Comments by "Samson Soturian" (@samsonsoturian6013) on "The Myth of Chinese Efficiency" video.

To add: The most profitable high-speed rail is in Japan. This is because they have a high GDP per capita, and are one of the most densely populated places in the world. So much so that it is often faster to walk 6 miles than to drive. The perfect place for a HSR.
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Raising the price of a ticket doesn't help them, either. That simply reduces ride numbers. So most rails will raise the cost of freight to the point it is often cheaper to move by truck than by train. This contributed to their fuel shortages a few months ago, as the ability to move coal across country was limited.
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Given how most of these Chinese mega-projects go to companies owned directly or indirectly by the government officials subsidizing the projects, I'd say these projects fill their intended purpose quite well. One common antic is that planners will give the contract to a dummy corporation they own, and then subcontract the entire project out for a profit. Or they simply give the contract to whomever pays the biggest bribe.
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@Fishmans corrections. Most of the firms behind Chinese HSP rail are owned in whole or in part by the officials putting the projects together. Most Chinese roads are junk anyway, and it's much cheaper to drive than use rails. And yes there are alternatives as many Chinese people rely on buses or low speed rails that double as freight rails. The prestige of building HSR was one of the main motives for Chinese blowing their budget on junk like this.
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@Homer-OJ-Simpson China's population stats are exaggerated. Local governments compete with each other for allocation of state resources, and a large portion of the population are internal migrants that don't have provincial citizenship where they work (many farmers plant their crops and get temp jobs in the city). Ergo, double counting is systemic at every level of census taking. It is not known if any population figures were straight up falsified, though.
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@Homer-OJ-Simpson rail tickets cost money. If you're poor enough, it is better to take a long cheap route. And in order to justify the high cost of HSR you need A LOT of people who can afford daily tickets within walking distance of the station (or at least a short bus ride away).
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@Fishmans Perhaps. But it is better if it's profitable or at least breaks even.
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@michaelg5945 I ain't subscribed to him
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@saumyacow4435 lose the rhetoric. Besides, road costs come directly out of fuel and vehicle taxes and the builders operate at a profit.
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@dennythedavinchi3832 what does all that babble about the 1980's have to do with HSR?
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@JohnJones-lb6xo not exactly. You pay for them in gasoline taxes.
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@saumyacow4435 if it can't break even, then it ain't worth the tax dollars
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@saumyacow4435 Lose the digression. That is not the matter at hand
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I guess because he posts about many subjects. Poly = many.
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@Hahaha41241 Southeaster, you mean. Even then most of those rails are hampered by how most people are a little poor.
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@williamgordon5708 We can afford cars over here. Most people in China own things like motorbikes, ebikes, scooters.
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@ClockworksOfGL Japan's economic bubble had nothing to do with excessive debt or railroads. It was a combination of how they're a nation of savers, and how their economy really bounced up after WWII since they no longer had an army to support, and an accounting loophole allowed corporations to count paper gains from stocks as income. Result? Growing companies invest their extra money until they can decide what to do with them, this make the value of Japanese stocks to go up, this makes corporate earnings look good, causing more people to invest in Japan, and continue on a loop until it becomes unsustainable (IIRC, at one point the land value of the Imperial Palace was that of a country).
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@konsta9600 traffic really is that congested. You'll sit at intersections most of the trip
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@konsta9600 Dude, if you live in a mid-sized North American city or smaller, I understand your incredulousness. But understand there's stretches of many hundreds of miles in many parts of the world that are uninterrupted urban sprawl. In Japan's case there's simply not enough land on the island to go around.
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@frontierproloteriat perhaps, but these services should definitely break even or else it ain't worth it.
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@frontierproloteriat ain't worth the tax dollars and loans needed to set them up.
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Jun Kun I'm too lazy to fact check that but whatever be the case Japan's prices didn't effect ridership while many in China are willing to take the bus to save money.
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@henrytudor8537 you talking to me?
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@peterparker9954 That's China, I was talking about Japan
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@peterparker9954 the average debt to equity ratio among Chinese companies is twice that of US companies. And note that Americans aren't exactly known for their prudent fear of leverage and this doesn't include systemic practices of hidden debt in China. That doesn't count the huge public debts as many local governments have defaulted over the past few decades With Japan's case, it's a matter of their bubble decades ago. Their government made huge bailouts and quant easing and now has the highest debt to GDP ratio of any developed nation. The government, however, is not the economy. Also, their bubble wasn't produced by borrowing, but by savings.
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@weizhang2834 you ain't fat enough to be considered 5000 bureaucrats
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@real_dddf mostly do to purchasing power issues. The rails are cheap as the labor in China but that doesn't mean locals can afford it
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@George Smith Patton Jr. that guy also bought a meme coin. He's no guru and he's looking at the same fraudulent data as everyone else
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@LongIslandIced-Tea Chinese rails also derail all the time due to unsafe speeds and tight schedules and cheap builds.
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@LongIslandIced-Tea quit proving the point
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@jamieminnell7316 not if you know economics.
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@bigfatseal4430 Depends where you are and time of day but congestion in Japan is really that insane.
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@Peterpanza52 that doesn't mean it doesn't need to break even in order to be worth it
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JokoJo UK you mind making sense?
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@pepelepew1227 what are you even angry about?
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@AG-GA Honest question: Are you a robot?
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@AG-GA A robot wouldn't be able to creatively insult half the people on this thread. And it's easy to see you're misusing a VPN by your video post history
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@ronidude yes, but overwhelmingly both rails are operated by the same company.
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@dadikkedude as I said to the other guy, the rail companies own both rails
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@Homer-OJ-Simpson yeah. That's what I meant. Same companies own both rails.
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@madman5042 there are too many sources to choose from. Some more reliable than others. I'm a historian, you see.
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@full-timepog6844 most of the time, anyway. Sometimes even if you are a party member your peers will get jealous
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@Blox117 One problem: That didn't happen. If you're going to be whataboutist, find a scandal someone actually went to jail for.
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