|
Post by arozanski on Nov 18, 2009 6:26:01 GMT -5
I'd love to see wind powered sailing ships make a come back for cargo transport - carbon fiber hulls, low molecular weight polymer sails, solar panels for in-harbor maneuvers and communications.
The real solution is to move back to localized economies, designing, producing, selling and consuming within a local area. But that won't happen.
|
|
|
Post by baldrick on Nov 18, 2009 10:28:47 GMT -5
I agree about local economies. Question is, what happens to multinational corporations, and how do they fit in, cinse they pretty much run things these days...
|
|
|
Post by flylooper on Nov 18, 2009 12:05:42 GMT -5
I agree about local economies. Question is, what happens to multinational corporations, and how do they fit in, cinse they pretty much run things these days... Well, I guess that move in on local businesses, buy them, combine them and then create monopolies.
|
|
|
Post by arozanski on Nov 18, 2009 12:18:20 GMT -5
I agree about local economies. Question is, what happens to multinational corporations, and how do they fit in, cinse they pretty much run things these days... I believe they will find it beneficial to de-centralize, move into local (maybe long vacant) offices, employ local employees and build the appearance of being a nice, homey community entity, while not really giving up their corporate structure or influence. I do not believe they will just go quietly into irrelevance, just find better ways of surviving and prospering, by becoming more sneaky.
|
|
|
Post by baldheadeddork on Nov 18, 2009 21:18:11 GMT -5
Merger? That would throw this country back to 1869, for crimminy sakes. A total regional monopoly. I wouldn't put it past Washington to look the other way on something like that, given their last 30 year track record, but it would be a definite throwback to the days of the robber barons like Stanford, Hill and Vanderbilt. There are four large railroads left. BNSF and Union Pacific in the west, and CSX and Norfolk Southern in the east. I must have been unclear in my earlier post - I was talking about a merger or alliance between one of the big east and big west railroads, not a merger between the regional players. That would not reduce competition below where it is now. BHD, have you ever ridden across the country? I have - twice, so far. Every one of the trains I saw heading east.....every single one...was pulled by string of a BN locomotives. Including, I'm sure, any trains heading to Indianapolis. I remember thinking to myself, I'd like to be the guy that sells the BN its rolling stock. That's because you were on tracks owned by BNSF. With the exception of some short stretches where lines lease access from one another, BNSF trains run on BNSF track, UP trains run on UP track, and never the two shall meet. Coal *had* to have an influence on Buffet's decision. Coal, to some extent, is recession proof. People need energy regardless of the economy. Intermodal (truck-train-truck and ship-truck-train-truck, is very much dependent on imports in the port cities. Now I'm not discounting that Buffet sees a resurgence in imports and is acting on that vision, but for now, it's a come bet. In fact, he stated as much as his reason for buying the railroad. BNSF's coal revenues probably did have some influence. I just have a very hard time seeing where it would be the reason. I'm also not sold on the future growth of coal. The advantage of coal is that it's dirt cheap. The disadvantage is everything else. Even with open pit mining and mountaintop removal, getting it from the ground to the powerplant is more labor intensive compared to gas by orders of magnitude. The one thing that can get people to accept a nuclear plant in their background is to threaten to build a coal-fired plant instead. After having their way with mining policy for a couple of decades there is a clear trend toward greater restrictions. And no matter what carbon emissions policies are adopted, it will cost substantially more for utilities to clean up a coal plant than gas. About intermodal: The international market for intermodal is done. Growth and shrinkage will move on the rise and fall of imports but the opportunities to see major growth are done. The growth potential is in the domestic market. All four of the major railroads are busting ass to build the infrastructure for domestic intermodal and lock down contracts with the major trucking companies like Scheidner, JB Hunt and Swift.
|
|
|
Post by flylooper on Nov 19, 2009 9:17:42 GMT -5
I have some experience in transportation. I used to sell truckloads (40,000 lbs) of foodstuffs from the West Coast. The most economical way of shipping, say, a TL of canned goods was by TTT (truck-train-truck, aka Piggyback). And it still is. The absolute cheapest is to ship a rail car and load it with 140,000 lbs of goods. 90% of perishables are still moved by over-the-road truck, which require diesel powered refrigerator units. If there are growth opportunities for the RR's it's in perishables and they have a lot of problems to solve: Cars sitting in switching yards to the point that they run out of fuel and the freight is lost; time between loading and arrival, and the fact that you have to buy 135,000 pounds to make a load up; winter weather problems, etc. Every now and then the RR would spill a car into a river, or the goods would be "humped" in a switching yard so badly they would get damaged, necessitating claims and all the headaches involved in that stuff. In recent times RRs have offered ways for shippers to "split" cars up so that more than one consignee can get onto a single car. Getting cars spotted on a siding at certain times is also a problem. And some shippers just don't even have a siding to load a car, either. Overall, they have a long way to go. They can compete on price very nicely, but service is just plain old shitty. As the cost of shipping rises, which it inevitably will, someone's going it figure it out. Maybe Buffet did..
|
|
|
Post by kitkat on Nov 19, 2009 11:44:09 GMT -5
Coal and Buffett...he isn't unaware: 1) subbituminous & lignite coal (all western US mined) comprise the planned coal for new facilities by a 2:1 ratio over eastern (bituminous) coal. (NETL, Oct 2009) 2) Coal is now (and is projected to remain) in a plant building boom--16 gigawatts is under construction and coming online between now and 2012 (99% of plants in this phase reach operational status--plants are only stopped in the permitting and proposal phases) : (note the dropoff in the above after 2012 or so is due to the time frame for new projects--which only extends a few years into the future.) IGCC and PCsupercritical technologies are considered to be emission compliant into the future and dominate the growth within new coal fired power projects. (NETL report 2009) As for NG, Buffett has been spending billions buying up pipelines and natural gas companies for years. It is clear by now that a powerful position in the energy sector is both the present & future for Berkshire-Hathaway.
|
|