by G’Kar
The collapse of a bridge in Minnesota counts as a tragedy to be sure. But I cannot help but wonder what point there is to President Bush addressing the nation about a relatively minor accident [See update below] (more people die in traffic accidents). What benefits does his getting on TV and saying what a tragedy this was provide? I am honestly mystified at the idea the President has to stand up and state the obvious as part of his job. Surely there are a number of things he might better spend his time on? I have it on reasonably good authority that there are some rather serious issues in the Middle East that might require the President’s attention, for example.
All levity aside, there is an old Earth saying, Jack of all trades is master of none, that I believe has some application to the state of the American federal government. It is physically impossible for any one person to pay more than passing attention to the myriad pieces of the modern federal government. Good presidents may appoint solid lieutenants to run the government competently, but even the most dedicated president can only focus attention on a limited number of areas during his term without dispersing himself so thoroughly as to render his attentions meaningless. The rest of the government then is on no better than autopilot. When the president fails to appoint good lieutenants, the results can be tragic, and even with competent subordinates, departments on autopilot are likely to stagnate and have difficulty adapting to changes in their area of interest over time.
Congress faces similar difficulties, as with the size of Congress fixed, as the government expands each individual Senator/Representative must oversee a larger and larger share of the bureaucracy. Add to this Congress’ unfortunate tendency to minimize its oversight of the government beyond earmarks and the chances of meaningful control from the legislative branch seems unlikely.
There are times when government programs are probably the best solution to a problem. Reasonable people can disagree about where to draw the line, but outside of anarchists the rest of the world agrees that there are some things only governments can do effectively. Government programs, however, have different feedback mechanisms than, for example, the market. Where a business that fails to attend to the needs of its customers will normally fail, a government program can, if not carefully overwatched, continue or even grow because the people who benefit from the program are far more vocal than the people who are hurt/not helped by it. Therefore, a government that grows beyond the ability of elected representives to oversee properly will tend to have many programs of dubious utility that nonetheless continue on year after year after year to no good effect. Again, reasonable people can disagree as to how many programs fall into this category, but I believe I can state without being overly controversial that the American government does have at least a few programs that fall into this category, and the larger it grows, the more programs are likely to slip off the radar of the taxpayers and their elected representatives.
I do not expect the American government to downsize significantly in any area, for reasons any student of politics is well-aware. I will note, however, that the expectation that it is the province of the federal government to move for any issue, almost no matter how small, promises only to further expand the federal government and to therefore further diffuse the ability of elected officials to control the government effectively.
Update: Not a minor accident. See Dave Shuler’s excellent post here. My apologies for the error. If I may be permitted a brief defense, my ability to track the news from Narn is somewhat restricted.
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I think you’re mixing two issues here. Why is Bush getting involved? Because his ratings are in the tank, and he’s desperate for some positive TV time.
But should the Federal government care about the state of the (Interstate) highway system? Of course.
All those who would prefer to have the state government of Arkansas or Louisiana perform the job (especially as those governments were constituted in the 1940s and 50s) raise your hand – we’ll try to throw you a life line from the shore.
I have to say, I think this post also states the obvious.
The complete collapse of a major bridge across the Mississippi does not count in any universe as a “minor accident.”
Are more people dying in Iraq every day thanks to suicide bombers? Yes. To belittle the tragedy here in my adoptive home state is odious and it undercuts the merit of the argument presented.
I would actually say the opposite — it’s too early to say, but I’m guessing it’s more likely that downsizing, cuts, etc. led to the lack of supervision that led to this.
it’s not that the government is too big per se. it’s that we as a society expect our government to do a lot but refuse to provide the resources necessary to accomplish those goals.
but i also think you’re using an idealized version of markets — i mean, every one hates their health care insurance and cable provider, but there’s some demand inelasticity there, etc. and they’re doing quite nicely these days
“I would actually say the opposite — it’s too early to say, but I’m guessing it’s more likely that downsizing, cuts, etc. led to the lack of supervision that led to this.”
At this point I haven’t seen anything addressing the direct cause, so we’re probably just engaging in an exercise of confirming our own biases. But as far as this specific suggestion goes, we are talking about Minnesota here, not Texas. It is probably the closest we have to Sweden in the US.
to clarify, i have no idea what did or didn’t cause it. i haven’t read the stories. my larger point was that i think it’s doubtful that the bigness of government caused this.
also, isn’t this is a federal interstate?
Interstate freeways are subsidized by the government, but they are owned, operated and maintained by the state they are in.
BTW, I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a minor accident. If forced to classify it, I would call it something like the low side of a major accident. But I tend to think it isn’t a federal issue (except if federal government money were diverted or corrupted in the system, which is possible–see the decades long history of levees in New Orleans for instance)
I was impressed at how well the Republicans were able to take ownership of the conversation. Gov. Pawlenty’s face was everywhere, Sen. Coleman was interviewed on two outlets I watched/heard, and now President Bush lets us know that he feels their pain. The governor had information to offer, but Coleman and Bush just seemed to use their sharp elbows to make sure they were heard.
But where were the Democrats? Mayor Rybak was front and center, but I haven’t heard a peep from the other senator (Klobuchar) or the local congressman (Ellison, I think). I’d like to think it’s just because they knew they didn’t have anything new to say, but maybe it’s just that they haven’t learned to use their elbows yet.
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Think of it as affirmative action for nominal right wingers.
I think this post also states the obvious.
Fair enough. I find that what is obvious for some is quite new to others, but that is strictly my own opinion. Still, the comments alone are quite interesting from where I am sitting, so I do not regret the post even if it did merely state the obvious. I find the discussions here are often far more interesting than the posts which inspire them.
To belittle the tragedy here in my adoptive home state is odious
My apologies. I did not intend to belittle anything; as I said, this was unquestionably a tragedy.
i also think you’re using an idealized version of markets
I’m not sure I follow you. I made no absolute claims, only one generalization about markets in general. Perhaps I should have noted that there are exceptions, but I thought the use of the caveat ‘normally’ would make it clear it was not a universal. Or am I misunderstanding your complaint?
As for idealization of general concepts, a good line for discerning between conservatives and liberals is whether they use idealized versions of governments or markets.
The typical fun conversation goes:
Liberal–the market has problems at point A, an idealized government could easily fix that.
Conservative–the government has problem X, an idealized market could easily fix that.
Hooray, you’re both right. The problem is that we have non-ideal governments and non-ideal markets. And worst is when business gets to use non-ideal governments to create even less-ideal markets (FCC spectrum auction anyone? Chrysler bailout and auto protectionism?) and freeze out market forces that would normally drive them some other way.
Fruitful discussion can’t really take place unless conservatives are willing to really truly see the market oddities AND unless liberals are willing to really truly see how governments become perverse in their incentives.
Would be helpful if conservatives would help edjumakte us poor dumb liberals on when and HOW the markets could get around the tough spots–a lot of times, it’s all been reduced to sneers and cliches when a little elucidation would go a long way.
Can’t speak for everyone, but I’d be happy to do it when specific cases come up.
But notice, that isn’t what I was talking about. I said that conservatives need to understand market failures and liberals need to understand government failures.
It is easy to go the other way, because it fits with our biases.
Dave Shuler’s implication seems to be that if only a private corporation had been responsible for the bridge, then maintainance would have been improved (regardless of the effect on profits). I’m not at all convinced that corporations emphasize long-term concerns more than government does. But then I’m just a dumb liberal.
The more I think about this, the more I think it has nothing to do with political ideology.
Look, we are notoriously bad at taking care of things – or even, for that matter, ourselves – over the longhaul. Think of bridges, school buildings, airplanes, and even our own bodies. We tend to do the bare minimum of maintaining any or all of these, putting off and putting off the tough maintenance necessities, until the bridge actually falls or the school’s roof actually caves in, or the airplane actually fails in mid-air, or our teeth actually fall out.
I think it’s a throwback to pre-rational magical thinking: “That which I am unaware of cannot hurt me; therefore, if I remain unware of it, I don’t have to deal with it.”
Speaking as a sometimes anarchist, (Aspirationally, anyway; I don’t see a way from here to there.) I should point out that even anarchists understand that some things can only effectively be done by government.
They just question whether they’re worth doing at the price of having to HAVE a government…
Dave Shuler’s implication seems to be that if only a private corporation had been responsible for the bridge, then maintainance would have been improved (regardless of the effect on profits).
I second that. Corporations (like some government organizations) often take a notoriously lousy long-term view and focus more on near-term profits.
In some ways, corporations may be even less likely to take a long-term view than governments or individuals, because there may be greater chance that whatever problems occur won’t end up being their problems. The bridge have been might sold to another company by the time it collapses, or the person might have moved on to a different insurance company by the time the expensive health problem crops up that could have been prevented by earlier action.
Look, we are notoriously bad at taking care of things – or even, for that matter, ourselves – over the longhaul.
Not necessarily so. Many of us do things like exercise, save for retirement, clean our eaves troughs, etc. And many governments do a good job in looking after infrastructure. My own home city is constantly doing things like earthquake upgrading of infrastructure. My own neighborhood has been in chaos for the last year as huge water mains are being replaced.
If the civil service is doing a lousy job at looking after the infrastructure then there’s something wrong with that civil service. But it’s not a natural state.
“Dave Shuler’s implication seems to be that if only a private corporation had been responsible for the bridge, then maintainance would have been improved (regardless of the effect on profits). I’m not at all convinced that corporations emphasize long-term concerns more than government does.”
