Indeed: why? I suspect the answer is likely to be something worryingly banal, like "we're in debt" (or, "private interest knows a guy who wants to make some money"). Economies run on state-sponsored usury don't tend to last.
>I suspect the answer is likely to be something worryingly banal, like "we're in debt" (or, "private interest knows a guy who wants to make some money")
wikipedia has the answers. tl;dr it sounds like both of those things: the reserve was in debt and was depressing the market for helium.
Actually, the existence of the reserve was not depressing the market. The sell off of the reserve, which was mandated in 1996 and began in 2005, was depressing the market. The sale was modified in 2013 to try to relieve the market flooding issue. The present auction is the final piece of the sale.
Ugh, it is criminal how short-sighted this is. Helium is not easy to replace nor easy to store long term, it's the perfect application for government ownership of a commodity, just in case we need it.
i get your point and mostly agree with it - it's frustrating when people say things like "public transit isn't profitable"... yeah, it's not supposed to be, it's okay for things to cost money.
but that's different to being in debt. a public service can absolutely be in debt. it's given a budget, and if it fails to operate within that budget it goes into debt. that might mean the budget is too low, but there's always a point where a service is no longer worth the budget it would take to keep it operating. (not making a judgement on the helium reserve - i really have no context for how necessary or useful it is)
Anyone know how much it costs to maintain the reserve infrastructure? Do they have facilities that need to be staffed to keep an eye on it or is do they just need to just have perimeter security?
