HERE'S A BIG ONE! STATES CONSIDER SELLING OFF ROADS AND PARKS
Submitted by truthsanityalways on Sun, 12/28/2008 - 13:40
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/12/27/ap5862132.html
".........Like families pawning the silver to get through a tight spot, states such as Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois are thinking of selling or leasing toll roads, parks, lotteries and other assets to raise desperately needed cash......."
The looting of America goes on.....
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I hope folks here realize
I hope folks here realize that Japanese, Chinese and English business interests own or have large ownership stakes in many "American" businesses and assets currently. Roads, public parks, etc. are just more assets that can be sold.
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Talk to someone new every day. You'll be surprised what you learn.
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"The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic..." —Alan Moore
This should be
front page. I just had a friend call me and her husband doesn't believe this.
Prepare & Share the Message of Freedom through Positive-Peaceful-Activism.
A backdoor to world governance?
If the road is foreign owned, and our Government has signed on to some treaty, will the interstate commerce clause subject Americans to some world trade-union authority?
I have heard GPS devices will be used to automatically coerce tolls, that is, if there not being spoofed or jammed.
This is just something else. The state uses absurdly generous benefits like pensions to state patronage-employees, goes into debt, then sells public-good assets to foreigners so they can rent it back to the public, while selling the American people and lands out to the world banksters and communists.
Let them keep it up. There is no better ally for the revolutionary than than the tyrants and goons.
Governments can't sell what they don't own.
All the public roads are owned by the people at large, not any of the gov't bodies. The gov'ts are only stewards and managers of them.
They have no right to sell the people's assets to private owners unless the people themselves consent to it.
This would require a public referendum vote, in my opinion.
I'd prefer to keep the roads, and sell off the politicians instead.
reply
In the State of Oregon they are talking about enacting a law that taxes mileage on top of gasoline, this will be used to lay the groundwork for restricting travel in this country.
The Plan is to install GPS trackers in vehicles!
Big Brother is watching!
Too late in Indiana
Toll Road 80/90 was sold to a foreign company years ago.
To me the larger pt is why the hell can foreign companies make a profit off our roads and our govt can't.
No mystery
Governments are inefficient. They waste time and money. Government employees are not personally rewarded for doing a better job. Profit is a powerful incentive to be efficient. There are plenty of American companies running former government operations, from fire protection to prisons.
New Hampshire and Ecuador
ya know?? I mean why not make them toll roads
instead of selling them to someone else if they need money so bad. Bunch of trailers and soome jersey walls, instant cash.
Not that I advocate that, but wouldn't it arrive at the same end?
Explore Orthodox Christianity
I hope
someone will buy the street I live on.
How much is it? I've got a
How much is it? I've got a great idea to implement tolls at the end of everyone's driveways... ;)
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Talk to someone new every day. You'll be surprised what you learn.
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"The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic..." —Alan Moore
uh...i dunno
I'll trade it to ya' for 1000 troy oz ag. ok ?
o0
O
(==)
Another interesting fact
State owned roads are the number one killer in this country.
Who can argue that if the roads had an owner that was personally liable for the safety of its drivers that this number would not come down.
What is that 'cost' worth to you? It's funny - socialists ream out businesses for making decisions on 'cost' - car companies when they consider a recall consider the cost vs. potential lives lost.
And with socialized, state owned roads - no one cares about the human 'cost'. People care about the state owning a road.
I guarantee if your loved one were killed or in another way mutilated on a state road, and knowing it could have been prevented if roads were safer, you would pay for that. As would everyone. And no, you can not count on the state to lower taxes. You have to constantly demand they do so. And you have to demand they get rid of assets that put you, the taxpayer, at risk for paying out legal fees you don't need to. And then you demand your taxes go down and stay down.
Of course these sold off state roads will become toll as RP says
Why else would any other entity want to buy them?? My point entirely. We the taxpayers have already paid for them to be built. The interstate highways cost at least one million dollars per mile. Why should they be sold off for Spain or someone else to tax us again via toll roads? We're between a road and a hard spot ... either pay tolls or pay upkeep.
Did you really read the article twice?
RP doesn't say anything about states selling roads. As an Austrian, he wants states to sell their roads.
No, he spoke of states giving away roads that were financed with taxpayer dollars, probably not directly but through "public-private partnerships". Let me break it down for you. He is saying no public funds to build private roads. He is against public funds for public stuff too. That's not what he is talking about here though. He's against stealing private property too for someone else to get a private road. He would be fine with mutually agreed upon sales between private individuals, however he is against the state stealing private property to give to another private corporation.
Of course private roads charge for their maintenance. But, as you know if you are at all capitalist, private market does everything better because of 1) competition, 2) the use of your own money. We've been over this already.
As you note you pay a company who has a reason to keep costs low, and who has a reason not to be sued (safer roads), and who has a reason for you to drive their roads (competition).
You also don't know that the road company needs to charge a toll. Roads could sell advertising. Roads could enter into agreements with businesses that would want to have the most traffic drive by. They have an incentive to have a nice road, and would be willing to pay to keep up a road / make a road nice.
You only don't know that kind of world because entrapreneurs haven't been allowed to own roads. Only the state has owned roads and therefore you choose not to think what a world without that might be. You're a socialist.
Toll roads should be everywhere in CA
Our roads are crumbling right now and a little maintenance would be a great thing.
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Talk to someone new every day. You'll be surprised what you learn.
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"The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic..." —Alan Moore
Hey we're neighbors...You in So. Cali...or No. Cali?
Me...I'm in Lakewood...near long Beach.
