As is too often the case - the measurement of "economic costs" conveniently ignores the costs that don't involve profits.
The current trend to send out salt trucks without plowing properly, and regardless of temperature is severely problematic.
Salting roads too early in a snow-fall results in layers of slush under snow that are as dangerous or more dangerous than just snow. Hydroplaning is a regular consequence of salting. What baseline do these studies use for their % decrease in accidents?
Road salt and (salt-related road treatments) utterly destroy water systems, soil, and road beds.
How many of those lost hours and damage-dollars could be more safely addressed with snow-tires and license-tests for winter driving?
Some of my classmates in the suburbs of Chicago came from crime families that had cornered a segment of Chicago’s municipal contracts through insider bidding schemes, including fraudulently taking advantage of diversity initiatives, such as in the milk supply to city schools, which ultimately brought about charges from the federal government. (Don’t feel too bad for them - if the kids could not be appointed judges in Cook county, they became Republicans in Kane to do just that) These anticompetitive practices are a kind of politically endorsed monopoly that stretched the city’s municipal budget to famously thin absurds. I have to think that the roll up of salt markets will compound multiplicatively rather than arithmetically in Chicago due to the corruption that already exists in the bidding process. Do you consider just in time supply a specious article of faith preached by the private equity world, or merely dangerous in cases where public safety is concerned and the cost of storage is negligible? I don’t know if you have read Womack’s the Machine that Changed the World, but I found his case for reducing inventory in manufacturing settings interesting.
LogMeIn's LastPass has introduced a premium tier. Effective this week, the free edition will now only work on a single device type, e.g. phone or PC. If you want it to work across multiple device types, you have to subscribe to the premium service at $3/month. I'm waiting for that to change to an additional fee per device.
I can tell already I'm going to detest the subscription-based software model.
It seems possible for the estate or family of a deceased driver to sue a municipality for failing to clear and salt a road, but would they or the municipality have cause of action against the depravedly indifferent salt supplier (either civil or criminal)? I don't think contract escape clauses can remove criminal liability, but have no idea what a judge would think.
Another good article. Just a comment on Exxon/Chevron: as an oil analyst, I don't think the monopoly considerations here are that concerning. They'd have about 4% of the world's oil supply and, perhaps more importantly, still <20% of US refining capacity. The landscape is much changed from the old days.
Not to say that it should be waved through, but the Hallburton/Baker Hughes proposal of a few years back was clearly more problematic, despite these companies only being a fraction of the size of Exxon and Chevron.
I'd love to hear your insight on whether Rubio's statement is part of any kind of coherent policy view or just a one-off. We know Trump hated Amazon because he didn't like how the Washington Post covered him and blamed Jeff Bezos. So there's some opportunity to curry favor with the base by attacking Amazon in this case. On the other hand, Republicans have been consistently anti-union (except for law enforcement unions, which they're for). So does this statement of Rubio's portend any kind of general view of his about labor vs HR or whatever, or is it just him saying something to be anti-Amazon that he won't ever repeat in any other context?
Seems to me that regulating PE companies is not enough. We need big changes in tax code on these bad actors in the Economy. For one thing, make them pay taxes at the rate of income, not capital gains. Course I think capital gains should be changed at the same rate as regular income too!
On the salt topic, I reported many years ago on the Canadian potash industry, where salt is a by-product (what we call road salt and potash are often found together, and the excavation of salt is often required t get to the potash). The eastern mines I knew were acquired by a western company (now Nutrien) and eventually shut down, despite being close to a seaport and New England markets
Did you look any further than salt industry propaganda for your economic costs? How about the cost of the impact of salt on the environment? Municipalities are having to dig new wells or change filtration because of salt intrusion into drinking water sources. The salt also results in shorter life for roads. And while I expect this is less of a problem because car bodies contain less steel, the damage to vehicles caused by the salt is not insignificant. And the accidents are caused, in part, because of the salt. "Oh, they salted the road. I can drive my usual 10 mph over the speed limit."
“And private equity takeovers in general are operational nightmares, which means that it’s likely Kissner and Morton will have problems with production and distribution purely because mergers tend not to work out.”
I agree with the main thrust of the article but this sweeping generalisation is a bit of a reach.
There are high profile exceptions but Private Equity make a lot of money in part because they’re good at the operational side of acquisitions - these kinds of issues are very bad for business and these guys aren’t in the habit of losing money.
Bravo and thank you !!
As is too often the case - the measurement of "economic costs" conveniently ignores the costs that don't involve profits.
The current trend to send out salt trucks without plowing properly, and regardless of temperature is severely problematic.
