No mystery, have you used public transportation in America? It is slow, unreliable, dirty, and dangerous. It is hard to upgrade and improve because labor unions and political corruption make it more expensive to paint a train station than it formerly cost to build one. Some of you may have read the story about an NYC transit worker bringing home $411,000 in one year, and we all know that any new public transport system always ends up costing several times the contracted cost, and is usually finished years or even decades behind schedule.
Here in Japan we have great public transportation. But almost all of it is privately owned and operated for profit. And there are no unions in the American sense. Unions in Japan exist to protect workers rights, anyone can join, there are no dues. But unions do not lobby for higher pay and benefits. Japan’s public transportation used to be government owned and operated, but unreliable service and huge financial losses caused them to be privatized. Now they are clean, safe, extremely punctual, and cheap to use. The government owns a minority percentage of these lines, but has no say in day-to-day operations. Instead of squandering vast amounts of money, the Japanese government receives a substantial dividend.