Politics and the US Economy

[Ishmael]

I call bullshit. It costs more than that to go from San Diego to LA so unless he's talking about Washington DC to New York and even that's a stretch this is an outright lie.

I do believe the author misread the fares. It's $21 one way, two way fares are $40.

Acela is $99, one way.

Ishmael

 

[Ishmael]

Here's another liberal folly. This article debunks several of the liberal myths around high-speed rail...a hot topic of discussion today since the President's recommended budget just came out today. Thank goodness it's up to the House to put the budgets together. The President magnanomously offered to freeze the hightened level of spending in place while at the same time he's saying that he's going to bring the deficits down. Blah!

February 14, 2011
The Enemies of Good Government
By Robert Samuelson

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joe Biden, an avowed friend of good government, is giving it a bad name. With great fanfare, he went to Philadelphia the other day to announce that the Obama administration proposes spending $53 billion over six years to construct a "national high-speed rail system." Translation: the administration would pay states $53 billion to build rail networks that would then lose money -- not a little, but lots -- and, thereby, aggravate the budget squeezes of the states or federal government, depending on which covered the deficits.

There's something wildly irresponsible about the national government's undermining states' already poor long-term budget prospects by plying them with grants that provide short-term jobs. Worse, the high-speed rail proposal casts doubt on the administration's commitment to reducing huge budget deficits (its 2012 budget is due Monday). How can it subdue deficits if it keeps proposing big new spending programs?

High-speed rail would definitely be big. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has estimated the administration's ultimate goal -- bringing high-speed rail to 80 percent of the population -- could cost $500 billion over 25 years. For this stupendous sum, there would be scant public benefits. Precisely the opposite. Rail subsidies would threaten funding for more pressing public needs: schools, police, defense.

How can we know this? History, for starters.

Passenger rail service inspires wishful thinking. In 1970, when Congress created Amtrak to preserve intercity passenger trains, the idea was that the system would become profitable and self-sustaining after an initial infusion of federal money. This never happened. Amtrak has already swallowed $35 billion in subsidies, and they're increasing by more than $1 billion annually.

Despite the subsidies, Amtrak does not provide low-cost transportation. Longtime critic Randal O'Toole of the Cato Institute recently planned a trip from Washington to New York. Noting that fares on Amtrak's high-speed Acela start at $139 one-way, he decided to take a private bus service. The roundtrip fare: $21.50. Nor does Amtrak do much to relieve congestion, cut oil use, reduce pollution or eliminate greenhouse gases. Its traffic volumes are simply too small to matter.

Consider. In 2010, Amtrak carried 29.1 million passengers for the entire year. That's about one-twenty-fifth of annual air travel (2010 estimate: 725 million passengers). It's also roughly a quarter of daily automobile commuters (124 million in 2008). Measured by passenger-miles traveled, Amtrak represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the national total.

Rail buffs argue that subsidies for passenger service simply offset the huge government support of highways and airways. The subsidies "level the playing field." Wrong. In 2004, the Department of Transportation evaluated federal transportation subsidies for the period 1990-2002. It found passenger rail service had the highest subsidy ($186.35 per thousand passenger-miles) followed by mass transit ($118.26 per thousand miles). By contrast, drivers received no net subsidy; their fuel taxes more than covered federal spending. Subsidies for airline passengers were about $5 per thousand miles traveled. (All figures are in inflation-adjusted year 2000 dollars.)

High-speed rail would transform Amtrak's small drain into a much larger drain. Once built, high-speed rail systems would face a dilemma. To recoup initial capital costs -- construction and train purchases -- ticket prices would have to be set so high that few people would choose rail. But lower prices, even with favorable passenger loads, might not cover costs. Government would be stuck with huge subsidies. Even without recovering capital costs, high-speed rail systems would probably run in the red. Most mass-transit systems, despite high ridership, routinely have deficits.

"High Speed Rail" in the US is a joke, the term is an oxymoron.

Acela, the fastest rail we have right now averages 80 mph between DC and NYC. The only thing 'High Speed' about Acela is the name.

In the western US the situation would be even worse unless the government (Amtrak?) acquired it's own right-of-way between the desired high speed connections. It would then have to lay all new rail, install the Catenaries. and obtain the power distribution to the rail corridor.