Salting roads too early in a snow-fall results in layers of slush under snow that are as dangerous or more dangerous than just snow. Hydroplaning is a regular consequence of salting. What baseline do these studies use for their % decrease in accidents?
Road salt and (salt-related road treatments) utterly destroy water systems, soil, and road beds.
How many of those lost hours and damage-dollars could be more safely addressed with snow-tires and license-tests for winter driving?
Stoller's is just about the only substack that focuses more on solid informative content than outrage entertainment.
Some of my classmates in the suburbs of Chicago came from crime families that had cornered a segment of Chicago’s municipal contracts through insider bidding schemes, including fraudulently taking advantage of diversity initiatives, such as in the milk supply to city schools, which ultimately brought about charges from the federal government. (Don’t feel too bad for them - if the kids could not be appointed judges in Cook county, they became Republicans in Kane to do just that) These anticompetitive practices are a kind of politically endorsed monopoly that stretched the city’s municipal budget to famously thin absurds. I have to think that the roll up of salt markets will compound multiplicatively rather than arithmetically in Chicago due to the corruption that already exists in the bidding process. Do you consider just in time supply a specious article of faith preached by the private equity world, or merely dangerous in cases where public safety is concerned and the cost of storage is negligible? I don’t know if you have read Womack’s the Machine that Changed the World, but I found his case for reducing inventory in manufacturing settings interesting.
Beautifully written piece
LogMeIn's LastPass has introduced a premium tier. Effective this week, the free edition will now only work on a single device type, e.g. phone or PC. If you want it to work across multiple device types, you have to subscribe to the premium service at $3/month. I'm waiting for that to change to an additional fee per device.
I can tell already I'm going to detest the subscription-based software model.
It seems possible for the estate or family of a deceased driver to sue a municipality for failing to clear and salt a road, but would they or the municipality have cause of action against the depravedly indifferent salt supplier (either civil or criminal)? I don't think contract escape clauses can remove criminal liability, but have no idea what a judge would think.
Another good article. Just a comment on Exxon/Chevron: as an oil analyst, I don't think the monopoly considerations here are that concerning. They'd have about 4% of the world's oil supply and, perhaps more importantly, still <20% of US refining capacity. The landscape is much changed from the old days.
Not to say that it should be waved through, but the Hallburton/Baker Hughes proposal of a few years back was clearly more problematic, despite these companies only being a fraction of the size of Exxon and Chevron.
I'd love to hear your insight on whether Rubio's statement is part of any kind of coherent policy view or just a one-off. We know Trump hated Amazon because he didn't like how the Washington Post covered him and blamed Jeff Bezos. So there's some opportunity to curry favor with the base by attacking Amazon in this case. On the other hand, Republicans have been consistently anti-union (except for law enforcement unions, which they're for). So does this statement of Rubio's portend any kind of general view of his about labor vs HR or whatever, or is it just him saying something to be anti-Amazon that he won't ever repeat in any other context?
I couldn't figure out where else to send this story from The Nation on private equity taking over autism services so.....https://www.thenation.com/article/society/private-equity-autism-aba/
Seems to me that regulating PE companies is not enough. We need big changes in tax code on these bad actors in the Economy. For one thing, make them pay taxes at the rate of income, not capital gains. Course I think capital gains should be changed at the same rate as regular income too!
Informative and very well put. Great work, Matt
On the salt topic, I reported many years ago on the Canadian potash industry, where salt is a by-product (what we call road salt and potash are often found together, and the excavation of salt is often required t get to the potash). The eastern mines I knew were acquired by a western company (now Nutrien) and eventually shut down, despite being close to a seaport and New England markets
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/sussex-jobs-potash-mine-road-salt-1.5124297
Did you look any further than salt industry propaganda for your economic costs? How about the cost of the impact of salt on the environment? Municipalities are having to dig new wells or change filtration because of salt intrusion into drinking water sources. The salt also results in shorter life for roads. And while I expect this is less of a problem because car bodies contain less steel, the damage to vehicles caused by the salt is not insignificant. And the accidents are caused, in part, because of the salt. "Oh, they salted the road. I can drive my usual 10 mph over the speed limit."
“And private equity takeovers in general are operational nightmares, which means that it’s likely Kissner and Morton will have problems with production and distribution purely because mergers tend not to work out.”
I agree with the main thrust of the article but this sweeping generalisation is a bit of a reach.
There are high profile exceptions but Private Equity make a lot of money in part because they’re good at the operational side of acquisitions - these kinds of issues are very bad for business and these guys aren’t in the habit of losing money.