South. I went to the march in Santa Monica.
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Talk to someone new every day. You'll be surprised what you learn.
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"The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic..." —Alan Moore
Do you really think our taxes will decrease once roads are sold?
No, of course not. We'll be paying taxes AND tolls. At least now our legislators know there will be a public outcry if they start tolling all the roads. Say, if Spain or someone else owns them, and decided to charge $10 a mile, what recourse do we have?? It's just more of our freedom lost.
No one said they would
But you will have LESS govt. And less places to hide the cost of govt. And you'll have less things you pay taxes on the liability of. States are sued for what happens on the road, you pay those bills.
You would have more freedom to chose the road you will travel on. If a road is dangerous you would not give it business. If you could travel on a faster road and liked that, you could do so if it were a profitable venture.
Likewise, those roads that go to BFE for the purpose of one hermit and his shed that costs the taxpayer for maintence. Yeah. It's not going to be a cost.
Admit it. You're a socialist. End of story.
You're spouting off the same arguments every fraidy-paints socialist uses for every stupid idea they have. Evil business will swoop in and charge us $10 / mile. You're a socialist.
Sounds a lot like the reasons govt took over the monetary system, supplements every farmer, puts up ever protectionist tariff, educates our kids. Exactly the same in fact. What if Spain owns a road and charges $10 / mile?????? YOU DRIVE A DIFFERENT ROAD AND SPAIN GOES BANKRUPT. What if there isn't a different road? One would be built because it is cost effective to. A business is only going to bid for a road what it knows it can charge a market rate and make a market profit.
Why in the world would Spain bid as much that it needed to charge $10???? Here's the thing, in the market, they are smarter than that. Just like I wouldn't pay $10 for a $1 hot dog, Spain wouldn't pay $10M for a $1M road. And they would only pay $10M if they knew they could make money on the road and charging a non-market fee would not allow it.
I for one see myself paying $1 in 'toll' tax now. I see roads that go places that very, very few people go to. I see potholes causing accidents I can't sue for damages. I live where we have snow and recently our plows were about 24 hours late to the roads. There was death. Do you think that would happen if a person was liable as the owner? Those plows would be out on the road.
How about this neat thing I saw. Highway, going 70 MPH. All of a sudden the lane disappears into 5 inches of snow. You had to swerve into the middle lane, hope to God no one was there, and hope you didn't wipe out like dozens of others I drove past. Think that caused a death / damage? Whose responsible.
Read the arguments of Walter Block and try to educate yourself before posting what flies square in the face of the Austrian school and Dr. Paul who couldn't support their views any more. We don't need more dumb socialists with their fraidy-pants, evil, evil, evil business routine. There's an evil here and it's state ownership of roads.
If a socialist is a 1...
I'm on the other end at a 10. Taz41 ... who are YOU??!! You totally twisted Dr. Paul's article. Where do you want to head ... back to the old Soviet Russia where you couldn't travel ANYWHERE without the State's blessing? Are you kidding me??!! In Denver, the privately owned E470 does tolls, of course. Now, you don't even need to stop at a toll booth. The camera just takes a pic of your front license plate, and your back license plate and sends you the bill. Of course, if all our roads were toll, think of the lack of privacy if everywhere you go your license plates are logged? Well, maybe cut the crime, because they can just sort who came and went. You don't get it.
Surely you realize our duly elected Congress will
make sure there are 'safeguards' in place to protect the taxpayer! They will appoint a 'Road Czar' to make sure NO ONE ends up with a Golden Parachute, (or any other color of parachute)----just like they did TO US for the Bailouts! ;-(
RP's own words for those that agree with road socialism...
If you think he is supporting govt roads, read the post twice, the second time with a less biased view:
http://pressmediawire.com/article.cfm?articleID=5514
Everything is 4sale everywhere. It is called suvival.
Andorra Sells Slopes to Offset Drop in Tourism
Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- For six decades, Andorra prospered by catering to skiers, smokers and wealthy people trying to avoid taxes. With those revenues drying up, the mountain principality between France and Spain is now putting itself up for sale.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601206&sid=aiifH4To...
Pave paradise and put up a parking lot.
Wonder if some government or private entity wanted to poor cement over the entire continental USA?
That OK?
By the way, have you seen any bee's lately?
And never forget, “Humans, despite our artistic pretensions, our sophistication and many accomplishments, owe the fact of our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
V
V
And never forget, “Humans, despite our artistic pretensions, our sophistication and many accomplishments, owe the fact of our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
Right On.
Right On.
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"A centralized government is no less corrupt than a centralized church."
- Brent R.
Sounds like you might be
Sounds like you might be unfamiliar with the basics of our free market economy, which is less free day by day.
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Talk to someone new every day. You'll be surprised what you learn.
..................
"The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic..." —Alan Moore
A layer of poison decimating all living things and creatures.
Private and government entities (combined, eh) are paving paradise with poison, and home owners everywhere add "Roundup" weed killer frequently to their lawns. This is another "blind-sided" issue that is greatly marginalized in the discussion of economic renewal, therefore reducing drastically, especially in number, and cause great destruction or harm to all living things and creatures.
And never forget, “Humans, despite our artistic pretensions, our sophistication and many accomplishments, owe the fact of our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
So the best option is Ben Bernanke's bedroom?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30999249@N04/3097868837/sizes/o/
There are better ways, and they are right in front of us.
And never forget, “Humans, despite our artistic pretensions, our sophistication and many accomplishments, owe the fact of our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
Let's ban oxygen
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Talk to someone new every day. You'll be surprised what you learn.
..................
"The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic..." —Alan Moore