How to Think About Rail Investment in the U.S. - The Agenda - National Review Online

How to Think About Rail Investment in the U.S. - The Agenda - National Review Online: Reihan Salam praises an article by the Economist on the threat that the boondoggle 'high speed rail' poses for a key success story of our economy: freight railways. It's interesting to note that in Europe freight railway is vastly less productive and far more goods go by truck because passengers dominate the rails. In a country as large as the US, passenger railways will never be anything but a cash and jobs for the boys measure but it can screw up our economy. The money graf from the economist:

"But the problem with America’s plans for high-speed rail is not their modesty. It is that even this limited ambition risks messing up the successful freight railways. Their owners worry that the plans will demand expensive train-control technology that freight traffic could do without. They fear a reduction in the capacity available to freight. Most of all they fret that the spending of federal money on upgrading their tracks will lead the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the industry watchdog, to impose tough conditions on them and, in effect, to reintroduce regulation of their operations. Attempts at re-regulation have been made in Congress in recent years, in response to rising freight rates. “The freight railroads feel they are under attack,” says Don Phillips, a rail expert in Virginia."

Is there nothing that our brilliant Ivy league leaders won't try to screw up?  Arrogance, thy name is Barack.