Hmmm, but there are devestating costs to corporations for doing failing to maintain their major assets. Take a bridge for example. If a corporation were running a toll bridge, the institutional cost for having it collapse would include–people dying, the corporation getting sued for people dying, and the lack of revenue from the bridge until it got fixed. In all likelyhood this would mean that the corporation would fail after the bridge failed. In fact, even if the company ran 10 bridges and just one of them failed like that, the company would be out of business putting pretty much everyone working there out of a job and completely destroying any investment for its investors.
So the company has a huge incentive (built into the idea of profits–even relatively short term) to maintain the bridge properly.
For governments the failure is–some people die.
The reason we have governments typically do things like bridges has very little to do with the maintainence of bridges, and lots to do with the huge amount of capital which has to be expended at the beginning to build a bridge.
And even if the same company is still responsible, the executives who made the bad decisions for short-term gain may have taken their bonuses and moved on long before the bill comes due. Of course that can apply to politicians as well.
So the company has a huge incentive (built into the idea of profits–even relatively short term) to maintain the bridge properly.
No, not really, because the company can declare bankruptcy in the event of a catastrophic occurrence. Also, negligent maintenance is something you can insure against.
The market is far from perfect. Companies do have an incentive to maintain infrastructure, but they have other incentives as well. I think double-plus-ungood hit the nail on the head above when he noted that corporations (although I’d say that some, possibly many, rather than the implied all) tend to take a short-term view rather than a long-term view. It’s important to remember that corporations are a human institution, and like all human institutions they are run by all-too-fallible human beings. I do believe that, as a general rule, businesses have more incentives to alter their behavior than governments, but I do not think that means that markets are anything close to infallible.
“Also, negligent maintenance is something you can insure against.”
But the insurance company will charge enormous amounts of money for it unless you have a good maintenance program. And they won’t underwrite you at all unless they’ve inspected the bridge and found it sound.
Just because you can insure against something doesn’t mean you can do so cheaply. This is an area where the market functions very efficiently when the government allows.
“No, not really, because the company can declare bankruptcy in the event of a catastrophic occurrence.”
This is a really weird thing to say. If a bridge company has to go out of business, you think that isn’t an incentive to keep up the bridge?
I would note that the short term view among corporations is likely more prevalent at publicly traded ones because of (a) the intense pressure to meet quarterly earnings targets/expectations; and (b) the even greater separation between owners and managers.
Hmmm, but there are devestating costs to corporations for doing failing to maintain their major assets.
Indeed. Look at the Savings and Loan crisis of the ’80s, for example. Imagine the same crew looking after, for example, your water supply.
Shudder.
If a bridge company has to go out of business, you think that isn’t an incentive to keep up the bridge?
It’s a great incentive for the company. Sadly, companies are inanimate objects devoid of free will. For the people who run the company, who face no liability, it’s not such a great incentive.
Mantaining a bridge seems like a terrible place to look for a market-based solution because there’s no competition. It’s not like there are 5 toll bridges across the river and motorists will choose the safest one. Instead, the only opportunity for competition is in the initial bidding process, which will always be won by the company that saves a penny here and a penny there and prays that a catastrophic occurrence doesn’t happen. The company which spends what it takes to adequately maintain the bridge will always lose out on the basis of price to the company that cuts corners.
But the insurance company will charge enormous amounts of money for it unless you have a good maintenance program. And they won’t underwrite you at all unless they’ve inspected the bridge and found it sound.
I deal with liability insurers in my job all the time. You vastly overrate their ability to evaluate the effectiveness of a maintenance program. If they were able to make a perfect measurement of risk and raise their rates in proportion to the actual risk, then yes, that would be a great market mechanism.
I do believe that, as a general rule, businesses have more incentives to alter their behavior than governments, but I do not think that means that markets are anything close to infallible.
A private corporations responsibilities are to its shareholders, a government’s is to the electorate. Generally speaking, a government employee has a far greater incentive to do their jobs properly when maintaining public infrastructure than a corporate employee would.
“I deal with liability insurers in my job all the time. You vastly overrate their ability to evaluate the effectiveness of a maintenance program. ”
Actually I deal with them almost every day on my job too. Do you negotiate the cost of the contract? Which insurance company are you dealing with that regularly charges less than they have to pay out and whose underwriters don’t care about the underlying risk?
“The company which spends what it takes to adequately maintain the bridge will always lose out on the basis of price to the company that cuts corners.”
Why? The lack of competition works both ways. The toll bridge company can charge a high enough toll to maintain the bridge and neither risk the destruction of their money-making asset, nor cut profits.
“Generally speaking, a government employee has a far greater incentive to do their jobs properly when maintaining public infrastructure than a corporate employee would.”
Why do you believe that to be true?
Most government employees are not elected and they are almost never fired. Do you disagree with either of those statements?
The toll bridge company can charge a high enough toll to maintain the bridge and neither risk the destruction of their money-making asset, nor cut profits.
Wouldn’t this be akin to a monopoly?
The Big Dig here in Boston is likely to become the canonical “nobody’s perfect” example. A combination of government and private incompetence, possibly reaching criminal levels, has led to one death, massive unanticipated repairs in the short run, and projected long-term maintenance costs far higher than originally expected.
Given that the main private firm involved – Bechtel – is huge, with operations and projects worldwide, I’m a little dubious that the “private companies are better because they have better incentives” argument has as much force as is sometimes ascribed to it.
Do you disagree with either of those statements?
I disagree with the second. Regarding the first, those hiring, firing, and overseeing civic employees are elected. Do you not see a connection there?
Mmmm… I’m not going to argue that markets are perfect, but at least the owners of companies have some incentive to properly maintain their assets. Steve mentioned bankruptcy as an out. The only problem with that idea is that in a bankruptcy the owners almost always lose their entire investment (the old stock is cancelled and the creditors receive new stock as part of the settlement).
As far as selling the bridge to another company as a way to avoid paying the cost of deferred maintenance, the second company most likely will conduct an inspection before taking delivery, and mark down the price accordingly if the inspection finds maintenance problems.
Now, having said that, yeah management of a company (as opposed to the owners) can pump up profits for a couple of years through deferred maintenance, collect big bonuses and cash in stock options, and get out of town quickly. That’s a huge problem which I won’t deny.
In the public sector, actors generally face no adverse consequences for their actions. Nobody (except the taxpayers of Minnesota — well, and the U.S., once the Senators get an earmark put into the next appropriations bill) will have to pay up, nobody will lose a job. Deferred maintenance, for politicians, is a costless way to make the budget balance.
If you don’t like privitazation (and I’m skeptical of it myself when it comes to roads), how about toll roads? My impression is that, because they have a guaranteed funding base independent of politics, toll roads are much better maintained than freeways in the same states.
The reason we have governments typically do things like bridges has very little to do with the maintainence of bridges, and lots to do with the huge amount of capital which has to be expended at the beginning to build a bridge.
This is wrong, and it is important to realize what an enormous success has been achieved over our history by public works — a success that would not be possible relying on private industry to do it without government involvement. Also, once the public is in the bridge and road business in a big way, it is very hard for a profit model to compete against it, and you get very weird behavior. A good example are some of the toll roads in Southern California, which have contractual commitments from the public agencies NOT to improve competing public services so as to undermine the profitability of the toll road.
There is vastly more private capital available than public capital, and it is entirely possible to have a road and bridge network financed and run entirely by private enterprise, with everyone paying tolls for the profit of the operators. I would like to see someone explain how it would be more efficient to society as a whole to privatize such functions.
As for the alleged greater efficiency and foresight of private industry over government operations for such basic services, I would gladly compare the performance of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power over the last 100 years to any private utility performing water or electric service. Or how the efforts to privatize electric service in California resulted in a market driven boondoggle costing $20 billion which probably wiped out for a generation any alleged savings from the privatizing effort. And the private utility scam of the California energy market is what one can typically expect in a free market run utility service.
Anyone who thinks private industry is more likely to take care of bridges should look at the history of private railroads and their bridge and track maintenance traditions. Once a service becomes less profitable, maintenance gets sacraficed, and accidents inevitably occur.
Deferred maintenance, for politicians, is a costless way to make the budget balance.
If this collapse is linked to that, I suspect there will jail terms for those responsible. That, to my mind, is a bigger incentive to do a job well than risk of bankruptcy.
One might speculate that in a truly free market, no maintenance would be done at all. A few hundred deaths and injuries and the cost of rebuilding the bridge may well be less expensive than decades of maintenance costs.
My goodness, did I leave that impression? That certainly wasn’t the intent. A brief summary of what I was trying to say is that a) this bridge (entirely within a single state/mostly used for commuter traffic) is clearly a state responsibility; b) Minnesota is less opposed to government action than most state (as Simon noted above; c) what does that say about the rest of the states? d) governments at all levels need to stop spending every penny that comes in and start socking some away to deal with foreseeable maintenance.
Well, that sounds more than reasonable, Dave, at least to me.
A simple economic problem with private toll bridges and the like is that they are, as d-p-u points out, monopolies. That means, as a matter of basic economics, they do not produce an economically efficient outcome. The tolls will be “too high” and the road will be too little used.
Incidentally, while I agree with Sebastian when he writes,
I think this overlooks the other side of the problem. Conservatives need to drop the reflexive disdain for government that so many of them exhibit and liberals of course need to understand the power of markets as well. IMO, speaking broadly, liberals are way ahead of conservatives on this.
Don’t you guys have anything like a mandated contingency reserve for things like infrastructure? What would prevent one government from gutting maintenance in order to lower taxes and leave all the headaches for the next one?
