[IndySam]

Oh Arthur my son so many generalizations.

The railroad business does have to build and maintain their own infrastructure and the freight companies are very profitable. Passenger rail is not profitable in most places because consumers don't want to use it. Simple supply and demand.

The modern trend is for private companies to run toll roads, they do so more profitably and efficiently. If there product starts to suffer consumers will find another way and they loose money. On the East coast where everything is run by the old boy network things will never be efficient, doesn't matter if it's highways toll roads of passenger rail.

The couple of airlines that have gone belly up were for reasons other than oil prices. Most of airline profits do come from business passengers because we are the majority of the people who use it. BTW that's business passengers not business class. Airline's are having tough times because of oil prices but the smart ones have hedged their oil cost and are doing well. Airline traffic is growing and is predicted to grow for the next twenty years

The world is not running out of oil (not yet anyway.) Demand is going up and it is a problem we will have to deal with in our lifetimes. But high oil prices are making many sources of oil usable that were not worth going after before. High oil prices are really making it worth it for entrepreneurs to develop alternate energy sources. I think that some of the students from FIRST will be leading the way in these efforts.

And please remember that the Nobel prize is handed out to whomever puts down the United States the best no matter if they use the facts or not.