during his presidency to curry favor with him.
You want to put pressure on these things to make them more cost effecient. You're in a capitalist system which does that job very well. But since this is not really a replaceable company, the government has to own these companies until they go public.
Late 80s, early 90s, with the rise of the rise of the Chicago School of neoliberalism.
Depends how you calculate profit.
Exactly it's not accumulating debt. It's a service being provided to citizens.