Which insurance company are you dealing with that regularly charges less than they have to pay out and whose underwriters don’t care about the underlying risk?
It doesn’t sound like you gave my comment a fair reading. My point was that measuring future risk is a very imperfect science and that liability insurers are generally not equipped to make an in-depth evaluation of the safety prospects for something like a highway bridge.
Life insurers, for example, can consult their actuarial charges and conclude that given your age, height, weight, family history, smoker/non-smoker status, and all that, your median life expectancy is 33.84 years. They can say that because actuaries have a lot of data points to look at. But you can’t look at a bridge and say, okay, if you use safety procedures X, Y, and Z, there’s an 8.35% chance this bridge will fall down in the next five years. No one has anywhere near the volume of empirical data that would be necessary to reach that sort of conclusion, and calculate a fair price for liability insurance based on it.
So instead, they end up making a pretty rough guess. In terms of safety measures, they ask you what you’re doing to maintain the bridge, they may come out and kick the tires a little bit, but they’re not equipped to evaluate the fine distinctions between your maintenance program and what someone else might do and adjust the price accordingly.
The lack of competition works both ways. The toll bridge company can charge a high enough toll to maintain the bridge and neither risk the destruction of their money-making asset, nor cut profits.
I referred to competition in the context of the initial bidding process to operate a bridge. The company which does less maintenance (and prays for no disaster) can bid less.
If toll bridge operators can always charge a higher toll and increase revenues, I’m not sure why they don’t.
Also, there are good policy reasons why you don’t want some bridges to be a toll bridge.
a) this bridge (entirely within a single state/mostly used for commuter traffic) is clearly a state responsibility; b) Minnesota is less opposed to government action than most state (as Simon noted above;
This is an interstate highway bridge, so while the state has the obligation to maintain it, I’m pretty sure they get federal highway funds to do it with.
As for the other point, Minnesota has been on an anti-tax kick for several years now, so one shouldn’t pretend that it’s trying to be a socialist paradise.
My impression is that, because they have a guaranteed funding base independent of politics, toll roads are much better maintained than freeways in the same states.
An anecdote to the contrary. Corruption seems to have been involved. (“Though the design called for the footings to be buried in a deep layer of stone, sometimes called riprap, held in place by metal sheeting, neither was installed.”) But since the corruption was long ago, state officials took the opportunity to improve processes without worrying about casting blame. With a corporate owner, there would be the temptation to cover up, and not fix the underlying problems.
++ungood, “I disagree with the second. Regarding the first, those hiring, firing, and overseeing civic employees are elected. Do you not see a connection there?”
No I don’t. Do you? Do you believe for example that the Governor of Minnesota was likely to fire or have fired incompetent civil engineers before a disaster?
Do you honestly contest the idea that civil servants are more difficult to fire than your average company worker? Civil servants are almost never fired. Do you think company workers are almost never fired?
“A few hundred deaths and injuries and the cost of rebuilding the bridge may well be less expensive than decades of maintenance costs.”
Huh? Bridges cost a HUGE amount to build. I would be surprised if 100 years of maintenance could overcome the cost of rebuilding. That is why failing to maintain the structure would be such an unforgiveable government failure.
“If this collapse is linked to that, I suspect there will jail terms for those responsible. That, to my mind, is a bigger incentive to do a job well than risk of bankruptcy.”
You’re almost certainly wrong about that first sentence. Unless there was actual bribery and direct corruption leading to the collapse, I very confidently predict that no one goes to jail over this. No one is going to jail over “didn’t give a strong enough wording on my concerns”. In fact I will be shocked if more than two people lose their jobs over it–nothing remotely like losing a whole company.
Actually, I know a lot about the SoCal toll roads, having represented them for a while.
One set of toll roads are owned by a special purpose public agency, whose members are Orange County and the cities within the roads’ areas of benefit. The tolls pay down the debt incurred in building the roads.
A completely different toll road (the one paralleling the 91 Freeway) was built, owned and operated for a while by a consortium of investors. This group was the one that obtained a non-compete clause with Caltrans. After years of litigation, the affected counties condemned the road (at a very favorable price) and it too is a public road, with the toll payments going to pay off the debt incurred for condemning the road.
The overall experience is so far mixed. Creating a special purpose agency allows for access to capital markets in different ways from traditional government financing. So roads got built that would otherwise not have been built. But the traffic modeling on one road was way off and the toll road agency was in a real bind. It could not raise the tolls high enough to get the revenue stream necessary to pay down the debt (see Laffer Curve) and it really didn’t want to go into default. Default would badly affect Orange County’s credibility just as the taint of the bankruptcy was wearing off. And oddly enough the voters didn’t want the road owned by the trustee for the bondholders.
Fortunately the other toll road is running sufficiently ahead of needed revenue as to provide an intra-governmental loan to cover the shortfall.
Oh, and Caltrans now owns and maintains all the toll roads. The special purpose agencies are purely financing vehicles.
So far, the lesson appears to be that the private sector persistently grossly overestimates the savings to be obtained by privatizing water / wastewater / road / electricity utilities. Governments grab the deal for the upfront cash, then the newly private utility finds it needs to raise rates in order to cover the debt service plus the promised backfill of deferred maintenance plus the operating costs which are harder to cut than expected. Voters get cranky, politicians don’t get re-elected, and litigation gets filed.
Creating the appropriate oversight structure to insure proper maintenance of long-lived public infrastructure is really hard. Publicly-owned utilities need to provide a return to their shareholders, so will skimp on maintenance to keep rates within reason. Special purpose public agencies are subject to corruption and cronyism. Municipalities will skim money out of money-making services, like the water department, to cover shortfalls in the general budget.
All the government-versus-private industry talk aside, it is entirely possible that the failure of this bridge had nothing to do with its maintenance, or, more precisely, anyone’s intent or incentive to properly maintain it. Sometimes the best efforts fail, and sometimes structural flaws are not reasonably predictable or detectable. There’s a probabilistic aspect to such things, and given the number of bridges in this county (and the world), and the number of years over which they may fail, the highly improbable may occassionally come to pass. That’s not to say that someone didn’t royally screw the pooch regarding the inspection and preventative maintenance of this bridge, but we don’t know that someone did simply because the bridge collapsed.
Dave Shuler, sorry for misinterpreting. What you said in your comment here sounds reasonable. Your post seemed to be contrasting families and companies, which are prudent, with governments, which are not. Maybe the fact that G’Kar linked to it caused me to go in with certain expectations.
Steve, “My point was that measuring future risk is a very imperfect science and that liability insurers are generally not equipped to make an in-depth evaluation of the safety prospects for something like a highway bridge.”
And insurance companies are aware of the problem. What do they do? They charge even more than they do with easily quantifiable risks. That is why the idea that insurance is likely to dissuade maintainence is pretty close to a ridiculous proposition.
“If toll bridge operators can always charge a higher toll and increase revenues, I’m not sure why they don’t.”
Often the state won’t let them. Government action, again. And the fact is that people really do use alternate routes. In California there are toll roads which are MUCH faster, MUCH more direct and charge about $8 depending on the time of day. MOST of the traffic is on the freeways.
Dmbeaster “Or how the efforts to privatize electric service in California resulted in a market driven boondoggle costing $20 billion which probably wiped out for a generation any alleged savings from the privatizing effort.”
This makes me think you aren’t paying attention to your own examples. The ‘privitization’ of the electric service had the government of California outlaw the use of long term contracts to level out the price over time. It mandated the use of the spot price. No normal company would ever have been stupid enough to do that. That is actually a classic example where the government acted in a short-sighted fashion while private enterprise wanted to take a longer view.
The government saw a low spot price so when companies wanted long term contracts at higher than that price (because it was obvious to people who cared about such things that the price of electricity was at an unlikely-to-be-sustained low) it made it illegal to do so. That decision was a huge disaster when the price of electricity went up in the subsequent years. Long term contracts at the prices desired would have been much cheaper than the later prices, and since they were above the initial spot price, they would have incentivized more generation as well, which would have helped too.
OT: Beauchamp, verified.
hairshirthedonist is totally correct by the way.
“I am honestly mystified at the idea the President has to stand up and state the obvious as part of his job.”
But that is, in fact, the job of the head of state.
Sometimes it’s also the job of the head of government, but stating the obvious, and presiding over it, is precisely the modern job of head of state.
Your criticisms, G’Kar, might all be appropriate if we had a parliamentary government, and you were wondering why the Prime Minister was speaking to the nation’s feelings at a time of great tragedy (which this is — when 50 cars and school buses sail off a bridge in a major city as it collapses, it’s a huge thing, no matter that this bridge across the Mississipi isn’t as grand and famous as, say, the Golden Gate or Brooklyn Bridges), although in fact the head of government also has a role to play in calming and reassuring the nation, and it would be normal for a PM to address any nation in such circumstances.
But to question that the job of the head of state is to do other than comfort the nation at a time of tragedy makes little sense to me. What’s wrong with that, in such cases?
“(more people die in traffic accidents)”
Far more people died in traffic accidents in 2003 (42,884) than on September 11th, 2001. We lose ~40,000 people a year just in the U.S. to just traffic. So why all the fuss about terrorism, then? Why don’t we just accept up to 40,000 dead Americans from terrorism every year as just part of life?
Why is a “mere” couple of thousand every… how often?… worth the president even making a speech about, according to your logic here?
I’ll agree with HSH, as well. We are getting way ahead of ourselves on causes.
