> So the solution is private corruption where nameless corporations and CEOs get to take public money with 0 oversight instead?
Presumably the solution looks something like rounding up all of the public officials who officiated over anything that even hints a whiff of personal advantage and sticking their heads in a guillotine.
> Public transport should be a public good, and we should not expect it to be profitable.
Whether something is profitable or not and whether it's provided by direct government employees or not are two independent things. You could very easily pay a private company to operate a transit system while subsidizing fares with tax dollars.
Meanwhile at some point the government is going to be buying something from the market. If they operate the trains, are they also going to design and manufacture the trains? Are they going to manufacture the steel that goes into the trains? What about the energy used to make the steel, or the trucks used to transport it?
But as soon as you have the government buying something from anyone, you need to start lopping off the heads of the public officials whenever there is anything fishy going on with the bidding process or you get what we've got.
Presumably the solution looks something like rounding up all of the public officials who officiated over anything that even hints a whiff of personal advantage and sticking their heads in a guillotine.
> Public transport should be a public good, and we should not expect it to be profitable.
Whether something is profitable or not and whether it's provided by direct government employees or not are two independent things. You could very easily pay a private company to operate a transit system while subsidizing fares with tax dollars.
Meanwhile at some point the government is going to be buying something from the market. If they operate the trains, are they also going to design and manufacture the trains? Are they going to manufacture the steel that goes into the trains? What about the energy used to make the steel, or the trucks used to transport it?
But as soon as you have the government buying something from anyone, you need to start lopping off the heads of the public officials whenever there is anything fishy going on with the bidding process or you get what we've got.