$98 per barrel oil
Morgans writes:
You just don't get it.
To put enough railroad tracks in the US to have even half the density of
tracks per square mile as the railroads have in Europe, or half the tracks
per population density in Europe, or half the _any_ way you want to measure
it, would take the gross domestic product -the ENTIRE- gross domestic
product of the WHOLE US for a whole decade, and still not have put a dent in
the project.
This country IS BIG......WAY ****ING BIG ! ! !
Why can't you Europeans get that through your damn heads?
Perhaps because it isn't true.
Highways are far more expensive per mile than railways, and yet the United
States is covered with them, so clearly cost is not the obstacle to a denser
railway network in the U.S. Part of it is a fondness for automobiles and
trucks, and part of it is the Not Invented Here syndrome.
The United States _did_ have quite a railway system at one time, and you could
go just about anywhere on passenger trains. But the railways couldn't make
the profits they wanted with passenger service, and so they abandoned it.
European systems often operate at cost or at a loss, on the theory that a good
railway infrastructure amortizes its cost in intangible ways. The U.S. wants
to see a direct bottom-line profit from every activity, and the idea of
something being generally good for the country rarely seems to occur to
anyone.
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