On the subject at hand, I am biting back an urge to go through the main post line by line, but will leave it at one:
“Good presidents may appoint solid lieutenants to run the government competently, but even the most dedicated president can only focus attention on a limited number of areas during his term without dispersing himself so thoroughly as to render his attentions meaningless. The rest of the government then is on no better than autopilot.”
It is a pity that presidents cannot appoint senior executives to decide policy for each of the departments in the government, and even other senior staff to carry out the policy and oversee the department. We could even call the collective group of such executives by a name like, perhaps, the cabinet.
They charge even more than they do with easily quantifiable risks. That is why the idea that insurance is likely to dissuade maintainence is pretty close to a ridiculous proposition.
It’s weird how you often make statements I totally agree with, and then leave me scratching my head as you draw a conclusion 180 degrees opposite from what I would have concluded.
Let’s say we have Company A and Company B which both maintain bridges. Company A is cheap and does $1000 less maintenance than Company B each month because it wants to cut corners.
In theory, an insurer should charge Company B less for insurance since its bridge is less likely to fall down due to the extra maintenance. In practice, because the risks and rewards of different maintenance programs can’t be easily quantified, there’s unlikely to be much of a difference in their insurance premiums. If Company B gets to pay less, it won’t be $1000 less. In this kind of murky situation that can’t be readily reduced to numbers like an actuarial table, the insurer typically seeks to answer a binary question: do you have an adequate maintenance program, or don’t you?
The result is that the existence of insurance disincentivizes Company B from spending extra money on maintenance. Instead, their incentive is to “do the minimum” necessary to satisfy their insurer that their maintenance program is adequate, and everything else is money down the drain, from a financial standpoint.
Where insurance exists, the only financial incentive to do extra maintenance is that it might reduce your premium. In this context, where it’s unlikely to make a big difference in the premium, market forces aren’t going to get the job done.
All the government-versus-private industry talk aside, it is entirely possible that the failure of this bridge had nothing to do with its maintenance, or, more precisely, anyone’s intent or incentive to properly maintain it.
Of course it’s possible, but we already know enough to at least enable us to start asking the right questions. I don’t want to get into another Katrina whipsaw where one day it’s too soon to start playing the so-called blame game, and the next day it’s old news that people should stop talking about. As this Minnesota blog puts it:
A MN DOT document from March 2006 indicated that the bridge was scheduled for repairs in 2006, but it was removed from the schedule because it would be more efficient to do the work in 2007. One of the questions that needs to be answered is if budget constraints were the cause of delaying the repairs.
If the lack of funding for bridge repairs and inspections had anything to do with the collapse of the 35W bridge and the loss of life it caused, it has the potential to be a political landmine for Governor Pawlenty and those legislators who voted to support his transportation bill veto.
It shouldn’t be that hard to get answers to these questions, even though certain people undoubtedly have a vested interest in stonewalling. If a politician wants to run for office on an anti-tax platform, then he needs to be held accountable if (and I emphasize if) his tight-fisted ways lead to a preventable accident.
If we don’t try to answer these questions and settle the issue of whether we’re spending enough on infrastructure and maintenance, then we’re just going to keep cutting taxes over and over as the roads and bridges get worse and worse, wondering all the while how come the government won’t ever fix that pothole.
Steve, your hypothetical neglects the very live possibility of having a super-duper program and negotiating for lower fees based on that. It also neglects the very live possibility of choosing to spend $30,000 more per year on doing a great job maintaining your principal asset and choosing not to spend $100,000 on insurance. Or taking out half the insurance and saving $50,000.
And in any case, we are only talking about liability insurance (for people dying or getting hurt in the collapse). There is no way you are getting primary asset insurance without a very thorough underwriting investigation and that goes double for business interruption insurance. I suspect in many cases, insurance will not be available at any kind of ‘reasonable’ rate, so your worry about insurance causing a disincentive with respect to maintaining the asset is misplaced.
Steve, you’re right on. Minnesota has jettisoned the liberal tradition that made it one of the most livable states in the nation (despite horrible weather). A group called the Taxpayer’s League convinced Pawlenty to take a no new taxes pledge, which led to a veto of a transportation bill in large part because it contained a gas tax increase. It has also led to a huge increase in local property taxes, but Pawlenty had plausible deniability since property taxes aren’t a state matter. I don’t understand why Minnesotans turned their backs on a system that seemed to work. Some people bitched about high taxes, but they led to demonstrable results. Good educational system, good health care, good infrastructure (though MN winters are hell on roads). One can’t blame Pawlenty, since this change has happened over time. He’s just the culmination.
Scary.
According to a report card released in 2005 by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 160,570 bridges, or just over one-quarter of the nation’s 590,750-bridge inventory, were rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The nation’s bridges are being called upon to serve a population that has grown from 200 million to over 300 million since the time the first vehicles rolled across the I-35W bridge. Predictably that has translated into lots more cars. American commuters now spend 3.5 billion hours a year stuck in traffic, at a cost to the economy of $63.2 billion a year.
OCSteve, the question is what “structurally deficient” and “functionally obsolete” mean.
It also neglects the very live possibility of choosing to spend $30,000 more per year on doing a great job maintaining your principal asset and choosing not to spend $100,000 on insurance. Or taking out half the insurance and saving $50,000.
But surely when you’re in the business of maintaining a major public asset such as a highway bridge, you can’t just shrug your shoulders and choose to self-insure. It would be sheer folly to privatize the bridge without a covenant by the purchaser to maintain adequate insurance at all times. Otherwise, you have a catastrophe and no money to clean it up with.
I suspect in many cases, insurance will not be available at any kind of ‘reasonable’ rate, so your worry about insurance causing a disincentive with respect to maintaining the asset is misplaced.
…and I’d make the same point here, in a different context. You may be right that no one wants to provide asset coverage, but in that case, the government is going to have no choice but to be the insurer of last resort. And if the government is responsible for covering the costs of a catastrophe, then it might as well do the preventative maintenance itself, rather than constantly look over the shoulder of a private company that bears none of the risk itself.
How often does that happen in real life? I know that’s NOT standard for a lot of private companies I’m familiar with…but whether that’s the majority of companies is relevant to the discussion.
“We are getting way ahead of ourselves on causes.”
“We”?
How about “some people”? Because at the very least there’s a far larger “we” who have done no such thing, and see no reason to let you who have done that off the hook. 🙂
That’s what we think, of course. 😉 We’re all quite agreed.
“You may be right that no one wants to provide asset coverage, but in that case, the government is going to have no choice but to be the insurer of last resort. And if the government is responsible for covering the costs of a catastrophe, then it might as well do the preventative maintenance itself, rather than constantly look over the shoulder of a private company that bears none of the risk itself.”
I’m with you for the most part, but your conclusion doesn’t seem to follow. First, we’re all aware that the government was in charge in the case at hand, right? So it is apparent that the risk of having bridges collapse exists in both scenarios. You seem to think that the private company will be thrilled to have its only asset and way to make money suddenly fall into the river. Even if we have the government as the insurer of last resort it would be horrible for the company to suddenly lose its only asset and its source of income.
That is much more painful to the company than it ever is to the government.
“A MN DOT document from March 2006 indicated that the bridge was scheduled for repairs in 2006, but it was removed from the schedule because it would be more efficient to do the work in 2007. One of the questions that needs to be answered is if budget constraints were the cause of delaying the repairs.”
I would guess that a more likly reason is that there is only so much bridge repare capability (either public or private) in the area (in terms of man power and equipment) and the level it is at is sufficent to support the average bridge repair/building needs. There is no good reason to have the capability to cover the largest possible load if it can easily be shifted.
Structural analysis is hard, there are too many variables and too little information. For all we know this could have been caused by a bad batch of cement when they were building the bridge that was, for what ever reason, more susceptable to repetative stress of being driven on and no amount of maintence, short of replacing the bridge, and concievably no way to tell. Our it is possible that having construction equipment parked on the surface hastened the failure and all doing the work in 2006 would have done was cause it to collapse earlier.
While this discussion is interesting, useful, and important to have, it will possible have no relation to this case.
That is much more painful to the company than it ever is to the government.
But a company isn’t a thing that can feel pain, even in the loss of its existence. This idea that a company would consistently work in all of our long term interests by doing the maintenance it requires to protect its reputation may be true in some cases, but it isn’t universally true. A company that contracted forty years ago to build and maintain a bridge may have a bunch of executives now who’d be just as happy being picked up by Bechtel or CH2MHill when their current company goes under. (And who are the heirs to their bridge obligations anyway? I ask that wonderingly, not snarkily, ’cause now I’m curious.)
I’m willing to posit that some private corporations could build and maintain a bridge well. But I’m not willing to say that all companies have such a consistent interest in their longterm reputation that they will necessarily do a good job on the drudgery of maintaining a bridge for decades. That isn’t a function of private or public processes; that is a function of dedication to the long-term. Either a company or a public works department could do that.
I also think it is worth noting that a private company’s goal is to make a profit. In the case of privatizing public works, the intention is that they can make a profit by doing a good job serving the public. The purpose of a civil service is to serve the public. Some do that well, some don’t. But if the goal is to serve the public, I’d have to be convinced that the detour of making-a-profit is always the same thing.
I’d like to read people arguing against their biases, as Sebastian recommended.
I’m perfectly willing to grant that centralized government is the appropriate agency for a fairly large swath of functions, particularly the kind of thing that tends to span states. There’s the question of which functions the federal government ought to be involving itself in, of course, but possibly you’re conflating conservatives with libertarians, here. Not saying there’s no conservatives griping about nanny-state this and that, but you don’t find many conservatives arguing that national defense ought to be farmed out to state and local government.