Running these trains on existing right-of-way rail corridors is out of the question unless one wants to see "high speed" trains restricted to 90 mph or so and being forced to yield to freight traffic. All of which defeats the whole concept of high speed rail.

It's a politicians wet dream as far as pissing money away goes. Outlaw air travel and you might be on a winner.

Ishmael

 

[RightField]

I call bullshit. It costs more than that to go from San Diego to LA so unless he's talking about Washington DC to New York and even that's a stretch this is an outright lie.

The Acela train goes from DC to Wilmington to Phildelphia to NYC then to Boston. One way fares to Philly are usually around $140. A flight from DC to Boston one-way is usually between $39 and $59. lol...and that comparison includes heavy subsidizing of Amtrak too.

Building out a high speed rail project around the USA is insane...a good example of the democrat economic mind at work.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I didnt' say the train was cheaper. I said that number was an out and out lie. The reality that nobody wants to talk about is that aside from MAYBE changing how we transport freight you can't just wake up one day and say "trains that'd be good". Our cities aren't built in a way that you could change over effectively.

 

[RightField]

I didnt' say the train was cheaper. I said that number was an out and out lie. The reality that nobody wants to talk about is that aside from MAYBE changing how we transport freight you can't just wake up one day and say "trains that'd be good". Our cities aren't built in a way that you could change over effectively.

Actually, I thought you were saying that the train was much more expensive and I was agreeing with you.

 

[cebalrai]

"High Speed Rail" in the US is a joke, the term is an oxymoron.

Acela, the fastest rail we have right now averages 80 mph between DC and NYC. The only thing 'High Speed' about Acela is the name.

In the western US the situation would be even worse unless the government (Amtrak?) acquired it's own right-of-way between the desired high speed connections. It would then have to lay all new rail, install the Catenaries. and obtain the power distribution to the rail corridor.

Running these trains on existing right-of-way rail corridors is out of the question unless one wants to see "high speed" trains restricted to 90 mph or so and being forced to yield to freight traffic. All of which defeats the whole concept of high speed rail.

It's a politicians wet dream as far as pissing money away goes. Outlaw air travel and you might be on a winner.

Ishmael

I wonder why we can't get those trains that do ~130 mph. Anyone know?

 

[RightField]

I wonder why we can't get those trains that do ~130 mph. Anyone know?

Condition of the track (old and uneven), bends (can only have very gradual turns) and congestion.

 

[RightField]

I read something interesting about a week ago that talked about the democrats strategy. The position was that the dems were trying to expand their base beyond the chronically unemployed urbanites, unions and University professors to get more votes from working Americans (who pay the bills for the many programs for the urban centers). Through a "hope and change" program that promised a "post-partisan" future (lol), they temporarily got some votes in 2006 and 2008. Since that time, they've pledged support to employees (an effort to get working class people on their side) and demonized employers. I think many "employees" have realized that demonizing and destroying the employers causes additional unemployment and have abandoned the Dems. Do you think that working people of America will be won back by the dems in 2012?

 

[Sean Renaud]

You do realize that the Democrat base is larger than the Republican base and has been since the Depression right? The only reason Republicans even seem like a viable party is because we set up a system where the five people in Montana's vote count the same as five thousand Californians. If not for that you'd have Liberal Democrats and Blue Dog Democrats and republicans wouldn't even exist.

 

[overthebow]

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/16/133783606/balancing-the-budget-the-problem-might-be-you

The federal government's mounting debt is often blamed on a failure of leadership. But the leaders may not be the only ones at fault.

As unhappy as Americans claim to be about the government's red ink, surveys show most voters want more government than they're willing to pay for.

http://blogs.ajc.com/mike-luckovich/files/2011/02/mike02162011.jpg

 

[RightField]

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/16/133783606/balancing-the-budget-the-problem-might-be-you

http://blogs.ajc.com/mike-luckovich/files/2011/02/mike02162011.jpg

Yes, the article points to the fact that people want continued investment in infrastructure, but when asked if they'd be willing to pay additional gasoline taxes to pay for it, an overwhelming % said "No"...(maybe that we're paying a lot of taxes already....how about trimming some of the existing programs to pay for more roads?). Makes sense. At a 50,000 foot level, NPR, an organization that receives millions and millions of federal aid, has a horse in this race and wants to see their funding stream continue.

