Major rail mergers that reshaped the US freight network
Such mergers have historically reshaped the rail map, consolidating regional carriers into some dominant networks, but often come under intense scrutiny from the Surface Transportation Board.
Landmark mergers in the past - such as the creation of BNSF and between Union Pacific and Southern Pacific - have set the stage for today's concentrated rail network, often triggering both operational gains and regulatory pushback.
Here are some of the largest railroad deals in the past three decades:
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The Independent
2 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump officials scramble to justify firing of economic statistician – as critics say ‘scary' move is a sign of ‘authoritiarianism'
Members of Donald Trump's team scrambled to provide coherent explanations for the sudden firing of a top official at the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Sunday as Friday's firing resonated throughout Washington and left the White House open to criticism of Trump's 'authoritarian' leanings. The US president directed the firing of Erika McEntarfer on Friday after a jobs report showed private companies adding just 73,000 positions in July, a drop from projections and a further sign that the Trump economy is stalling in the face of growing uncertainty around the president's tariff agenda. McEntarfer's firing was immediately denounced by her Trump-appointed predecessor and numerous others in Washington. Republicans on the Hill struggled to defend it, while members of Donald Trump's team insisted in interviews that the president and the nation needed what he called 'reliable' numbers. Trump accused McEntarfer of cooking the numbers on Kamala Harris's behalf during the 2024 election, and now working to make him look bad, a notion even the president's own advisers wouldn't echo directly. Kevin Hassett, director of the White House economic council, led the efforts to defend the president's decision-making on Sunday. He was joined by Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative. Hassett directly contradicted the president during his interview on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream; he argued that it was the formula by which the BLS determined job market gains — not malicious activity by McEntarfer — which needed to be addressed. Pointing to a letter from McEntarfer's predecessors, Bream asked Hassett: 'They're saying it's not good to cast aspersions on what's being done because it's a formula. It's used the same way every single time. So are you saying maybe the formulas, the calculations need to change?' 'That's right. They really need to get back to ground zero and find out why these numbers are so unreliable,' said Hassett.' "The data can't be propaganda. The data has to be something you can trust, because decision-makers throughout the economy trust that these are the data that they can build a factory because they believe, or cut interest rates because they believe. And if the data aren't that good, then it's a real problem for the US,' Hassett continued. He and others pointed to the agency revising totals for May and June as evidence that the BLS required changes: 'We expect more big revisions for the jobs data in September, for example ... we want to know why, we want people to explain it to us.' Greer, during a pre-taped interview with CBS's Face the Nation, backed up Hassett's claims that sharp revisions dating back to 2024 were evidence of the numbers produced by the agency being unreliable. "You want to be able to have somewhat reliable numbers,' he said. 'There are always revisions, but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways.' But there's still nothing linking McEntarfer to the kind of nefarious activity which Trump alleged she was up to in a Truth Social post. 'I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes,' Trump wrote on Friday. He added: 'In my opinion, today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad — Just like when they had three great days around the 2024 Presidential Election, and then, those numbers were 'taken away' on November 15, 2024, right after the Election.' No one on the president's team has attempted to present any evidence backing up Trump's claims. A number of McEntarfer's predecessors and other top officialst at the BLS fired back in a statement from a group called the 'Friends of the BLS': 'The President seeks to blame someone for unwelcome economic news.' The president's critics said that the firing and unsupported explanation meant that future figures released by the agency would be thrown into question and was an example of Trump desiring ability to dictate the creation of phony statistics. 'This is the stuff of democracies giving way to authoritarianism,' warned Larry Summers, former director of the White House economic council under Biden (and Hassett's predecessor), on ABC's This Week. 'This is really scary stuff, and it can hardly be surprising that when the rule of law is in a bit question that there's a big uncertainty premium in the markets.' He went on to argue that Trump's battering of Fed Chair Jerome Powell followed in a similar vein, and was behind much of the uncertainty curbing U.S. investments on Wall Street. 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The Independent
2 minutes ago
- The Independent
Boeing workers who build fighter jets plan to go on strike
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Daily Mail
3 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
ALEX BRUMMER: Bank under populist siege
Running in parallel with Donald Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariff horror has been the President's furious and uncouth attacks on America's independent central bank. Trump makes little secret of his contempt for current chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jay Powell, even though he nominated him for the job in his first term. Powell has refused to be a White House cipher, standing firm against Trump's unrelenting campaign to cut the US's key federal funds interest rate from the current 4.25 per cent to 4.5 per cent range. The Fed chairman's obduracy remains intact despite last week's dissent by two Trumpian choices as Fed interest rate-setters. Events across the Atlantic appear to have little relevance to the UK, where Chancellor Rachel Reeves started her illustrious rise to the nation's top economic post at the Bank of England. Governor Andrew Bailey is a friend, even though the Chancellor and Governor are currently at odds over lifting the burden of City regulation. A more important clash between the Bank and the Government is on the horizon. Bailey is known to be dismissive of the short-lived administration of Liz Truss. In her memoir, Truss was unforgiving of the role that she claims Bailey played in her downfall. Dangerously for the Bank, critics on the Left and the Right are targeting its credibility and independence. The Leftist New Economics Foundation has consistently campaigned against the Bank's approach to 'quantitative tightening'. This process involves running down the £895billion of gilt holdings the Bank acquired between 2009 and 2021 as it injected cash into the banking system with the aim of averting recession and calming markets. The Treasury agreed to indemnify the Bank against losses at a potential cost of £130billion over the current decade. The UK approach is seen as meeting standards of fiscal probity but imposes an extraordinary burden on public finances at a time when the debt to national output (GDP) ratio is close to 100 per cent. The Fed, in contrast to the UK, decided to continue to hold Treasuries (the equivalent of gilts), bought in the post-financial crisis era, on its books and hold them to maturity. So there are no paper losses. Neil Collins (a former colleague) pointed to the daftness of Bank policy in a recent letter to The Spectator magazine. He noted that in May 2020 the Bank bought a long-gilt, dated 2061, for £101. It recently sold the very same stock at a price as low as £28! Few people pay much attention to 'Reform-onomics', even though Nigel Farage leads in the opinion polls. The main criticism of Reform is that the party's big-spending, populist policies are costly and could trigger a fresh Truss-like crisis. Less debated is the dispute between Reform apparatchik Richard Tice MP and Bailey over monetary policy. Tice suggests that the Bank's approach to quantitative tightening has enriched high street banks and is costing the taxpayer money. But Bailey points out the Bank booked an earlier £124billion profit on its gilt purchases and, for the moment, the Government is £34billion up. Details of the dispute are obscure. The more sinister point for Threadneedle Street is that Tice and Reform see Bank independence as potentially a soft target. Echoes of Donald Trump's attacks on the Fed can be heard loudly.