All that aside, and back to the main topic, there could be something akin to FAA, tasked with regulating and inspecting civil structures built with federal highway funds, but I don’t know exactly how that might pan out. Plus, FAA isn’t fault-proof.
FWIW.
“All that aside, and back to the main topic, there could be something akin to FAA, tasked with regulating and inspecting civil structures built with federal highway funds,but I don’t know exactly how that might pan out.”
Could perhaps be added to the mandate of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
But maybe a separate sub-agency folded into the Department of Transportation would be better.
If such a thing seems desirable, that is, about which I have no position just now.
“Plus, FAA isn’t fault-proof.”
What is? But it (and the NTSB and other related agencies) seems to generally do a pretty good job. Especially compared to some countries that lack its services. That seems relevant to the whole public/private debate, also FWIW, it seems to me. Do people feel safer on American airlines, inspected by the FAA, as a rule, or on EgyptAir, Indian Airlines, Cubana, China Airlines, or Brazilian, or Angolan, or Russian airlines?
(Helpful stats here and here.)
Do you honestly contest the idea that civil servants are more difficult to fire than your average company worker? Civil servants are almost never fired.
Surely we should be looking at who is more likely to be fired for gross incompetence, or loss of life, rather than who is more difficult to fire in general.
Company workers are fired a lot because the company can’t support the workforce, or because workers aren’t bringing in the required profit. In these cases (particularly the first), government employees aren’t fired too often.
In the case of gross incompetence, I don’t think the difference is near as great – especially when you look at the upper management. The upper management of government have to worry a lot more about public relations than the upper management of many companies.
Maybe the fact that G’Kar linked to it caused me to go in with certain expectations.
Interesting.
“Maybe the fact that G’Kar linked to it caused me to go in with certain expectations.
Interesting.”
Heh.
“But a company isn’t a thing that can feel pain, even in the loss of its existence. This idea that a company would consistently work in all of our long term interests by doing the maintenance it requires to protect its reputation may be true in some cases, but it isn’t universally true.”
But the people who work there might not be thrilled to suddenly lose their jobs. I find it crazy that you can trust so blithely in the idea that “the purpose of a civil service is to serve the public” but you assume that people who will profit by having a functioning bridge would just let it go down. Public servants don’t as a whole have a reputation for being super-industrious. I’m sure if we could always have super-industrious civil servants, this would be a completely different style of conversation. Most management would be happier to have the corporation around rather than not have it around. And despite the existance of some prominent counterexamples, running a corporation into the ground and killing dozens of people doing it is not great for the resume.
“I’m willing to posit that some private corporations could build and maintain a bridge well. But I’m not willing to say that all companies have such a consistent interest in their longterm reputation that they will necessarily do a good job on the drudgery of maintaining a bridge for decades.”
We all know that THIS bridge was maintained by a public entity right? Can we keep that well in mind?
I’m willing to posit that some governmental entities can maintain things in the long run, but I’m not willing to say that all governmental entities have a consistent interest in their long term reputations that they will necessarily do a good job on the drudgery of maintaining a bridge for decades.
The first reports of serious problems with this bridge were in 1990. That is 17 years ago in one of the most socially progressive states in the nation.
I find it crazy that you can trust so blithely in the idea that “the purpose of a civil service is to serve the public” but you assume that people who will profit by having a functioning bridge would just let it go down.
No, they wouldn’t “just let it go down,” but they’d certainly scrimp on the maintenance costs, if failing to do so would preclude them from winning the bid to operate the bridge in the first place.
I’m not comforted by the idea that a private company which builds a bridge, which collapses due to improper materials or maintenance, will be motivated to avoid that by the risk of going out of business. There are too many ways for a company to evade consequences.
If the flaws are due to substandard materials or workmanship, they won’t be found in a due diligence review. The company can sell the bridge before the flaws manifest, leaving the new owner with the risk.
A company with the resources to build a bridge is likely to be a large corporation. Any one bridge in one city is a mere line item entry. The costs associated with maintaining that bridge are another line item. The revenue/profit projections are monitored by the senior managers in a corporate office – one probably far away from where their product (i.e., the bridge) is located – and their primary concern is keeping the shareholders happy, and that means continually cutting costs. Anyone who works for a company like this knows full well that maintenance is considered a “low-hanging fruit” for cost-cutting, particularly if the item being maintained is far away, or not much of a profit center. In other words, responsibility is too diffused, too impersonal, and outweighed by other considerations.
Also, a corporation of that type and size seldom, if ever, risks “going out of business” due to a product’s catastrophic failure. It has layers and layers of management to take the heat, which buffers the senior management from risk. It has the resources to get insurance that also buffers the senior management and shareholders from risk. It has the resources to hire attorneys who can keep a liability suit going on for years, or who can manage a settlement in which the company doesn’t admit fault.
A major corporation will also structure itself so that, if the worst happens, the worst will happen to a subsidiary: the subsidiary will declare bankruptcy, and the rest of the company will spin it off, leaving the rest to go on doing business and making money. Corporations do this routinely. They strategize which of their assets are likely to fail years ahead of time, and restructure to “proactively” isolate those assets. Again, the people who actually made the decision to make substandard, unsafe goods and services – the senior levels of management – will be untouched. In fact, Wall Street will hail them for their strategy, and their stock will go up!
This is how American business is structured today. It’s structured to protect senior management first, major shareholders (who usually, BTW, include senior management) second, and market share third. Protecting the public ranks just ahead of protecting employees.
Another factor is that, in the modern world, major infrastructure builders are few and far between, while also being so enormous they routinely subcontract most of their actual construction work. This gives them a virtual monopoly: if, say, Bechtel builds collapsing bridges, who can the consumer go to instead? Halliburton? What if Halliburton also builds collapsing bridges? What do you do then?
In fact, Bechtel and Halliburton are perfect examples of all the caveats I’ve listed. They do function through wholely-owned subsidiaries designed to take the heat and protect the home office; they do protect their senior management; they have been the subject of many investigations into corrupt practices and lousy construction… and they’re still in business. There’s no accountability.
Privatizing projects with a strong public safety requirement isn’t a matter of hiring a local company that uses local resources and worries about maintaining local goodwill or else going out of business. It’s a matter of contracting with a massive operation that has dedicated itself to maximizing profits while minimizing exposure to the consequences of doing badly.
Keeping such projects in the public sector keeps them localized. Most cities and states have laws requiring use of local businesses for the work. Those businesses, and the politicians and bureaucrats that contract with them, have fewer layers between themselves and the community. They’re more motivated to make sure things don’t go catastrophically wrong, because they’re right there, answerable to the community they serve.
Do people feel safer on American airlines, inspected by the FAA, as a rule, or on EgyptAir, Indian Airlines, Cubana, China Airlines, or Brazilian, or Angolan, or Russian airlines?
Local jokes:
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) = please inform Allah.
Air India (AI) = Allah informed.
G’Kar, welcome to the front page, and thanks for a great post.
The nominal topic was federalization, but we seem to have headed down a more general discussion of the relative responsibilities of government and the market. I guess I’d like to make some observations on the broader point.
It seems to me that, left to their own devices, private entities will often do whatever they can get away with in the interest of making a buck. Ideally, and perhaps in a theoretical economic context, they’ll take the long view and realize that doing the right thing, whatever that is in context, is likely to be the best long-term policy. In real life, it’s often — very often — not that way. Lots of folks will go for the quick buck, and take their chances.
In real life, the reason private entities do the “right thing”, whatever that is in context, is because they are required to do so, by law. Food and drug purity, building codes, financial disclosure for publicly held companies, workplace safety and fair labor practices — all enforced by law.
It wasn’t always that way. The reason it got that way was not because government saw a ripe field for the expansion of its responsibilities, but because the operation of pure market forces led to a number of egregious abuses of public trust, many of them quite spectacular. As a result, government got involved, not infrequently with some reluctance.
Net/net, my guess is that we’re more likely to get a good result entrusting maintenance of public infrastructure like highways to government, rather than a private entity. Not based on an economic model or theory, but just based on what I see people do, in real life.
I don’t know what happened in MN. I’m sure we’ll find out quite a lot more in the days to come.
Some other simple, and far from original, observations:
Some things are more or less natural monopolies. Most places don’t need multiple, competing transportation systems, utility infrastructures, sources of water, etc.
In lots of cases, it’s more valuable overall for certain services to be widely and reliably available, than for those services to be delivered in the most efficient way possible. Money shouldn’t be wasted, but squeezing the greatest economic value out of every dollar is not always the most important consideration. I’m thinking of obvious things like mail delivery, public safety and health, and schools.
Finally, I’ll observe that the simple operation of the market can lead to some wacky, and (in the big picture) counter-productive results. A simple case in point — about half the vehicles sold in the US today are trucks. Makes no sense, but lots of folks want them, the margins (for manufacturers) are better than for other vehicle types, so that’s what we drive.
That’s the unrestricted market at work. I’m not saying there should be laws about what kind of cars folks can buy, I’m just making the simple observation that, in the real world, simple market dynamics do not, in and of themselves, create optimal (in the big picture) results.
Thanks –
Sorry, final point.
Lots of insurance companies write policies at a loss. In other words, they write policies that they know, actuarily, are likely to result in outgoing payments that are larger than the premium.
They do this to generate cash — the “float” — that they can then invest.
This behavior is more prevalent when interest rates are higher, and less prevalent when not. But it’s a fact of life.
