Summary

Elon Musk called for privatizing Amtrak and the U.S. Postal Service, saying America should privatize “everything we possibly can.”

Speaking at a Morgan Stanley conference, he criticized U.S. passenger rail as “embarrassing” compared to other countries.

While Musk didn’t outline steps for privatization, he acknowledged it would require congressional approval.

His remarks align with Donald Trump, who recently suggested reviewing USPS privatization.

  • futatorius@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    Meanwhile, the UK is re-nationalizing privatized infrastructure because private monopolies provide even worse service than public ones.

  • futatorius@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    And I say almost everything owned by a billionaire should be expropriated.

    Why does the media listen to Musk and not people like me?

  • Floon@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Maintaining a post office is the only specific service, aside from national defense, the federal government must provide mentioned in the Constitution.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    The scammer who singlehandedly killed US high-speed rail with his impossible fantasy hyperloop bullshit that caused hundreds of idiots to invest billions of dollars into technology that any third grader could tell you was bullshit says that US rail is terrible?

    Color me surprised

    Don’t get me wrong, it IS terrible, but he is part of the various reasons why it’s terrible.

    Wanna make the US better?

    Look at Europe, for starters. Make walkable and cyclable cities that are designed for humans not for cars. Then have normal speed (< 200kph) trains on an hourly or even half hourly service between neighboring cities. Add High speed tracks between states with services every few hours and have busses for mid distance.

    Then start reducing road width because you don’t need 20 lanes anymore all of the sudden

    Whatever you do, though, do NOT listen to what this scammer wants

    • admin@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Wanna make the US better?

      Look at Europe, for starters. Make walkable and cyclable cities that are designed for humans not for cars. Then have normal speed (< 200kph) trains on an hourly or even half hourly service between neighboring cities.

      I mean, for starters, there’s approximately the same distance between Los Angeles and Phoenix, than between Frankfurt and Paris, the difference is the geographic variation, climate and other factors such as Arizona and California being separated entities even though they are in a federal union, that wouldn’t make it worth it or work.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        22 hours ago

        I can easily travel from Frankfurt tonparis by train

        Why wouldn’t I be able to do the same from Los Angeles to Phoenix? There literally arejtbany reasons beyond political unwillingness

    • aviationeast@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Eminent Domain SpaceXand give it to NASA. Pay him using the new StarLink coin at a price of $100k per coin at let the value go with the market rate just like the Trumpcoins did…

  • chilicheeselies@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    My understanding is that Amtrak is what happened when the private railroad operators were failing, and the govt needed to step in to stop the passenger railroad network from collapsing completely.

    Its by and large not profitable. Air travel, for better or worse, eats its lunch.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    he criticized U.S. passenger rail as “embarrassing” compared to other countries.

    He’s actually right about that but 100% wrong about why: US passenger rail is embarrassing due to

    • a pitiful lack of political will for public investment in it (in spite of the vast majority of the population being in favor),
    • billionaires like himself and others with competing interests spending ridiculous amounts of money lobbying against it
    • private and ridiculously under-regulated freight companies (such as Norfolk Southern of East Palestine catastrophe infamy) being allowed to privately own the tracks that tax funded public works projects built, and thus setting schedules and speeds that are not conducive to effective passenger transit.

    In short, the Apartheid Nepo Nazi wants to pretend to fix it by doing more of what ruined it.

  • WatDabney@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    It’s worth noting that they’re never talking about actual privatization, which is when a thing that was formerly a government service is turned over to private enterprise, but a grotesquely inefficient hybrid system in which the service is still funded by the government, and the only thing that changes is that rather than the budget being turned over to a government agency, it’s turned over to whichever private contractor offers the best bribe and kickback package.

  • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Speaking at a Morgan Stanley conference, Elon Musk criticized U.S. passenger rail as “embarrassing” compared to other countries.

    Elon Musk? The same Elon Musk who helped cancel a high-speed rail transit project by touting his quickly-abandoned, far-fetched sci-fi transit system?