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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

> I don't think you would be willing to pay the amount of taxes you would need to, to completely redo the railways haha.

This premise feels wrong: The Swiss, German, Chinese, Spanish experience is that people pay to have high speed rail services, and the G20 economies in that list pay high marginal rates of taxes just fine, for this outcome.

The "you" here is conditionally the "you" of current social mores America. It by no means is the only recent experience of America, under presidents to Reagan, the top rate of marginal tax was significantly higher than at present, and people paid.

Perhaps, if Americans were made to pay more supertax they would discover sooner than you think, how few people it inconvenienced (Bezos) and how many it benefitted.

"you" might be surprised how low the increment was on your tax base, to fund the state investment your country needs, taking into account the superwealthy, and corporate tax evasion.

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China high speed rail growth over 9 years. It's an excellent system and I much prefer it to domestic aviation.

https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*Jj_k4U1AwuB5Ia-9oHuJKQ.gi...

I had included China and edited it out: I am unsure what the effective tax rate is for their national capital investment projects. Since the primary story was about tax, I didn't want to cloud things without knowing what Chinese salary tax effects were.

In China you can zoom out and see that wages / household income is quite depressed, both to keep the exports flowing and power the reinvestment, so the larger point stands fine.

That's a fair call, I'm not sure how you'd even try start comparing it to the West, I doubt western countries can even be compared to each other that well.

See people in here talk about land area and population while completely ignoring things like topography/zoning/protectionism. Building 100km of rail in Switzerland is never going to be comparable to building 100km on flat plains elsewhere.

Major lines like the one between Beijing and Shanghai are profitable and publicly-traded, therefore doesn't require government subsidy.

Of course, Beijing-Shanghai line is the first and only to go public, just at the beginning of 2020, and we can get their financial numnbers easily.

Many other lines are not necesarrily profitable, but few of them require government subsidy besides the initial capital investment, that is their income is more than the operational cost.

Swiss taxes vary by location but are generally not higher than the US taxes. So it's not about paying more, it's about wasting less.

It's about priorities. Swiss defense spending as a percentage of GDP is 0.675%. US defense spending as a percentage of GDP is 3.2%. I just picked a simple example, but you will find similar disparities across the board.

And part of US Defense spending helps defend countries like Switzerland. Maybe we still spend too much, but we also "defend" a lot more countries than ourselves, and a lot more territory than Switzerland.

I’m failing to see how this makes it an OK justification for the grift/corruption.

Switzerland is a neutral country and not part of NATO. The US has no obligation to defend them. Almost every adult male Swiss citizen has received military training. The country may not spend as much as the US, but Swiss citizens are willing to pay for their freedom in a different way.

(..and yes, only men are conscripted. Switzerland is a great country, but there continue to be problems with sexism, even today)

Which is a political choice by the US and not about "defending" but influence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

FWIW, Switzerland has a higher GDP per capita at $82k as compared to $62k for the U.S. Swiss per capita defense expenditures are closer to ~1/4 (28%) of those of the U.S. as compared to ~1/5 (21%) when judging by GDP percentage. (Conversely, France and U.K. have GDPs of about $42k, so they compare much worse by that metric.)

But more importantly, Switzerland isn't a NATO member.

The defence spending isn't much compared to the social expenditures. Switzerland spends roughly 30% on social/welfare (and roughly 10% on transportation infra). US spends roughly 50% of its budget on social/welfare and it ain't getting better any time soon.

Building such a network is less economically feasible in America compared to Europe or China because of America's suburban sprawl. First, it'll cost more to build because you'll need to clear out a route of suburban housing to get between any two cities. Second, the population density of the US is less concentrated, which makes getting to the station take longer, and improves the relative attractiveness of other transportation options such as cars/busses on shorter routes and planes on longer routes.

It's really disappointing to me as a transit enthusiast that the US doesn't have great high speed rail service in the Northeast Corridor, but to do so would involve clearing way for new, less curvy track, and that would be extremely expensive. Even if we did it I'm not sure it would get the usage rates that occur in Europe. The issue here is sadly more complicated that tax policy.

The Northeast has a density comparable to Europe. I do agree on the culture issue, however - Americans definitely prefer cars by default. Although in the Washington-Philadelphia-NYC-Boston corridor it may be possible, if there is ever a culture of large public works again.

Surely having big train stations with massive car parks just outside towns will fit well with car culture.

My other idea is high speed trains where you can take your car with you, like eurotunnel but faster.

The US actually has this. It's called the Auto Train: https://www.amtrak.com/auto-train

Runs from just outside of DC to Florida.

In the Northeast, Amtrak has pretty much captured the NYC <-> DC market for business travel.