Thanks –
Seb,
As someone who is an actual, living breathing, working engineer, I think you’re missing 2 things:
1. It is often impossible for engineers to quantify the risk of deferred maintenance. In rare cases, an engineer can look at something and say “Oh, God, we have to fix this NOW or else people will die”, but that doesn’t happen often. Typically, an engineer will look at something and say, “we really should do some maintenance here to fix this issue, but the bridge is unlikely to collapse tomorrow; if we leave it alone, it will collapse eventually, but probably not very soon.”
2. Managers who make budgetary decisions based on engineering input cannot reason effectively about probabilities. That’s because human beings in general cannot reason well when it comes to probabilities, even human beings that are highly trained.
Quantifying risks is very hard and because we can’t do that, financial decisions are often made erring on the side of cost savings. Think about it: you have to balance a risk that you can’t really quantify against a cost that you feel immediately. And after you do it once, that makes doing it again much easier psychologically.
The truth is, your econ 101 model for how corporations work relies on perfect information that is simply not present in reality, even in hard nosed quantitative fields like engineering. I’m sure companies could do much better if engineers could tell them “this $10K maintenance plan is needed to eliminate a probabalistic loss of $50K” but we just can’t do that.
And yes, before you ask, I make these decisions and discuss it with management every single day. Every day, I have to attempt to quantify risk from potential defects, quantify the cost of repairing them, and present that information to management.
ok, not many people here really know a lot about government contracting, because this thread is really losing its way.
1. As Megan FromTheArchives knows, government offices these days are filled with specialists and contract managers. I doubt that any public infrastructure of any size has been built by government employees in 30 years. Design and construction work gets outsourced to the lowest bidder. (Megan FTA can correct me on this but my understanding is that O&M is largely in-house because it’s more efficient.)
2. OK, so we outsource the maintenance and upgrading contract. If it’s done on annual appropriation, we’re exactly where we started. So what’s the revenue source, tolling? You put a toll on every bridge and the current crop of politicians will all be unemployed within just a few years, and the new ones will take the tolls off. Take a look at the Bay Bridge. That has an electronic toll and still rush hour is a disaster.
3. The Democratic Party is not a bunch of saints. But the Republican Party has promised since 1980 that we could have lower taxes and ever growing entitlements. The consequence? Pretty substantial debt. But much more insidiously, we have consumed a massive amount of capital stock laid in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s without paying for it.
Just for grins, here’s a story about the failed privatization of the water utility in Stockton, and here’s a story about SH’s home, San Diego, needing to spend $1 Billion over the next six years to get its sewer system up to code.
How they’re going to pay for it?
On February 26, the San Diego City Council voted to increase wastewater rates by 8.75 percent beginning May 1, 2007. A further increase of 8.75 percent will be charged May 1, 2008, while increases of seven percent will become effective on May 1 in 2009 and again in 2010.
ouch. That’s a 35% increase in 4 years. just a little faster than inflation.
The nominal topic was federalization, but we seem to have headed down a more general discussion of the relative responsibilities of government and the market.
That’s what makes things here so interesting, russell. And thanks for your kind words.
A small quibble, however. The auto industry is far from an unrestricted market; CAFE standards, in particular, have a huge impact on the industry. Interestingly, I think that fact actually bolsters your point, as it is my understanding that manufacturers offer small cars at very low margins or even at a loss to up the overall fuel economy of their fleet. If they were not to do this, it’s interesting to wonder if even more people would drive larger vehicles.
I agree with your original post. Even an intelligent, competent, energetic and empathetic president can spend only a few minutes a day as the public spokesperson for a tragedy. Anything more than that is political opportunism or an inability to prioritize.
I think a responsible president, like an CEO, would make a short statement acknowledging the tragedy, and express empathy for those directly involved and confidence that the federal and/or state personnnel on the scene are competent, capable and will have whatever support he and Congress can responsibly provide.
The president should then declare victory and depart the field, leaving it to those with a personal and professional stake to get on with it. That’s called leadership. Privately, of course, the EOP should follow up with federal, state or local leaders to see that that confidence was warranted, to keep abreast of developments, and that whatever is needed is provided or, if not, why not, so that those responsible can make other arrangements.
Mr. Bush, however, has little empathy and no respect for those who do. He used the event to take partisan jabs at a Democratic Congress for not giving him his money, as if Congress were a recalcitrant trustee that insisted on an explanation of how George could possibly have already overspent his allowance.
More nauseating, Mr. Bush’s comments were intended for his base, not the grieving people of Minnesota, when he accused Congress of overspending. The same George Bush who will, of course, take credit for every dime Congress allocates for bridge repairs and rebuilding. And this president and his punditocrisy accuse the Democrats of being overly partisan?
Bernard,
Are you a Boston resident too? We should get all the OW Boston-based folk together for a Big Dig bitching session. Then we can bitch about how much the Sox suck.
What Turbulence said. Public or private, people who cannot deal with probability and statistics should not be making these kind of decisions.
Probably you’re right. I mean, I work on government contracts, so I’m of course the very last person you’d want to ask about that sort of thing.
Still, there are ways that work, and ways that don’t. For ways that don’t, see New Orleans and half of everything else the Army Corps of Engineers have done. Ways that do probably wouldn’t depend on something as capricious as state funding to keep mainenance and repair going.
But, speaking of maintenance, bridges are typically one-offs, whereas airplanes and automobiles tend to be mass-produced. Bridges also tend not to be made for easy disassembly to access those hard-to-get-at areas, so methinks the notion that simple inspection and maintenance might have averted the problem might not be a gimme.
I came away from Turbulence’s comment with a very different impression: that it’s impossible to accurately quantify risks using statistics, but he has to try and do it anyway.
Which sounds very familiar, even though I’m almost certainly in a far different line of work than he is.
Slarti & Tim,
You’re both right. If management just can’t understand the most basic notions of probability, there is no hope. On the other hand, even if management can understand, they will always be limited by human cognitive biases. And finally, since we can’t even approximate many risk probabilities that matter, management has very little to work with in any case.
Which sounds very familiar, even though I’m almost certainly in a far different line of work than he is.
Heh. It has been my experience that engineers in different fields often end up dealing with the same issues. My better half is an engineer that I suspect does work similar to yours and I’m quite used to hearing about how much ITAR sucks and what a ripoff rad-hardened parts are (yay $200 diodes).
Rad-hardened parts probably are a ripoff, unless you should happen to have the hardware in question take a dose. I don’t think, though, that rad-hard is much of a major requirements driver for much other than satellites.
ITAR probably does suck, but I always tend to look askance at our arms sales to Pakistan, for instance, and wonder if we’re getting anything decent in return, like OBL’s upper management team.
1. Remember the Challenger disaster and the problem with the O-rings? “Take off your engineering cap and put on your management cap.”
2. Slightly OT but related due to the probability question: sub-prime mortgages, the CDOs formed off the back of them, and the fact that it now looks like there’s a high chance that all of the rating agencies in fact underestimated the risk level. (As has been pointed out, the holdings in the Bear Sterns hedge fund that blew up had AAA ratings.)
Hmmm. Fatigue cracks found during 90’s inspections. 15,000 trucks per day; that’s a lot of flex cycles per year for something not designed for it.
As far as managers understanding statistics and probability, most of them max out at the mean, be they public or private. People making decisions with very small risk probabilities but very big penalties should understand the birthday paradox.
People making decisions with very small risk probabilities but very big penalties should understand the birthday paradox.
I don’t know how many people reading and commenting here are into this sort of thing, but I’m taking the risk of totally going off on an off-topic tangent. Anyway, the one thing I could never get my head around with regard to the Birthday Paradox was a rigorous calculation that accounted exactly for February 29th on leap years. I’m pretty sure the 50/50 cutoff remains the same whether you use 365 or 366 in the straightforward approximation. (I haven’t run the numbers in some time, but that’s how I remember it.) But from a pure math standpoint, neither calculation provides the exact probabilities. I guess I could google the exact calculation, but that would take the fun out of it, kind of like asking for directions when you’re lost.
Ok, Just for background.
MN has traditionally been seen as uber liberal. And it is in many ways, but for the past 5 years its been run under a pledge of no new taxes by Gov. Pawlenty. He has been using every trick in the book to attempt to avoid raising the state income tax. Including a weird gambit that involved having contractors paid with federal funds that arrived in the future. Contractors balked at that idea and none bid. MnDOT has been out of money for years.
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/497441.html
The issue with the bridge has reports going back just under 20 years. It isn’t just Pawlenty.
HSH, if you’re getting into that level of detail, you have to take into account that the distribution of birthdays isn’t actually uniform across the calendar.
HSH, if you’re getting into that level of detail, you have to take into account that the distribution of birthdays isn’t actually uniform across the calendar.
Culture Club’s most recognizable lyric is running through my mind. (And it ain’t Charma Cameleon, if I can spell.)
“Do you really want to hurt me?”?
I’m not saying it is, but MN hasn’t been Sweden for a while.
“I’m not saying it is, but MN hasn’t been Sweden for a while.”
20 years? I thought it had a long term reputation for being a lot like Sweden. Did that really end 20 years ago? Even 15?
“Do you really want to hurt me?”?
Yes. Specifically my head. Though, after thinking about it, you can make assumptions about these kind of problems as you see fit for the purposes of rigor and accuracy. So one can assume an even distribution of births throughout the year while still accounting for February 29th accurately under that assumption. In short, Feb 29 and intra-year birthrate fluxuations are two separate aspects of the problem which one may or may not choose to address.