 

[Ishmael]

In reality there is ample monies available for infrastructure maintenance. The problem is that no one can have a ribbon cutting ceremony, let alone have a project named after them, if it's merely repair. Consequently members of congress along with the willing participation of local politicians tend to opt for new infrastructure projects, in many cases projects that are totally unnecessary. And in some cases criminally over budget and behind schedule (The Big Dig). All of which just adds to the maintenance requirements.

Another problem with our particular system of building is the 'low bidder' syndrome. It is here that we might possibly take a lead from the (dare I say it?) French. They bid their projects out with the contractor having to warranty the work for 7 years minimum. Overall they pay a 20% premium for the construction but quickly recover the monies by not having to start repairs the year following construction. In the end it is estimated that they save anywhere from 10% to 25% (depending on the source) over the life of the road surface.

Ishmael

 

[miles]

When Obama uses the word "investment" he sounds like a sleazy salesman, and the only people who believe him are suckers.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[miles]

He's loathe to say "spend."

Exactly.

What a phony.

"Your total investment in this Chevy Malibu with bad tires and 387,000 miles is $12,500.00"

 

[unregistered]

 

[mercury14]

When Obama uses the word "investment" he sounds like a sleazy salesman, and the only people who believe him are suckers.

Because that's what Glenn Beck tells you to believe. What part of you thinks that cutting resources to things like education are going to help us during a period where America's education system is falling off a cliff?

 

[mercury14]

Condition of the track (old and uneven), bends (can only have very gradual turns) and congestion.

You're making things up again.

 

[MeeMie]

http://www.moonbattery.com/mental-floss.jpg

 

[RightField]

You're making things up again.

Yeah. I've ridden that train dozens of times so of course I'm completely ignorant about it. Have you ridden it?

It is just this type of thinking on your part that makes it clear that you haven't gotten the mental acuity to be anything more than an orderly/clerk.

The slowest section of the electrified NEC is the portion owned by Metro-North Railroad and the Connecticut Department of Transportation between New Haven, Connecticut and New Rochelle, New York. Trains here are limited to only 90 mph (145 km/h) on a 4-mile (6.4 km) stretch in New York State, and to 75 mph (121 km/h) between the New York state line and New Haven. Additionally, tilting is not allowed anywhere on Metro-North or ConnDOT (Connecticut Dept. of Transportation) property. At a maximum 4.2° tilt,[3][4] the Acela Express trainset would pass other trains on parallel tracks only 10 inches (25 cm) away, which is too close for FRA-mandated clearances. ConnDOT has a number of projects either planned or underway that will upgrade the catenary system,[35] replace outdated bridges, and straighten certain sections of the New Haven Line to eventually enable the Acela trains to run at their 150 mph (241 km/h) top speed.

A medical orderly, is a hospital attendant whose job consists of assisting medical and or medical interventions. These duties are classified as routine tasks involving no risk for the patient.

 

[RightField]

Federal, state and local debt hits post-WWII levels
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 20, 2011; 11:33 PM

The daunting tower of national, state and local debt in the United States will reach a level this year unmatched just after World War II and already exceeds the size of the entire economy, according to government estimates.

But any similarity between 1946 and now ends there. The U.S. debt levels tumbled in the years after World War II, but today they are still climbing and even deep cuts in spending won't completely change that for several years.

As President Obama and Republicans squabble over whose programs to cut and which taxes to raise, slow growth and a rising tide of interest payments - largely beyond their control - are making the job of fixing the budget much harder than in the past. Statehouses and governors face similar challenges.

After World War II, the federal debt - including debt purchased by the Social Security Trust Fund - hit nearly 122 percent of gross domestic product. State and municipal debt back then was minimal. By the time Dwight Eisenhower was elected president six years later, the federal government's debt had dipped to about three-fourths of GDP.

The key factor in the rapid drop in government debt, said Harvard University economist Kenneth Rogoff, was fast economic growth. Spurred by a young labor force, world-leading manufacturers, high personal savings rates, a pent-up demand for consumer goods after years of war and the Depression, and a bout of inflation, the economy grew 57 percent in six years. Thanks to sharp postwar cuts in defense outlays, federal government spending also tumbled for a couple of years.

