Thread regarding Union Pacific Corp. layoffs

The use of the flag is no more than a sales gimmick. When the momentum from that runs dry, they’ll switch to something else. They don’t even care that much about the flags anyway... remember all the comments on the web about how the locos were never cleaned??

I guess this touched a nerve judging by the censored swearing. The OP has a point though, BNSF services the same area as UP and are just as American; why don't they get a flag?

Put it another way, when you use an American flag for your commercial purposes that comes with some responsibility. If you invoke patriotism and then fire thousands of employees on the heels of record profits, you should not be allowed to act like a patriot...because you are not, you're a phony and a hypocrite. Can you imagine Enron being allowed to drape an American flag all over their corporate literature?

Let's not forget something else. UP is a government sanctioned monopoly; most of its industries are captive industries and our only real competitor is the highway truck and the interstate highway system. The U.S. government fielded an Army and shed blood to clear the ROW of Native Americans; the same government surveyed public land and gave it to UP and the other railroads as well. At the time, Uncle Sam could not build the railroads himself, so he set up an incentive system for chartered private companies to build them. Fast forward to the 1950s, and Uncle Sam built the interstate highways by himself, something that likely would have happened in the 1800s with the railroads if the federal government had the power and resources it had post-WWII in 1850.

Point being, in 99% of the world, railroads are equivalent to highways, government owned and operated because they are a natural monopoly that needs to be integrated into an overall national transportation network. Only here in North America do we have private railroads which are essentially big, lightly regulated, utility companies that are a cash factory. At some point, someone needs to remind Lance and the board that they are not a "real" private business like Ford, U.S. Steel, Apple or Facebook, built from the ground up by entrepreneurs, but that the government and the people created his business, gave him his real estate, and fought and died in the Indian Wars to secure that ROW.

To see UPRR use patriotism while ruining the lives of ordinary Americans is disgusting. So yeah, I agree with the OP, screw them, write your senators, and tell them how Captain America is taking a sh** on Americans.

There is no US, China, Germany, etc. etc.

Whatever companies do to keep their profits high is all that matters to CEOs. If "Building America" works for them then they will use on their non American made locomotives.

I personally don't care about all these so called "American" companies using the patriotic themed advertising. Just as "American" companies willing to kill jobs here and outsourced to third world countries, I could care less about the flag waiving patriotic mumbo jumbo. As long as I can save money I'm more than willing to buy "Made In NOT-US" products .