Actually, if you hate the idea of passenger trains, you should love what California is doing in mangling the execution of it. When they are done, this will set back the cause of passenger trains as a serious transportation mode in this country by at least 50 years.
If you love trains, what they are doing in California should make you cry, because as I said, the California HSR will set back the cause of passenger trains in the U.S. by at least 50 years.
Back in the day when Edmund G. “Pat” Brown built the California freeways, if high-speed trains were a thing, the California Governor would have made that happen, too. In the present day of Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, nothing gets done — no water projects, no freeways, no trains, no anything. They can’t even pick up sticks from the ground to prevent horrendous wildfires.
Rand, I know you are a Libertarian and look askance at Socialism in any form. I imagine you would have been against the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), but the TVA got stuff done. The TVA generated the power to enrich the uranium for the atom bomb that ended WW-II. I don’t know how you would have structured a “Commercial Atomics” substitute for the TVA and the Manhattan Project.
The TVA was Socialism. Pat Brown’s road construction was Socialism. I don’t know what Jerry Brown and his kind represent, but it is a sad excuse for Socialism. It is a Socialism of running around and setting your hair on fire.
Pat Brown’s road construction was Socialism.
That would mean that socialism was invented in Mesopotamia — because road-building was already a government thing way back then.
It’s akin to calling taxpayer-funded law enforcement and jail-building socialism.
It is claimed that Mussolini made the trains run on time, and he wasn’t exactly Rand Paul. Jerry Brown not only cannot make the trains run on time, he can’t even get them to run at all.
It was claimed, mostly by Mussolini apologists. ISTR reading that it was never supported by the evidence.
Some of that propaganda was strong stuff, here, to still be working roughly 75 years after Mussolini was executed.
As I hear it, the trains ran “on time” because the schedules were adjusted to match what the trains were doing.
Modern day Marxists think parks are socialism and if you like parks, then you will love socialism. You like parks don’t you?
I don’t ‘hate’ passenger trains. I just don’t think there should be any governmental (i.e. taxpayer) subsidies for them, or special laws that limit them.
For the lines that can attract sufficient business to remain profitable, GREAT. For the rest? Well, it sucks to suck.
Rand, I know you are a Libertarian and look askance at Socialism in any form. I imagine you would have been against the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), but the TVA got stuff done. The TVA generated the power to enrich the uranium for the atom bomb that ended WW-II. I don’t know how you would have structured a “Commercial Atomics” substitute for the TVA and the Manhattan Project.
Getting stuff done isn’t necessarily any better than not getting it done. The USSR nearly destroyed the Aral Sea in the process of getting stuff done. Here, a key problem is that TVA destroyed local private competitors. The TVA had a captive tax revenue stream and could do plenty of things that simply didn’t make sense because it would keep getting that revenue no matter how badly it performed.
The TVA was able to get things done because they did their biggest projects before the existence of our current massive bureaucracy. FDR was creating a big bureaucracy back then but it pales to what’s in place today. For starters, there was no EPA or OSHA back then. That’s why big projects like dams and the Empire State Building were able to be constructed so quickly. They didn’t need to slog through years of bureaucracy such as environmental impact statements.
Between the bureaucratic overhead and the costs of acquiring the right of way for the tracks and related infrastructure, California’s Train to Nowhere isn’t likely to ever be built. But it is serving a purpose in that billions of dollars are being given to politically connected individuals and corporations. In that regard, it’s little different from the SLS. We always have to remember that politicians use different metrics for success than we use. Votes bought, cronies enriched, and kickbacks are much more important to them that operational efficiency, cost effectiveness, and practicality.
Actually, if you hate the idea of passenger trains, you should love what California is doing in mangling the execution of it. When they are done, this will set back the cause of passenger trains as a serious transportation mode in this country by at least 50 years.
If you love trains, what they are doing in California should make you cry, because as I said, the California HSR will set back the cause of passenger trains in the U.S. by at least 50 years.
Back in the day when Edmund G. “Pat” Brown built the California freeways, if high-speed trains were a thing, the California Governor would have made that happen, too. In the present day of Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, nothing gets done — no water projects, no freeways, no trains, no anything. They can’t even pick up sticks from the ground to prevent horrendous wildfires.
Rand, I know you are a Libertarian and look askance at Socialism in any form. I imagine you would have been against the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), but the TVA got stuff done. The TVA generated the power to enrich the uranium for the atom bomb that ended WW-II. I don’t know how you would have structured a “Commercial Atomics” substitute for the TVA and the Manhattan Project.
The TVA was Socialism. Pat Brown’s road construction was Socialism. I don’t know what Jerry Brown and his kind represent, but it is a sad excuse for Socialism. It is a Socialism of running around and setting your hair on fire.
That would mean that socialism was invented in Mesopotamia — because road-building was already a government thing way back then.
It’s akin to calling taxpayer-funded law enforcement and jail-building socialism.
It is claimed that Mussolini made the trains run on time, and he wasn’t exactly Rand Paul. Jerry Brown not only cannot make the trains run on time, he can’t even get them to run at all.
It was claimed, mostly by Mussolini apologists. ISTR reading that it was never supported by the evidence.
Some of that propaganda was strong stuff, here, to still be working roughly 75 years after Mussolini was executed.
As I hear it, the trains ran “on time” because the schedules were adjusted to match what the trains were doing.
Modern day Marxists think parks are socialism and if you like parks, then you will love socialism. You like parks don’t you?
I don’t ‘hate’ passenger trains. I just don’t think there should be any governmental (i.e. taxpayer) subsidies for them, or special laws that limit them.
For the lines that can attract sufficient business to remain profitable, GREAT. For the rest? Well, it sucks to suck.
Rand, I know you are a Libertarian and look askance at Socialism in any form. I imagine you would have been against the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), but the TVA got stuff done. The TVA generated the power to enrich the uranium for the atom bomb that ended WW-II. I don’t know how you would have structured a “Commercial Atomics” substitute for the TVA and the Manhattan Project.
Getting stuff done isn’t necessarily any better than not getting it done. The USSR nearly destroyed the Aral Sea in the process of getting stuff done. Here, a key problem is that TVA destroyed local private competitors. The TVA had a captive tax revenue stream and could do plenty of things that simply didn’t make sense because it would keep getting that revenue no matter how badly it performed.
The TVA was able to get things done because they did their biggest projects before the existence of our current massive bureaucracy. FDR was creating a big bureaucracy back then but it pales to what’s in place today. For starters, there was no EPA or OSHA back then. That’s why big projects like dams and the Empire State Building were able to be constructed so quickly. They didn’t need to slog through years of bureaucracy such as environmental impact statements.
Between the bureaucratic overhead and the costs of acquiring the right of way for the tracks and related infrastructure, California’s Train to Nowhere isn’t likely to ever be built. But it is serving a purpose in that billions of dollars are being given to politically connected individuals and corporations. In that regard, it’s little different from the SLS. We always have to remember that politicians use different metrics for success than we use. Votes bought, cronies enriched, and kickbacks are much more important to them that operational efficiency, cost effectiveness, and practicality.