Sweet Pants Gettin? Speaker Nancy?s Panties in a Bunch!

[Gulo Blue]

I wonder what the cost difference is in maintaining a high speed rail vs our current highway system.

Depends on whether or not it's made of Rearden metal.


(but seriously, good question - my technology envy doesn't trump logistics)

 

[Spartanmack]

I like taking trains vs. driving/flying doesn't mean I think we need high speed rail everywhere in the country.

and in regards to your second paragraph, you really think China builds high speed trains to cities where no one lives?

You better check with TomDalton on that, because he said we can't have high speed rail because we don't have the population density they do.


hey... where are you taking those goalposts? come back.

you tried, but no.

 

[Spartanmack]

The libtard wrecking ball just chased Amazon out of NY no jobs are better than shit jobs gumbit will pay you a poverty wage if your not willing or wanting to work

that's a good thing because it says right in the constitution, everyone in America has an inalienable right to live in the same place forever and evil companies who come in, invest money, drive out crime (except the white collar kind that virtually everyone in those companies is no doubt committing at the expense of poor people because fuck them) and increase property values AND taxes by the way, are violating people's eternal, inalienable right to stay put.

That last bit is probably hard for the leftists to reconcile, since they do love higher taxes, so long as someone else is paying them. They want to be the ones to make those neighborhoods better through redistribution, not market forces - just like they did with Flint, Detroit, Baltimore, etc. because the government is at least as efficient and effective as the private sector - Vic and mc both told me so.

#sarcasm

 

[Michchamp]

wow,
the billionaire bootlickers are really taking this news hard.

sorry guys.

But don't feel too bad for your luver Jeff Bezos. as of now, Amazon is still getting boatloads of tax incentives to open a "second headquarters" in Northern Virginia, which is located closer to the seat of power that their crony capitalist business model depends on, and is really the only place they needed a "second headquarters" to begin with.

The VA legislature deliberated for all of about 15 minutes before rubber stamping it. democracy in action.

 

[Spartanmack]

Depends on whether or not it's made of Rearden metal.


(but seriously, good question - my technology envy doesn't trump logistics)

I'm guessing it's a lot cheaper per mile to maintain stretches of interstate through Indiana, Illinois (except Chicago) Iowa, Nebraska, etc than it is in the urban centers like Chicago, New York, Atlanta, etc but high speed rail doesn't solve the problem of moving shipping containers.

 

[Spartanmack]

I don't feel bad for Bezos. Amazon will be just fine dummy - now where did those goal posts go?

 

[Michchamp]

Appropos of this discussion, here's an article on why public infrastructure costs - and not just high speed rail - are so ruinously expensive here in the US, with projects completed both in Europe (with high if not higher union labor costs) and China (geographically similar to the US) costing several orders of magnitude less than in either country.

California's aborted high speed rail line has cost $200 MILLION PER MILE (!!!) to build, while in France that cost for a high speed rail line of similar distance was around $15-$20 MILLION per mile.

The reasons for this is Basically, right now, we're the most corrupt country on the face of the Earth, and we fucking suck:

American infrastructure is this costly because of immense, endemic, universal public-private corruption?systems of both direct and financialized graft at every stage of infrastructure development, from the planning to the ribbon-cutting to the use of deferred maintenance to ransack public transportation budgets for cash, year after year, after which the responsible authorities claim that fixing the century-old signals is just too damn pricey. This system of legal fraud begins with the bevies of project consultants, continues through ludicrous private contractor and labor costs, and continues when, years later, high-paid administrative fixers and new armies of consultants and contractors arrive to fix what broke because it was never maintained. It is a system of tolerated kleptocracy that may be the only thing that America still does better than anyone else in the world. It is baked into every assumption about building for the public benefit.​

 

[Spartanmack]

Appropos of this discussion, here's an article on why public infrastructure costs - and not just high speed rail - are so ruinously expensive here in the US, with projects completed both in Europe (with high if not higher union labor costs) and China (geographically similar to the US) costing several orders of magnitude less than in either country.

California's aborted high speed rail line has cost $200 MILLION PER MILE (!!!) to build, while in France that cost for a high speed rail line of similar distance was around $15-$20 MILLION per mile.