What's holding it back is a lack of capacity and slower speeds than you'd find in, say, Europe.

Why it's slow is a complex problem with many causes.

It's partly due to US regulations that cause trains to be heavier, slower and more expensive than overseas.

The infrastructure is also old, dating back to the 1800s in some cases, causing bottlenecks in key areas. One 1870s-era tunnel in Baltimore brings speeds down to 30mph for what feels like an eternity.

Amtrak is also not super great at running the NEC. The physical infrastructure could do more, and relatively cheap changes could have a large impact.

Putting cars on High Speed Trains would be uneconomical, a car easily weighs dozens of people, you wouldn't want to pay that kind of fare for a car.

Europeans prefers cars when the train options are poor too.

Improve the trains, and people will eventually wake up to them.

I don't know why Americans think that they are so special.

Yes - Europeans do prefer the optimal transport option (cost, speed, comfort, etc)

Americans aren't special and many European places rely on cars or busses for transport.

US population density is hardly the issue for two reasons, first nobody wants high speed rail in Alaska. But secondly high speed rail is between cities not every little podunk town. Linking Richmond, DC, Baltimore, NYC, Boston is a single 550 mile high speed rail line, which connects over 10% of the entire Americana population.

Sounds good. Don’t make us over in California pay for it though.

Why not?

Because we get absolutely no benefit from it. If you want to have a massive government program that primarily benefits 3-4 states, don’t force Californians to shoulder that burden. That’s what state-level taxes are for.

I'm not from the US, so I guess that's why I asked. My country tends to be a tad more social and federalistic.

The US is better compared to the EU than any particular country, both in terms of size, population, and distinct governments.

So this is similar to a train being proposed from Amsterdam to Copenhagen that would be paid for by all of the member countries.

I mentioned the Northeast Corridor because it is the most viable location to have passenger rail in the US. But even there presents some issues (which I may not have explained very well in my original post).

I disagree with your assessment because American density is very different than European density. If you look at Google Earth, there is almost continuous suburban development along the entire Northeast route. In Europe, populations are clustered in smaller urban centers. High speed rail can only stop so many times and because of this, it is more difficult for the average American to get to a train station.

This situation is obvious to people who have lived in suburban America but can be surprising to those who have not. Imagine driving up to an hour to a city center, finding a place to long term park your car near the station and then taking a mode of transportation that isn't significantly faster than your car would've been. Then needing to take an expensive taxi once you arrive because your destination city has a limited public transportation system.

Comparing region densities at face value misses the issue, the way cities and regions are designed present unique transit challenges around the world.

High speed rail is roughly double if not triple the speed of the car speed on a speedway, let alone car speed in city.

More importantly, just don't think of city as static, inanimatable object. Many american cities are created because of the rails if you remember the history, High speed rail may not create new cities, but can definitely reshape parts of the city.

Acela's average speed is 82 mph between NYC and Boston. 66 mph between NYC and DC. When you add the time to get to/from the stations my point makes a lot of sense.

If you remember the history, many of the existing rail lines were built before the suburban explosion post WWII. To make Acela go faster, the route would need straighter track which would require buying a lot of expensive, already developed, land.

That’s the basic assumption for any HSR plan. You can’t mingle 160+MPH passenger trains with freight, so you need to buy a lot of land anyway. However, getting out of the urban center at 80+MPH isn’t a major issue and that let’s you avoid buying the most expensive inner city land. Getting off in the center of a city like Penn Station vs Laguardia Airport more than makes up for a few miles of slower speeds especially as these trains take a while to accelerate.

High speed rail needs a seed to start growing the network, but as soon as you have that adding other cities becomes increasingly viable. Initially you might build each of these city clusters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_megalopolis#/media/F... Afterwards, running/maintaining the high rail is more economically viable due to network effects.

American cities are clustered as much as European and there's hardly a good reason why high speed rail is impossible. To the point that there literally is a private company that built a high speed link between Orlando and Miami.

As for the experience of driving to a train station, that's compounded x times by going to an airport.

But in the end the lack of use stems more from discomfort, than anything else. Having high speed connection from Poughkeepsie/Albany to NYC would open up Hudson Valley to commuters decades ago, not a boom of Zoomtowns today (Kingston, NY, Beacon, NY)

The overall infrastructure is crap in US and that is the primary reason for poor use of it. (I mean, FFS, old Tappan Zee Bridge didn't even have pedestrian walkway! While being the only available crossing for miles)

American cities are clustered differently than European ones, it's not something that can be easily quantified, it really takes some time looking at the maps to understand what I am talking about, as it doesn't seem like my explanations are doing the job. Looking at the footprints this way is simplistic but maybe helpful:

https://external-preview.redd.it/W-GAALExjeE8w0aXg7Kh0gOAHcl...

