Am Mittwoch, 28. Juni 2006 10:01 schrieb Ashish Gulhati: > A private company motivated by profit can and will solve the > "problem" of > increased demand with increased supply. (A private company doesn't > actually > consider this a problem, of course!) The state is most often > incompetent to meet > increasing demand, even when it will result in higher profits to > the state!
I'd like to raise a doubt here. I have learnt one thing in India: that the Government doesn't really care, as long as votes are secure. But the same goes for the private companies in India, just with the condition that the profit is secure (as they don't really care about votes). It wouldn't matter if it's a private company or the government that runs the suburban railway system. The profit doesn't rise with building new trains, but with letting more passengers use the system. So, the more passengers in *one* train, the better! A government that cares would create laws (and see that they are being enforced) which prohibit an overcrowding of trains. But that would reduce profit (at least for a time, and maybe for a considerable period of time, because new trains cost a lot of money, and maybe even new tracks need to be laid). So, either the government doesn't create such laws or, if they already exist, doesn't enforce them, because profit is the ultimate goal, and not the safety of the people. If a private company would run the railway system, they would very likely not do it differently from how it is being run now. But the government could create the respective laws and collect bribes from the private company so that they can continue the overcrowding of trains, thus gaining higher profits (on both ends). This would be a good reason for the government to privatize the suburban railway system, but otherwise... Martin P.s.: I may be too pessimistic, I would be glade if you could say that things have improved lately... -- Martin Senftleben, Doctor of Philosophy, S.V. University, using Linux http://www.drmartinus.de/ http://www.daskirchenjahr.de/
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