NERA, an economic consultancy, concluded that haulage rates do not reflect the true cost of freight transport.

ECONOMIST: Fuel taxes

These are the impediments to the movement of people and goods brought on by Sept. 11: the wasted hours of employees showing IDs to get into their building, the delays at the airport, the backlog of trucks at the border, the increased cost of air freight, the dead weight of higher insurance premiums.

FORBES: The Detour Economy

These are the impediments to the movement of people and goods brought on by Sept. 11: the wasted hours of employees showing proof of identification to get in their building, the delays at the airport, the backlog of trucks at the border, the increased cost of air freight, the dead weight of higher insurance premiums.

FORBES: The Detour Economy

Proponents note that the overall cost of the project would be recouped within a few decades, as the volume of tunnel freight transport activity increased, reaching an estimated 3 percent of the world's total physical cargo or 100 million tons annually.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: The Bering Strait Tunnel Project

You evidently believe that remote sellers should have their additional freight expense (the retailer's cost of business) subsidized by sales taxes (state government revenue).

FORBES: Readers Say

If I purchase a book for the same price from a retailer and a remote seller, the remote seller's freight cost would be paid by my own state of Texas.

FORBES: Readers Say

And thus the spectacle of slow cross-country trains that should have been allowed to die when Amtrak took over from the freight railroads in 1971 but continue to roll at the cost of vast subsidies with little or no public benefit.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Not a model railroad

An inevitable increase in freight costs is not going to wipe out the benefits of manufacturing in low-cost countries abroad.

ECONOMIST: Can it ever again be business as usual?