Just watched the 3rd season of the BBC series (documentary) Coast. One of the great suspension bridges is predicted to fail in about 10 years at the current traffic but there is no solution in sight. Because it concerns the main cables, the bridge would have to be closed for a very long time. The detour is about 30 miles and simply unable to take the amount of traffic running daily over the bridge. It is yet unknown, whether the corrosion can be stopped and the answer will be avilable only a short time before the bridge will have to be closed.
I read in the newspaper today that in the past there was a good deal of maintenance fraud on German bridges, i.e. inspections prescribed by law did not actually occur and no less than 6 major briges had to be closed when the ADAC (motorist lobby) got wind of it and checked personally finding serious structural risks.
Even, if structural problems are known, the expectations can differ and both over- and underestimate the risk. One would also expect that in most cases a failure will not be in such a spectacular way but give warning signs early enough to close the access. As far as I can see from the news, the damage reports for the bridge were of the kind of “We can’t wait much longer but there is no immediate danger” and split on the question, whether a repair or a new bridge would be better both cost-and time-wise.
I can’t see yet, whether it was engineer’s or management’s fault but it was at least known that there was a problem with that bridge (unlike other cases, where simply noone had checked at all).
So, let’s see. We don’t know the risks from deferred maintenance. We don’t know the risk from deferred inspection, but that’s a gamble and not an unknown cost. If your inspection wouldn’t have found anything, then you lost nothing by not inspecting. If your inspection would have found something then you’ve delayed a lot of headaches arranging for precautionary repairs etc, paying for them, lots of things that you’ll have to do anyway after the current crisis is over but that you’d hate to have piled on your plate now.
My car is making a peculiar little sound somewhere around the right front wheel. I ought to take it in for inspection but I don’t have a mechanic yet that I really trust. I have one that charges moderate prices that I don’t trust, and one that charges exorbitant prices that I don’t trust. I ought to try out a new one. Am I going to get that noise inspected today? Probably not. I thought it was a little louder yesterday….
This is not a private-enterprise versus public agency problem. This is a human problem.
I’ve seen one way that guarantees good maintenance. You let a private monopoly run the facility, and you have a government agency regulate their profits, and the government agency allows profit on a cost-plus basis. So the more they spend on maintenance the more profit they make. Those places tend to have gleaming inspection and repair equipment, they’re careful to wash it and polish it every time they use it, and if it gets too dirty they throw it away and buy new stuff. They might not find all the defects but they’ll spend a lot of time looking for them.
The obvious but imperfect solution is to not put a whole lot of money into things that depreciate slowly. If you spend a billion dollars on something that’s supposed to last a hundred years, you’re guessing that it will still be needed for a hundred years and that it will be properly maintained for a hundred years. Two big leaps of faith.
If you instead do cheaper projects with a lifetime of three years, you have a much better chance to get results. You can tell in 3 years whether the project paid off or not. You can tell in 3 years whether it lasted through its lifecycle. Etc.
So if we could put up much much cheaper bridges that were intended to last for 3 years each, the long-term maintenance would automatically be taken care of. You find out whether there were any incipient problems when you take the old bridge apart. You modify the new bridge accordingly. If the bridge isn’t worth rebuilding in 3 years, you spend the money on something else — maybe a bridge elsewhere that’s more useful.
When we do things that have consequences 40 years later, that’s a long slow feedback loop. The guys who make mistakes are likely to be dead before their mistakes come to light. Not real good.
Better to shorten the OODA cycle when we can.
Apparently the issue was not a lack of money, but rather some sort of internal disagreement at the Transportation Agency about the best way to proceed. See Captain’s Quarters Blog (he lives in Minneapolis and always has excellent local coverage).
“So if we could put up much much cheaper bridges that were intended to last for 3 years each, the long-term maintenance would automatically be taken care of. You find out whether there were any incipient problems when you take the old bridge apart. You modify the new bridge accordingly. If the bridge isn’t worth rebuilding in 3 years, you spend the money on something else — maybe a bridge elsewhere that’s more useful.”
This isn’t likely. The difference in cost between a 40 year bridge and a 3 year one isn’t going to come anywhere near making up the difference for rebuilding 13 times. In fact I would be shocked if it make up the difference for rebuilding it even once.
Maybe switching to army pontoon bridges made from easily replacable segments 😉
(yes, I know that this would also ruin shipping)
It’s 2007. Where are the flying cars?
Sebastian, yes, you’re right. We don’t particularly know how to build reliable cheap short-term bridges.
But it would be worth finding out how, if we can. I say, we need to develop the sorts of technology that our social system can handle responsibly, not try to redesign the social system to handle whatever random technology our engineers happen to come up with.
Neither our corporations nor our governments are designed to look 50 years ahead. So we need to keep them out of the business of doing 50-year projects.
“I say, we need to develop the sorts of technology that our social system can handle responsibly, not try to redesign the social system to handle whatever random technology our engineers happen to come up with.”
Non-engineer? 😉
Though I do have an unhealthy attraction to the idea that working on super hard engineering questions is easier than changing human nature.
To be fair, that probably was a 50 year bridge under 60’s assumptions about traffic, etc. With the current load, it may actually have been closer to 3 years than 50.
Sebastian, I don’t think that’s unhealthy. Realistic, rather.
One advantage of hard engineering problems is when you think you’ve solved it, you can find ways to test how well your solution works.
Another is that often you aren’t competing with a bunch of ideological jihadists who fervently believe against all evidence that their interpretation of their founder’s solution is perfect.
DFL hasn’t had a governor since ’90. Hadn’t controlled more than the senate since ’98 (it won the house in ’06). And many high profile IR members left and joined the Independence party after the now GOP went pretty far right. Yes for 20 years the state has hardly been Sweden.
Why do you think Coleman switched from D to R for his run for Governor?
There was once the saying that the longevity of bridges was inversely proportional to the scholarliness of the engineer designing it.
Admittedly that was at a time when engineering in the modern sense just began and design by experience was at its highpoint.
A lot of bridge engineering today is concerned with doing it at the lowest costs and with minimum consumption of materials (and, if possible, in the shortest amount of time). Built-in safety margins take a second place to that. Why are so many 19th century bridges still standing, while modern ones fail? They were built to last and the designers played a better safe than sorry game.
Why are so many 19th century bridges still standing, while modern ones fail?
I’d venture to guess that few 19th century bridges get the crap beat out of them with 15,000 truck crossings per day, let alone car traffic.
Ok, the Brooklyn Bridge is only for cars but according to wikipedia it was designed with a safety factor of 6 and even the sub-quality steel cables reduced it only to 4. There are a few briges in Britain that would fit the bill.
I am a chemical engineer and the same applies here. The older the plant, the likelier it is to last and even increase yield because the old designers were extremly conservative and lacked the modern calculation by computer. The old plants can be treated much harsher than the original users would have dared because today it is far better known where the limits are. Modern plants are already designed with that in mind and are far less material intensive but also far less up-adaptable.
I’m also an engineer, and would second what Hartmut said about design margins. When certainty was lower, things we’re over-built. Goals were achieved by brute force as opposed to finesse. You can go back to Roman arch bridges, some of which are still standing, to see this phenomenon at work. It is true that bridges in the past were not designed for the loads that are typical today, but when you consider what they were designed for, they were built with far higher safety factors than bridges (or many other things) are today for today’s loads.
OK, if we’re going to start talking about Roman engineering, I can move the thread a little more OT to ask something I’ve wanted to ask for a long time:
The Romans were amazing engineers. They built stuff that was beautiful, huge, and long-lasting. Does anyone here know how they could do that without a decimal numerical system? How can you even calculate load-bearing requirements without that?
How can you even calculate load-bearing requirements without that?
They didn’t calculate anything. You don’t need to if you aren’t trying to save money or minimize your use of materials. The engineering Dean of Freshman at my school told us in orientation that “an engineer can do with one dollar what any damned fool can do with two.” Common sense tells you that an arch bridge made of stone that is 7 feet thick at the top of the arch will be able to support a two-horse cart full of rocks. It’s a no-brainer.
“And it ain’t Charma Cameleon, if I can spell.”
The song is “Karma Chameleon,” as in the common nouns “karma” and “chameleon,” if that’s relevant, which I’m not sure it is.
The song is “Karma Chameleon,” as in the common nouns “karma” and “chameleon,” if that’s relevant, which I’m not sure it is.
It’s entirely relevant to the proper spelling of the song in question.
The song is “Karma Chameleon,” as in the common nouns “karma” and “chameleon,” if that’s relevant, which I’m not sure it is.
Unless it is a different song about getting on the good side of a chameleon.
… or even a cameleon, which might be the offspring of a camel and lion.
You guys just aren’t capable of appreciating my creative genius.
Likely cause seems to be emerging — Minneapolis Star Tribune
They opted to inspect to spot developing fatigue cracks and then repair them rather than install steel plates to reinforce weak points in advance. They had the money to install the plates, but opted for inspections rather than preventative repairs.
Always a chancy thing — doing cost benefit analysis which factors in assumptions about the unknown timing of a catastrophic failure.
Or you can take the Ford approach pioneered with the Pinto and conclude that the political cost of an occasional catastrophic failure is less than the political cost of raising taxes to make government work. Sprinkle that with some Republican rhetoric about how government does not work anyway, so we just have to put up with these failures or else privatize, and we can just all shrug this one off.
Sprinkle that with some Republican rhetoric about how government does not work anyway, so we just have to put up with these failures or else privatize, and we can just all shrug this one off.
by coincidence, 2008 GOP national convention is in St Paul. i’m sure somebody there will make hay out of the bridge issue.
“You guys just aren’t capable of appreciating my creative genius.”
That’s so true in regard to most of us.
Also, the peasants are revolting.
