Privateers Buy the Roads
This is an edited conversation I had on facebook.
Canadian friends. We just got a bill from a highway toll for a trip we took two months ago. I saw no indication that there was a toll road. They take a picture and bill your home later? This sounds mightily like some sort of scam. Anyone know anything about this?
407 ETR. And they need us to pay with a credit card. We're a little leery, to say the least.
LATER....
Looking through the web, it appears that we're going to have to suck it up and pay the tab. 25km at $13.01. Privatized toll road, BTW. Bought for 3 billion or so by a foreign consortium...Coming soon to a GOP privatizing state near you...
And they don't have to pay the guys in the toll booths.
I think this one is legitimate, as in, a scam, but a LEGAL one. Privatized roads are in our future. And they will be expensive. And they will be another convenience for those that can afford it. And the rest of us will give up that prime (public) real estate and clog our usual public roads so that the well-to-do may ride in peace and relative privacy segregated from the riffraff. It's more subsidization for the %1. And as they cut funds for public roads, the privateers will point to the crumbling public roadways and say, "See? Government doesn't work. And you had better turn more of the public trust over to us at lower and lower cost for us to do the right thing by the "invisible hand of the market" because you can no longer do it well." It's theft by inch, but in the billions...maybe trillions. And all legal. When you buy the process, you reap the rewards. And the rest of us will eat shit.
Notice the trend? The public roads wil get worse and worse, at an accelerated rate. The private roads will be sold as a necessity. The privateers will be able to charge almost anything they want as they buy up more roadways. Tiers for quality, privacy, and the pricing that goes with it. Transportation, the freedom to travel will be a monetized commodity, and limited to those that can afford it, and profitable for those that own it. And the bifurcation of the country betwixt the wealthy and the poor will accelerate along with it. And we're going to see the same effects in many other sectors of our economy.
Just another indication that we've given up the war on poverty in lieu of a war on the poor. Even in Canada.
407 ETR
Canadian friends. We just got a bill from a highway toll for a trip we took two months ago. I saw no indication that there was a toll road. They take a picture and bill your home later? This sounds mightily like some sort of scam. Anyone know anything about this?
407 ETR. And they need us to pay with a credit card. We're a little leery, to say the least.
LATER....
Looking through the web, it appears that we're going to have to suck it up and pay the tab. 25km at $13.01. Privatized toll road, BTW. Bought for 3 billion or so by a foreign consortium...Coming soon to a GOP privatizing state near you...
And they don't have to pay the guys in the toll booths.
I think this one is legitimate, as in, a scam, but a LEGAL one. Privatized roads are in our future. And they will be expensive. And they will be another convenience for those that can afford it. And the rest of us will give up that prime (public) real estate and clog our usual public roads so that the well-to-do may ride in peace and relative privacy segregated from the riffraff. It's more subsidization for the %1. And as they cut funds for public roads, the privateers will point to the crumbling public roadways and say, "See? Government doesn't work. And you had better turn more of the public trust over to us at lower and lower cost for us to do the right thing by the "invisible hand of the market" because you can no longer do it well." It's theft by inch, but in the billions...maybe trillions. And all legal. When you buy the process, you reap the rewards. And the rest of us will eat shit.
Notice the trend? The public roads wil get worse and worse, at an accelerated rate. The private roads will be sold as a necessity. The privateers will be able to charge almost anything they want as they buy up more roadways. Tiers for quality, privacy, and the pricing that goes with it. Transportation, the freedom to travel will be a monetized commodity, and limited to those that can afford it, and profitable for those that own it. And the bifurcation of the country betwixt the wealthy and the poor will accelerate along with it. And we're going to see the same effects in many other sectors of our economy.
Just another indication that we've given up the war on poverty in lieu of a war on the poor. Even in Canada.
407 ETR
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