Galt's Gulch
11

Ayn Rand's prescience strikes again

Posted by $ cyberwizard 11 years ago to Business
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When I opened my paper this morning, I thought I was reading Altas Shrugged!
SOURCE URL: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_26218754/shortage-rail-capacity-slowing-colorado-shipments-coal-wheat?source=rss

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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 11 years ago
    It's time for Ellis Wyatt to demand the upgrading of his rail capacity and for Dagny Taggart to build The John Galt Line. Seriously, this news item does read like it came out of the first few hundred pages of AS.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 11 years ago
    So wait a minute. If one of the primary reasons for shortage is the transportation of oil, wouldn't the Keystone pipeline help to alleviate this and allow the rail lines to get back to hauling these other commodities?
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    • Posted by chcollinsjr 11 years ago
      Yes, and that is precisely why the Big O prevents it. He made it quite clear that he wants to remake the nation; less clear, he wants to do that, in part, by eviscerating the US of power and resources, thus of dominance.

      He successfully and effectively moves us inexorably closer to the goal of dependence of both the nation and us, its citizens. Yes, the prescient Ayn Rand indeed might have seen this in our future!
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  • Posted by HuckFinn 11 years ago
    Do you remember the horrendous cost of propane last winter? That was because there was no rail capacity to deliver it in tank cars and it was being trucked from Texas to the northern plains states. While driving through the corn belt two weeks ago I heard a radio farm report about MN farmers losing hundreds of $millions because there was no rail capacity to ship their crops to market. I boat on the upper Mississippi River and the rails on both sides of the river are choked with oil trains and with frac sand trains. The sand needs to move by rail but the oil is far better moved by pipeline. Why are no new rail routes being added? Because no matter which way the route is planned there are small governments and small people who use lawyers and judges and endangered species and environmental regulations and eye pollution and mob rule to block any form of national improvement.
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  • Posted by Technocracy 11 years ago
    Its interesting how a lot of people that have heard or read a little about AS tend to dismiss it because of the technology base.

    They dismiss it because Taggart Transcontinental is such a central focus of the story.

    Those same people do not realize just how much cargo moves around by rail. On land rail is the most efficient way to move lots of mass and cubage around.

    One of the ways AS remains so relevant today.
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    • Posted by eddieh 11 years ago
      Every time I read an article about a derailment of an oil train and how the government sets rules to reduce train size and speed I think of Taggert Transcontinental railroad. AS has lodged in my brain
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  • Posted by Herb7734 11 years ago
    Is that the Twilight Zone music I hear in the background? You might sub-title Atlas Shrugged, Back to the Future. The book is five or six hundred pages, takes some hours to read, but real time moves more slowly. However, the ball is rolling downhill and gathering speed.
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  • Posted by wiggys 11 years ago
    I just read in the local grand junction paper that people in towns around grand junction at this moment have no source for coal since the local coal company has been closed since December 2013. thank you 0
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  • Posted by iroseland 11 years ago
    come to think of it, replace the John Galt line with the Keystone pipeline and we get even closer to the story. Except in this version the John Galt line does not apparently get built.
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  • Posted by salta 11 years ago
    The article is really evocative of AS, though the article says the strain is because the yield is almost double last year (which is not exactly the fault of government). What I would be very interested to know is if there currently is a regulator price cap on rail rates. I would expect any caps to cause shortages during these peaks in demand.
    Does anybody know if a price cap is in effect?
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    • Posted by johnpe1 11 years ago
      the railroads are "common carriers" and, to the best
      of my recollection, there is no common carrier whose
      rates are not controlled -- like the utilities boards. -- j

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