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Comment by orange_joe | Hacker News Reader

It's worth mentioning the backdrop of this is the current drive toward PSR (precision scheduled railroading), which has meant overworking train engineers with improved "efficiencies" through extremely long trains, and overworked employees. This has greatly increased the value of the train companies on the stock market, but at the expense of the workers (this came to a head a few months ago with pending labor strikes on the railroads). Insiders have warned about its potential risks, and I'm not an expert so I can't speak to overall accident trends, but the increased number of cars on a given engine greatly increases risk of derailment. This clearly seems like a major environmental disaster and will hopefully bring greater scrutiny toward how the rail companies operate.

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Related to this, the railworkers rejected their current labor contract, but congress and Biden intervened, blocking a strike two months ago:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-r...

I'm a bit disappointed that none of the reporting on this incident I have come across is making these links.

Now you're asking that question, you might also ask why we saw more news stories days ago about this derailment in the European media than we did in the US.

And what else is lied about in the "news."

The media news cycle in the US was literally staring at a balloon in the sky for days. It's as unsubtle of a distraction from real issues as it can get.

Or why we're seeing so much coverage of random "balloons" being shot over US airspace. It just feels off and convenient, even if not a downright conspiracy.

This is yet another symptom of shareholders becoming the primary customer. The strong incentive for short-term profit results in strategic decision-making that is both financially riskier and more ethically dubious in the long term.

Ok. Do you realize that most of us are the shareholders? This is a Fortune 500 company. Most of our 401ks include blended Fortune 500 holdings.

I keep hearing this rhetoric around social media… Do people not realize that there is a cost to our retirement funds always having to increase in value?

Hey champ if my 401k earning slightly less means not chem-Chernobyling small town USA or working people to death, that’s fine by me.

I’d bet there is an industry of white collar traders getting rich off the 401k mechanism, never putting in a dime of their own money.

> Do you realize that most of us are the shareholders? [...] Most of our 401ks

Only 60 million Americans have a 401k.

Also, the idea that an American owning a portfolio of stocks in a 401k means that they are responsible for all the immoral actions taken by each company is absolutely and totally ridiculous.

I think this outcome was unintentional, but in hindsight this feels like the greatest trick megacapitalism ever pulled.

A disproportionate amount of equity growth goes to the wealthy but the middle class has also hitched their futures to the stock market through 401ks. This means that "well, grandma's retirement also depends on record corporate profits" is a nearly invincible tactic against anything that diminishes corporate profits. The folks that own a disproportionate amount of equities get to untouchably balloon their wealth and there is nothing to stop them because stopping them would mean blowing up a generation's retirement plan.

The outcome was not unintentional. The current moves overtures to privatize Social Security will seal the complete subservience of labor to capital. "If our share price drops, retirees will freeze to death on empty stomachs - not even the government can help"

I'm not sure. 401ks were not an accident when they were introduced, but it doesn't appear that any of their architects intended for them to completely revolutionize and take over the retirement system in the US.

I do agree that now it is an organized effort by capital and that efforts to move social security to a system similar to private 401k accounts (which has been pushed by the right since before W Bush) would absolutely do what you say - seal the complete subservience of labor to capital. I just think that this was an opportunity seized by capital rather than a change planned from the beginning.

Pressuring engineers, dispatchers and yard crews to stick to increasingly tight schedules, especially while understaffed, is exactly how you end up with more incidents.

They don't care. The costs are minimal compared to the profits, the bad PR can be massaged, etc.

Edit: also forgot that the president and both halves of congress have clearly telegraphed "full speed ahead" after the recent nonsense around the railroad union strikes. These workers aren't even getting time off for sick days or family emergencies (the latter of which is almost certainly a violation of the Family Medical Leave Act.)

(Precision Scheduled Railroading)

edited my comment for clarity thanks!

JIT for rails?

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