Eastern Railroad Discussion > Have railroads "fallen to the jackals of Wall Street" ?

In a contentious hearing, the head of the House of Representatives Transportation Committee accused US railroads of having "fallen to the jackals of Wall Street" and accused the Federal Railway Administration of  colluding with them.

FRA chief Ron Batory resisted that description. SMART leader John Previsich pointed out several situations where federal regulators have withdrawn proposed safety and staffing regulations.

Washington Post, June 20

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/house-committee-leader-says-railroads-have-fallen-to-jackals-on-wall-street/2019/06/20/65d9f276-92b1-11e9-b570-6416efdc0803_story.html?utm_term=.a2b2b5655193

About time, railroads are too valuable and useful to allow them to be ruined by the shortsighted who don't want to look beyond the next quarter   

"A central theme of this book is that railroads, throughout their history, were so important to the US economy that politicians could not leave them alone, and when governments did intervene in transportation markets, they usually made a mess of things. Government regulation distorted consumer choices, found awkward and costly ways of subsidizing competing modes of transportation, taxed or regulated away profits needed for reinvestment and capacity expansion, and— while generally contributing to greater safety— typically fell far short of stimulating optimal safety performance for all transport modes."

Gallamore, Robert E. (2014-06-17). American Railroads (Kindle Locations 470-474). Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.

The House can hold all the hearings they want, but until there is a new administration, Wall Street and big business will get what it wants regardless of the harm.

radar Wrote:
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> The House can hold all the hearings they want, but
> until there is a new administration, Wall Street
> and big business will get what it wants regardless
> of the harm.

What harm?

radar Wrote:
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> The House can hold all the hearings they want, but
> until there is a new administration, Wall Street
> and big business will get what it wants regardless
> of the harm.

The dirty little secret is that most of the biggest movers and shakers on Wall Street give their allegiance (and their campaign contributions) to the OTHER party.

junctiontower Wrote:
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> radar Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The House can hold all the hearings they want, but until there is a new administration, Wall Street and big business will get what it wants regardless of the harm.
>
> The dirty little secret is that most of the biggest movers and shakers on Wall Street give their allegiance (and their campaign contributions) to the OTHER party.

Yea, the party of Mammon.

Brian

CBS news agrees that Wall Street (the securities and finance industry) gave more money in 2018 to Democratic candidates than Republicans. First time in ten years.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wall-street-political-campaign-contibutions-flowing-mostly-to-democratic-candidates-for-congress/

Posted from Android

I'm guessing that chart only applies to contributions made by the firms themselves.  If you look at the actual power brokers behind those firms, they tend to be overwhelmingly Democrat.  If they give ANY money to the other side, it's usually just to try and hedge their bets.  I will also add that the guy every railfan loves to hate (including myself) Bill Ackman is a Democrat.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/19 08:48 by junctiontower.

junctiontower Wrote:
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> I'm guessing that chart only applies to
> contributions made by the firms themselves.  If
> you look at the actual power brokers behind those
> firms, they tend to be overwhelmingly Democrat. 
> If they give ANY money to the other side, it's
> usually just to try and hedge their bets. 

Many companies channel their contributions through Political Action Committees.  The website OpenSecrets allows you to determine this information as well.  Who they support. By candidate, and then by Political Action Committee support, individual contributions, etc.  The site has excellent mining tools to give a good view of where the "dark money" is going. This is money often used to attack an opponent, without any direct link to the benefitting candidate.

https://www.opensecrets.org/

 

Getting back to the topic, if railroads cared about the industry more, they would not have this problem.
 

Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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>"fallen to the jackals of
> Wall Street" and accused the Federal Railway
> Administration of  colluding with them.

If this is the case then I wonder if the FRA are smart enough to look at their counterparts in the FAA and the 737 crisis and learn some lessons.

Unfortunately this type of behaviour is not only practiced in the USA.

Alexander

3rdboxcar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lackawanna484 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >"fallen to the jackals of
> > Wall Street" and accused the Federal Railway
> > Administration of  colluding with them.
>
> If this is the case then I wonder if the FRA are
> smart enough to look at their counterparts in the
> FAA and the 737 crisis and learn some lessons.
>
> Unfortunately this type of behaviour is not only
> practiced in the USA.
>
> Alexander

That's not likely, unfortunately.

The US has fallen victim to a term called regulatory capture.  Put simply, it means that the regulatory agencies like FAA, FRA, Mine Safety, EPA, Commerce, Housing, Labor, SEC etc are under the control of management and lawyers from the industries they are supposed to regulate.  So, the heads of mine safety and EPA are both coal company managers. The Treasury secretary is a second generation Goldman Sachs partner.  The Secretary of Labor was accused of repeated union busting by the AFL-CIO. The head of the FAA was a guy from Delta who was accused of retaliating against safety whistle blowers.

And, so it goes...

It’s generally better to keep the goverent out of things. There is nothing that they do well. I’ll take Wall Street over DC any day.

Posted from iPhone