For example, Paris is one of Europe's largest cities and yet it has a footprint comparable to Cleveland, a city with less than 1/5 the population. Meanwhile, the population density of Ohio is over 5 times as high as France.

I never said high speed rail is impossible, just that there are a unique set of challenges in developing such a network in the US. I'm a huge fan of public transportation and HSR, we just need to be realistic and pair it with smart urban/regional development.

Switzerland doesn't have any high speed rail services, defined conventionally. All trains in Switzerland are pretty slow, but it's a small country so it rarely matters.

Also, Swiss trains are pretty expensive. You don't notice because wages are high, but really, everything in this country is very expensive compared to neighbouring countries. In most countries inter-city rail is used by commuters so governments impose price caps, if there is any political pressure to lower prices here I've never seen it.

I personally would say it matters quite a bit. In most cases the train is not competitive with a car, both in term of time and money. Convenience is less clear: availability is good during peak time, but the trains are crowded so good luck taking your laptop out to work. The rest of the time, availability is still decent if you stick to the main lines and the ride is very confortable.

Also, cars are not expensive in Switzerland, especially when you take into account the high salaries.

California spends 10% of an amazon to not build a train between two cities.

I find that perplexing about US politics in general. Any proposal on taxes and social benefits, throws off people that at a first glance shouldn't. Maybe large part of the voting base are millionaires.

There's the old quote misattributed to John Steinbeck:

> Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

There are 11 million millionaires in the US which is approx 3.3% of the population. Polls show that many more people expect to become millionaires real soon. In fact, 60% expect to become wealthy during their lifetimes. The optimism that one sees in the US is commendable but it reflects itself in the resistance to taxing the rich. After all, why would you vote to increase taxes if it is going to negatively affect you in a few years. In reality, very few actually become rich.

Edit: link to a recent article on how many US persons expect to get rich/wealthy/millionaires ... https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/13/how-much-money-americans-thi...

Ouf that survey is weak - being a millionaire in the US does not make one wealthy. A lot of people end up having more than 1mil in assets by the time they retire simply due to real estate, this isn't the case for everyone but being a millionaire doesn't mean you're not still somewhere around the midpoint of the middle class in terms of income.

That's why I used separate terms, ie millionaire and wealthy. Being a millionaire requires that you have more than 1m as assets after taking into account your debts. That is easy but being wealthy is more subjective. Polls have shown that people consider 'being wealthy' if you have a wealthy lifestyle or in excess of USD x million. Currently x is about 2.6.

It's because corruption is so rife here.

It's blatant and widespread.

The only respite from corruption in US - the government is severely restricted.

Or, you know, just spend 5% less on the military :)

From what I understand other countries (especially EU) essentially contract out defense to the US for economical reasons (i.e. so they can afford to spend more of their budget on social services and less on military). If US cuts military budget it means EU will have to increase military budget by more than the US cut to make up for it.

Yeah, so there’s some positive externalities too ;)

It’s not healthy for Europe to be so dependent on the US, as has been proven over the past 4 years.

Europe also does not stir up as much conflict in the world as the US does, isn't it? So they are less in need of defense.

That state of affairs is because of the Post-WWII order the US constructed via alliances & multilateral organizations, in response to being repeatedly dragged into European wars.

https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/08/Europe-only-Armed...

The biggest EU defence needs are two: securing oil ingress from the Middle East and securing resource ingress from Africa. Without the US 5th fleet, Iran or any other regional power could shut down oil ingress, pitching the EU into a sizable (-30%) GDP recession. Instability, of which there is plenty in the Middle East, could do the same.

Same for Africa, with the added threat of Chinese competition for the same resources. Without those raw materials (minerals, uranium, some oil and gas) European manufacturing doesn't have a future. Hence the constant French and American interventions to stabilize various African states and their tight relations with their governments.

The only reason they are not in need of defence is because the US umbrella still protects them from invasion by foreign powers. If the US were totally uninterested in Europe, Russia would likely make much bolder moves in the region.

President was throwing a big fit about that a couple years ago. Wanting EU to pay a higher share of defense spending.

If they feel they're making the US pay for their defense spending good on them. On the US side of things a good chunk of the country thinks we should be world police for patriotic reasons - another chunk of the country thinks we have a duty to defend the world... While the majority of people (who are underrepresented by special interest groups) think it's insane we get five F35s for a billion dollars.

What does the $375B in interest payments buy America?

...good credit, that's how lending works.

The ability to keep borrowing.

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