But today the U.S. economy is in a polar opposite condition. The labor force is aging, U.S. manufacturing often lags behind Asian and European rivals, households are in hock up to their eyeballs, and consumer appetite for goods is tepid. In addition, inflation is tame and government spending locked into entitlement programs and debt service that will be hard or impossible to alter.

"We're not growing like we were after World War II, so the amount of debt you can bear and the trajectory are much worse," Rogoff said.

Moreover, today state and municipal governments are also facing fiscal woes - another difference between now and the postwar era. State and municipal governments from Sacramento to Madison to Harrisburg have racked up about $2.4 trillion in debt, or more than 15 percent of GDP.

Even if analysts leave aside the debt held by the Social Security Trust Fund, the total indebtedness of federal, state and local governments is running around 85 percent, vs. 108.7 percent in 1946.

"It's still very, very, very high," Rogoff said, "and there are a lot of things on the other side of the equation that are much worse." Moreover the debt held by Social Security, which is in surplus now, will have to be paid later as the ranks of senior citizens grow.

 

[RightField]

The cynical side of me will make a prediction. The Republicans will sweep into power in a big way in 2012 and will feel that their mandate is to restructure all the spending and entitlement systems and will do a great job of it. The dems will snipe from the sidelines and give many examples of people in distress and at first, it won't make a difference, but after constant repitition and the weight of many sad stories, enough moderates and independents will "feel" for the dispossesed and combined with the dems and the main stream media finding and twisting every little bad economic indicator (though they'll have to work hard to find them) and vote the Republicans out in later elections and the democrats will inherit the just-starting-to-boom economy and take credit for it.

They've done this bizarre cherry picking before. During Reagan's run, the economy boomed and there was good news in almost every corner. The BLS showed that total compensation went up for all Americans, but there was a rub, though health benefits, retirement and other elements of total compensation improved and increased every year (total compensation including wages), the total take-home wages didn't increase much in one segment (low-skilled manufacturing due, I think, to increasing automation). There was a woman that wrote an article and it hit the media in a big way and shaped public opinion. Of course, more sane heads did a further analysis and showed that she had to do some very creative cherry picking through the BLS figures to come up with that conclusion, but by that time it had already blasted through the main stream media in a big way and was picked up so broadly because the dems were feeling shattered, everything was going so well they were having a hard time coming up with anything that they could use to run against Reagan. The dems siezed on that to take the position that not quite all the boats were lifted in a rising tide and the dems, not having much to ride upon, really ran with that one.

Of course, it was a silly position. In most democrat administrations, like Carter's for example, everyone gets poorer, but the dems don't complain about that. If 99% of the population gets richer, but there's a dem constituant that doesn't advance as well as everyone else, to the dems, that's a major emergency and worthy of repeated news stories and speeches. If you think about it, it makes a bit of sense, the dems really can't readily admit that their utopian dreams have never worked and will never work and always result in making everyone poorer...this truth doesn't translate well into a campaign speech to give them a shot at power. In order to get elected, they have to twist the truth to deceive enough moderates to vote for them.

As a point of discussion, now, when it is clear that there are lots of people out of work, losing their homes and suffering economically due to the dems mismanagement of the country, you don't see ANY stories in the media or the press highlighting this hardship. We all know its out there, there are tent cities in some places for example, but the media isn't running stories about it, it's just not in the vision that the media provides at this time. If the Republicans are successful and cut the budget/spending, then leading up to the next Presidential election, there will be tons and tons of stories in the media about people struggling and there will be almost nightly news stories with video of the tent cities. It won't be mentioned that the tent cities have been there through this democrat miasma, it will deceptively appear that the tent cities popped up as soon as the nation decided that the Republicans had an idea to curtail our deficit spending.

I wonder how it will all work out and I hope its better than what I'm projecting and that I'm being too cynical. What are your thoughts?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

That's not much of a prediction there Sherlock...






That's just being aware.
__________________
"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
CS Lewis

 

[vrosej10]

You guys are screwed. So glad I am not a US citizen right now. You lot aren't even over the hump of badness yet...