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Nexis4Jersey OP t1_j5fc7ff wrote

Reply to comment by StatisticianSure2349 in My Pennsylvania Intercity & Regional Rail Proposal by Nexis4Jersey

Its fairly common and a lot of states do it...and then turn around and say they have no money for passenger rail projects. It's hard to justify it when the big companies let their lines deteriorate so badly , yet bring in billions in profits each year.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_j5g0p07 wrote

Southwest Airlines spent billions of dollars on stock buybacks instead of repairing their shitty scheduling software, and were just flat out given around $9b in pandemic "relief."

 
These companies exist as vampires on society.

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Nexis4Jersey OP t1_j5g18tn wrote

Southwest Airlines also lobbied several states in the 90s to make it illegal to use public funds for high speed rail or let private companies build it. They were afraid of the competition like what happened in Europe and parts of Asia.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_j5g1ip2 wrote

You can also find an open letter from the CEO of Exxon to Joe Biden basically saying that they're never expanding refinery capacity unless the federal government pays to build it for them.

 
The company that owns Eggland's Best, Land o' Lakes, and a bunch of other companies is jacking up egg prices despite not being affected by avian flu, because they can.

 

It really isn't good that we have companies that can essentially punish the electorate for voting in politicians they don't like. Someone should really do something about that.

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upghr5187 t1_j5gc3gf wrote

One of the many problems of allowing corporations to own critical infrastructure. They know the government will never let them fail completely. They can focus on short term profits and neglect long term commitments knowing the bailout is coming. Same way they were able to get congress to step in on their behalf in a labor dispute.

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