Posted on 11/14/2016 5:43:44 PM PST by Olog-hai
A plan by the conservative German Finance Minister to sell off almost half of the country’s Autobahn roadway system to private investors has many Germans up in arms.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party has put forth a plan to partially privatize the Autobahn network of roads across the country, according to a report by Der Spiegel on Saturday.
His plan would involve selling private companies a share of up to 49.9 percent in a national company that would be in charge of construction and maintenance for the Autobahn. The company would be financed through existing tolls on trucks traveling the Autobahn, and could potentially get a boost from a new toll plan for private drivers, according to Spiegel.
The suggestion ignited a wave of outrage over the weekend with the Social Democrats, Greens, Die Linke (Left Party) and industry groups criticizing the proposal. …
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.de ...
Then Iran can buy it! Win-win!
Selling future revenue streams is not a strength play.
Worked great for Chicago!
They sold the next 75 years of revenue stream from 36,000 parking meters to Morgan Stanley for $1B up front, then spent it all in six months! Genius!
And Donald Trump is the joke!
It is if the enterprise is a money pit, and the work can be more efficiently performed by the private sector.
I remember when the desire to privatize non-essential governmental functions was a conservative value. Now, apparently, conservatives point to Chicago to tell us why we shouldn’t. Brave New World.
If owning a road is a money pit, there’s something wrong.
The law of government inefficiency extends to outsourcing decisions.
OK. Here's a "/s" just for you.
Wir Fahren Fahren Fahren auf der Autobahn........
Thanks. The thread appreciates it. “/s”
With the exception that if the outsourcee can’t do the work, it gets fined or loses the contract.
When the government “owns” anything, they automatically turn it into a money pit.
Of course, “partial privatization” is a communistic/fascistic idea along the lines of Lenin’s New Economic Policy. It ought to be full privatization.
Gotta pay to keep all of those muzzie “refugees” in state supplied benefits
agreed - and President Trump would do well to privatize the US interstates
eliminate federal gas tax and privatize the interstates
History Channel or Discovery Channel had something a decade or so ago about the Autobahn, and I remember something being said that they spend well over a million dollars per mile each year just for maintenance of the highways.
The Autobahn . . Years ago, we visited BIL & SIL in
Germany. They picked us up in Frankfurt & we immediately
got on the Autobahn. (The speed limit here had recently
been lowered to 55 mph.) They loaded me into the back of
their compact car, sitting backwards looking out the back
window. BIL took off like a bat out of hades. My stomach
churned and I felt nauseated. Told them I was gonna vomit.
He slowed down a little; but the cars behind almost run up
your tailpipe if you slow down. I made it, I reckon.
“agreed - and President Trump would do well to privatize the US interstates”
I don’t mind paying 20 to 50 cents per mile to drive on MONOPOLY-PROTECTED highways either. After all, I have quite a bit of cashing just laying around.
After all, it will get all of the ‘little people’ off of the roads!
it’s would just be the interstates privatized so alternative routes would exist
plus federal gas tax would be repealed,
should be a wash for most people, and would end the financial black hole caused by the government owning the interstates
Not really. They may seem expensive (even though they’re not), but when you consider what people will pay to use them...in Canada they’re forced to pay 50 cents per mile to drive on what was a freeway, but was ‘privatized’ for 99 years by a single corrupt leader. In the US, we pay 2 cents per mile (roughly) in gas tax.
The following rates are per kilometer - multiply by 1.6 to get per mile, then knock off 25% due to the exchange rate - comes out to about 40 cents per mile.
https://www.407etr.com/en/tolls/rate-charts/rate-chart-light.html
The people forced to pay those tolls tried like mad to fight it in court, but they lost. Can’t build a parallel highway either, that was part of ‘the deal’.
Plenty of examples in the US also, starting with the Indiana Toll Road.
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