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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices

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To: tejek who wrote (124134)	9/18/2000 3:08:37 PM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (1) of 1571359

Ted, The bonds the city and county gov'ts sell to float airport expansion is not considered a subsidy?!! Any business that is taken over by local government could be considered subsidized, because of lower cost of borrowing and no taxation of "profit". Just because most airports operate this way doesn't mean that they are automatically subsidized (even though many are directly subsidized). But I go back to my original argument about cities needing scheduled air service in order to be considered "viable" for locating businesses. Yes...the top 10 to 15 airports...the remaining cities must make up the operating shortfalls from their operating budgets. The airports overall are a net plus, otherwise the cities would not put up with them. It's kind of like advertising of popular tourist destinations. If you look at the budget of tourism promotion agency of say Florida, Israel, Jamaica, you will see a deficit. But if you consider the tax revenue from visiting tourists, it generates revenues. The same applies to the airports. There have been 500-600 percent ridership increases on several important routes in the last 5 years. There are full trains now for the first time in 50 years probably. I am glad to hear that. I haven't been following Amtrak. My wife took it earlier this year and she said it was a pleasant experience. My daughter loved it. Even if they do not get expenses to the breakeven point, the savings in resource usage and air pollution is worth the subsidy IMO. Human resources are the most valuable resources of all. As long as Amtrak continues to waste those, they will be in trouble. When I was few years out of college, I heard a news story about the conductors of one of the commuter rails here (actually their union) going on strike to get higher salaries / benefits. They said that the conductors routinely made $70,000 per year. I did not make that much at that time, even though I went to college and worked in fairly lucrative industry. I think it is hard to make the argument for need of subsidies based solely on the fuel efficiency while there is a wholesale waste of these dollars happening. Joe

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