The reasons for this is Basically, right now, we're the most corrupt country on the face of the Earth, and we fucking suck:

American infrastructure is this costly because of immense, endemic, universal public-private corruption?systems of both direct and financialized graft at every stage of infrastructure development, from the planning to the ribbon-cutting to the use of deferred maintenance to ransack public transportation budgets for cash, year after year, after which the responsible authorities claim that fixing the century-old signals is just too damn pricey. This system of legal fraud begins with the bevies of project consultants, continues through ludicrous private contractor and labor costs, and continues when, years later, high-paid administrative fixers and new armies of consultants and contractors arrive to fix what broke because it was never maintained. It is a system of tolerated kleptocracy that may be the only thing that America still does better than anyone else in the world. It is baked into every assumption about building for the public benefit.​

Are we blaming both sides here? Because the two parties who agree on everything except abortion has given us this system that is so corrupt - the most corrupt in the world (including Columbia, Venezuela, Mexico, etc). didn't Republican governors in Ohio and Florida turn down Obama's offer of BILLIONS in federal funds for high speed rail because they knew it would just be a massive waste? Maybe you should start posting about the two parties who agree on everything except abortion and high speed rail...

 

[Michchamp]

Are we blaming both sides here? Because the two parties who agree on everything except abortion has given us this system that is so corrupt - the most corrupt in the world (including Columbia, Venezuela, Mexico, etc). didn't Republican governors in Ohio and Florida turn down Obama's offer of BILLIONS in federal funds for high speed rail because they knew it would just be a massive waste? Maybe you should start posting about the two parties who agree on everything except abortion and high speed rail...

yes, we're blaming both sides here. happy?

 

[Spartanmack]

yes, we're blaming both sides here. happy?

no, you can't blame Republicans for the high speed rail debacle where a D president gave money to a state with a D Governor and D running both houses of the legislature. The two Republican governors that were offered federal money for high speed rail both turned it down - again, because they knew it would be a massive waste of taxpayer money.

 

[Michchamp]

no, you can't blame Republicans for the high speed rail debacle where a D president gave money to a state with a D Governor and D running both houses of the legislature. The two Republican governors that were offered federal money for high speed rail both turned it down - again, because they knew it would be a massive waste of taxpayer money.

I'm sorry, but you get that the article referenced infrastructure costs in general, not just high speed rail, were way out of line in America.

After all the tax cuts and massive deficits run under GOP presidents, you really want to try to argue they're the party of fiscal responsibility... heh.

 

[Spartanmack]

I'm sorry, but you get that the article referenced infrastructure costs in general, not just high speed rail, were way out of line in America.

After all the tax cuts and massive deficits run under GOP presidents, you really want to try to argue they're the party of fiscal responsibility... heh.

no, but I'd love to hear you go state by state and explain why the worst run states with biggest infrastructure problems stemming from deals made with unions, contractors, power generators, power distributors, transport companies, etc are predominantly Dem run states like New Jersey, California, Illinois and make the claim that both parties are equally to blame for this.

 

[tinselwolverine]

There’s something about AOC-the press can’t stop talking about her and neither can anybody else.

HereGreenpeace cofounder Patrick Moore gives his two cents on the little minx.

I must confess I have a little bit of a love-hate thing for the freshman Congress person. I especially love the shape of her mouth-until she opens it and words come out. Then I do a complete 180.

 

[Michchamp]

no, but I'd love to hear you go state by state and explain why the worst run states with biggest infrastructure problems stemming from deals made with unions, contractors, power generators, power distributors, transport companies, etc are predominantly Dem run states like New Jersey, California, Illinois and make the claim that both parties are equally to blame for this.

You're the one asserting this. I am not going to do your research for you.

 

[sggatecl]

I must confess I have a little bit of a love-hate thing for the freshman Congress person. I especially love the shape of her mouth-until she opens it and words come out. Then I do a complete 180.

She seems very witty and on her toes when it comes to the verbal sparring. Figured you'd be all about that!

 

[tinselwolverine]

She's seems very witty and on her toes when it comes to the verbal sparring. Figured you'd be all about that!

She is certainly more interesting and entertaining than that old guy Joe Crowley who she beat.

 

[sggatecl]

She is certainly more interesting and entertaining than that old guy Joe Crowley who she beat.

I just hope she doesn't stub her toe or trip on that bar he set.

 

[Spartanmack]

I just hope she doesn't stub her toe or trip on that bar he set.

is that the same bar where she was serving drinks before she became the Dems political thought leader and shiniest rising star?

 

[tinselwolverine]

is that the same bar where she was serving drinks before she became the Dems political thought leader and shiniest rising star?

It might be, if she was dancing on the bar at the way she was dancing in that YouTube clip from her days at Boston College.

 

[TheVictors]

I’d take her over a rising GOP goon like Gaetz.