Hey! That’s getting personal! (though quite true….)
St Paul? Given the whole Ford-Pinto discussion, I’d think Goshen, Indiana might be just as good.
“i’m sure somebody there will make hay out of the bridge issue.”
That’ll put iron in the diet.
“Or you can take the Ford approach pioneered with the Pinto and conclude that the political cost of an occasional catastrophic failure is less than the political cost of raising taxes to make government work.”
Actually, the Ford approach in the Pinto case was to assume that human lives had a finite value, and that safety features that cost more than the value of the lives saved are not cost effective. Standard engineering practice, though it will get you ripped apart in court on an emotional level.
Actually, the Ford approach in the Pinto case was to assume that human lives had a finite value, and that safety features that cost more than the value of the lives saved are not cost effective. Standard engineering practice, though it will get you ripped apart in court on an emotional level.
Definitely not “standard engineering practice” as taught in the U.S. I believe you may have us confused with the managerial class.
“Definitely not “standard engineering practice” as taught in the U.S. I believe you may have us confused with the managerial class.”
Really? Is your car 100% safe? Why have so many people been injured in car crashes?
Really? Is your car 100% safe? Why have so many people been injured in car crashes?
You’re suggesting that you know of automotive engineers that have eliminated safety features in a design because “standard engineering practice” is to kill people because it’s cheaper? I’d appreciate knowing where they went to school.
Tim, I’m not sure whether you’re objecting to the idea of assuming lives have finite value or to Sebastian’s describing it as part of engineering. Certainly the assumption is essential. A safety feature that was expected to save 1 life at a cost of $1 billion would be a foolish way to spend money, since many more lives could be saved by spending that money differently (plus very few people would be able to afford the cars).
“Hey! That’s getting personal!”
Not really, but I’ve also always been terribly fond of noting that the lurkers are boring from within.
(Really, I first wrote this in a fanzine in 1976.)
I myself am a chemical engineer, however here’s an excerpt from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers website:
SOCIETY POLICY
ETHICS
ASME requires ethical practice by each of its members and has adopted the following Code of
Ethics of Engineers as referenced in the ASME Constitution, Article C2.1.1.
CODE OF ETHICS OF ENGINEERS
The Fundamental Principles
Engineers uphold and advance the integrity, honor and dignity of the engineering profession
by:
I. using their knowledge and skill for the enhancement of human welfare;
II. being honest and impartial, and serving with fidelity their clients (including their
employers) and the public; and
III. striving to increase the competence and prestige of the engineering profession.
The Fundamental Canons
1. Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public in the
performance of their professional duties.
2. Engineers shall perform services only in the areas of their competence; they shall build
their professional reputation on the merit of their services and shall not compete
unfairly with others.
3. Engineers shall continue their professional development throughout their careers and
shall provide opportunities for the professional and ethical development of those
engineers under their supervision.
4. Engineers shall act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful agents
or trustees, and shall avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts of
interest.
5. Engineers shall respect the proprietary information and intellectual property rights of
others, including charitable organizations and professional societies in the
engineering field.
6. Engineers shall associate only with reputable persons or organizations.
2 P-15.7
11/05/06
7. Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner and
shall avoid any conduct which brings discredit upon the profession.
8. Engineers shall consider environmental impact and sustainable development in the
performance of their professional duties.
9. Engineers shall not seek ethical sanction against another engineer unless there is
good reason to do so under the relevant codes, policies and procedures governing
that engineer’s ethical conduct.
10. Engineers who are members of the Society shall endeavor to abide by the
Constitution, By-Laws and Policies of the Society, and they shall disclose knowledge
of any matter involving another member’s alleged violation of this Code of Ethics or
the Society’s Conflicts of Interest Policy in a prompt, complete and truthful manner
to the chair of the Committee on Ethical Standards and Review.
In the field I worked in, industrial gases, corporations did spend multi-millions to avoid any deaths, and indeed did this for plants in Latin America where the cost of a death settlement would have been minimal. Evaluations of the type you speak of are more the province of the MBA or the lawyer.
“however here’s an excerpt”
It is, perhaps, not the best idea to paste in line after line, paragraph after paragraph, after line and paragrahph, of unedited stuff, on and on and on and on.
It’s easy. Everyone can do it. That doesn’t mean it’s a great idea.
But perhaps other enjoy that sort of thing.
In some places, it gets one banned. But there’s no authority here who would do that at present, to be sure.
Hell, at this point, it’s pretty clear that anyone can do almost anything on ObWi.
“In the field I worked in, industrial gases, corporations did spend multi-millions to avoid any deaths,”
But, still, I suspect there were things they could have done to achieve even greater safety, at even greater expense. You may object to the particular dollar value a company places on a human life, but if we placed infinite value on human life, we’d be unable to afford to do anything.
Drawing the line somewhere is an unavoidable aspect of the profession.
We are limited in our resources, so risk management is an unavoidable fact of life. Placing an infinite value on human life does not mean allocating infinite (or disproportionate) resources toward any one particular endeavor at the necessary expense of another, does it? Optimal and perfect are not the same things.
Arguably the most important bridge in the US (perhaps in the world) is the Ambassador bridge between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit. It is owned and maintained by private company.
The bridge does have some competition – the tunnel for cars, and Port Huron for trucks. I’ve always thought it was reasonably operated and priced.
Given all that, I’m not sure if I like the idea of private roads and such. And without eminent domain, I’m not sure how viable they really are.
Actually, the Ford approach in the Pinto case was to assume that human lives had a finite value…
No. They did the calculus on how much lawsuits would cost them and figured the expense to add a cheap part to protect against gas tank fires and lessen lawsuit liability was not worth it. An interesting barometer for measuring the value of human life.
And their analysis resulted in, as subsequent real world accident data proved, a car that was no more dangerous than other similarly priced cars of it’s era. Because the other companies were doing exactly the same thing, it was, and still is, SOP in the auto industry. The price you put on a human life may change, you may be damn sure to avoid creating a paper trail for a tort lawyer to scream about, but there’s really no other responsible way to go about it if you want to create the safest car the customers can afford to buy.
Sebastian- for what it’s worth, your comments throughout this thread are smart and grounded in reality. And cudos to Dave Schuler’s observation that if the good-government folks of Minnesota can’t maintain safe bridges, where does that put the rest of us? To me, two concerns are in play. The first is obvious- the cost of rebuilding and repairing our aging infrastructure is huge, and by and large, we (the voters) don’t want to pay for it- we’d rather kick the can down the road for future generations- much as we’ve done with social security and medicare (and I’m right there with everyone else). Second, even if we were so inclined, we don’t trust government(s) to do the job in a cost-effective manner. There will be much graft and waste, and it’ll be a boondoggle for private contractors.
Excellent correction regarding the Pinto.
Ford’s management calculated that the cost of a safer product was marginally higher than the cost of defending personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits. Especially since each plaintiff would be required to spend big bucks to get the same info from Ford over and over – if they could get it at all. Class action lawsuits simplified that problem, which is one reason gutting the rules that permitted them was such a high priority for Bush.
But Ford’s cost analysis didn’t arise with automobiles; it started with railroads, which were notoriously accident prone, and which became the nursery for the laws about liability for personal injury.
In response, big business discovered that they could buy a political party or a legislature or a president, and reduce or avoid liability by writing the laws rather than winning the lawsuits. In the more regulatory-prone twentieth century, they could also win by staffing regulatory agencies with their own “former” lobbyists, a tactic that KKKarl Rove has perfected.
Big business could also win by getting the legislature to set up an entire, taxpayer funded agency whose sole purpose was to promote its interests. The Commerce Dept, for example, was a post-Gilded Age invention, the price for a few bits of early twentieth century safety legislation. One step forward, two steps back. A dance that KKKarl Rove, too, has made his own.
But laws can be tools to help keep cars and bridges and pet food safe. It comes down to how attentive is the public to its own interests. The Detroit-Windsor bridge may be fully maintained. But that’s because its prominence and daily utility ensures scrutiny. If eternal vigilance is the cost of protecting your safety or your liberty, the cost of protecting big business is controlling what the public knows. Which is why Murdoch and his Faux Fox News and now the WSJ, should make everyone a little bit afraid of what they don’t know.
Whenever the government vs free market comes up, there seems to be an assumption that market forces will, if left to operate without constraint, produce the best, or even a good, result. I don’t think that is true. Actually, I think it’s demonstrably untrue.
The market, left to its own devices, will find the most efficient use of capital. That’s what it does. Quite often, that is not the most desirable outcome.
In the case of a bridge, the most efficient use of capital for the bridge builder might be to just let the damned bridge fall down. The builder might have recouped all of his investment plus some, and the revenue stream going forward might not yield a good return on what it would cost to keep the bridge in good repair. The sensible economic solution could be to just walk away.
For the 150,000 people a day who cross the bridge, that’s a crappy solution.
I have no problem with capitalism, or with market based economies. But optimal return on capital is just not a broad enough basis for decision making to be acceptable, at least when any kind of public interest is involved. That certainly includes any form of infrastructure, IMO, as well as any situation where public safety is a concern.
Regarding graft and waste, trust me when I say that it exists, by the bucketful, in the private sector as well in the public.
Thanks –
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Heh. That’s just the Law of Unintended Consquences. Something that applies just as much to market force arguments as it does to governmental program advocates.
Hell, at this point, it’s pretty clear that anyone can do almost anything on ObWi.
I tested that and established that there is a limit that applies to me. Maybe that should be “almost anyone can do almost anything on ObWi.”. You could test it for yourself.