Hacker News Reader

Comment by bkohlmann | Hacker News Reader

For market based goods, the US does deliver pretty phenomenal, innovative and minimally priced outputs. Groceries, energy, technology, etc.

"Local services" are almost always driven by non-market based considerations. Politics, not economics, determines contract awards for public works. It's as far from the market as you can get. And our society receives commensurate "value."

View on HN

Note, too, that the New York City Subway was almost entirely privately funded and built.

How was that possible and why does it not seem to happen today? What changed? Is it still privately owned?

Even back in the "dual system" days when two companies operated the majority of the subway, most of the lines / tunnels were built or financed by the city: https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Chapter_1:_Dual_System_of_Rap...

Later on, the city built its own third competitor to the two private operators, and eventually ended up purchasing them both. These days the entire system is owned by the state of New York (which took over when the city was out of money during the decline of the 1960/70s).

(There is a lot more nuance here... but the highlight is that the city/state often directly or indirectly financed capital construction regardless of whether they were the operator of the system at the time)

Thanks. This doesn’t sound much different from how most public transit is built.

The BRT was formed from the remains of the privately-financed Long Island Traction Company [1][2]. It went bankrupt and was merged into the more public-private bits. The lines it laid as a private enterprise remain today.

The IRT looked more like the British rail system, with the public lending to the company, which was under public-private management.

By mileage, the BRT built the most. By transit volume, the public-private Dual Contractors outperformed the IND, though that was in part due to the latter's late start. It remains that the bulk of the New York City subway system was, by any metric, built under private management and, by mileage, financed with private capital.

All that said, I have no illusions about whether private ownership would be possible today. (It is debatable whether it was possible then, given they went bankrupt.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Island_Traction_Company

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_S...

I don't think GP is correct in saying that the NYC subway was privately funded and built - the funding was largely public, with the resulting infrastructure leased to private companies to operate.

The initial IRT subway was funded by the city with bond issuance, which then contracted the construction and operation of the railway to private bodies.

Later expansions were funded by a mix of public and private funds - but again, with the city retaining ownership of the property and leasing to private hands for operation.

The NYC subway was never a private enterprise in the usual understanding of the word. It's frustrating when achievements like the NYC subway are attributed to free-market triumphalism when there's nothing in its history that justifies this conclusion.

Thanks a lot for that clarification. I have heard the claim that the NYC subway was built privately many times but this explanation makes a lot more sense. Do you have any preferred sources on the history of the subway?

Heh. True in some ways, not in some others. Groceries for example - yes, I can buy chicken at Walmart for much cheaper than I would in the EU, for instance. But the chicken I’d buy in the EU would be of much higher quality. If I want a comparable chicken (not cage raised, not full of hormones, etc), I’ll end up going to Whole Foods or similar upscale store and end up paying roughly the same as I would in the EU.

Yes, there are different regulations, famously chicken in the EU can't be washed in chlorine as it can in the US. But your average EU supermarket selection is a flavourless, watered up battery chicken. It's not "much higher quality" by any stretch of the imagination.

At least watered up chicken has to be labeled in the EU. Battery cages have been banned since 2012.

Sorry, fair point, it’s not battery chicken then. Not sure what the correct term is, but it’s certainly nor free range organic animals we’re dealing with here.

You can avoid the steroids et al. at most any Walmart at this point. Tyson is completely removing such from their chicken products. You're primarily going to struggle to find free range inexpensively in the US.

>Groceries

Are you serious? Groceries in the US are surprisingly expensive compared to Europe.

... I have seen countless posts shocked by our price of eggs and beef. Eggs 50c a dozen, ground beef about $2.30-$3 depending on location.

It is one of those things that are hard to research effectively, but when I stayed in France for a few months groceries were definitely more expensive.

According to NationMaster[1], we're the 43rd most expensive. Notables that are more expensive than the U.S. include Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, France, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Japan, Belgium, the UK, Canada, Austria, Italy.

Notables with cheaper groceries are Germany, Netherlands, Greece, Spain, Poland, Ukraine.

[1] - http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Cost-of-livin...

And Germany is about to work some of its grocery magic on the US, likely pushing prices down even further, as Lidl invades. Amazon will also likely have a positive effect.

What? I've shopped in the U.K., Spain, Greece, Switzerland and Sweden. The U.K. Was pretty much on par with the US for basic staples. The others were the same or more.

Unless your comparing to some boutique grocery in the US.

The US is WAY cheaper than Canada.

I often read frugal tips and tricks on reddit, and it's phenomenal what you can get in the states for little money. That's not possible in a lot of places in Europe.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com