High-speed rail as a jobs program
Nothing wrong with a public project that creates jobs if the programs and the jobs are providing vital services to the public. But, as this blog points out every day, high-speed rail seems to be more about the money than the trains.
The advertisement above is from the Daily Kos site, a stalwart force for progressive politics. The California High-Speed Rail folks knew their intended audience well: Government as a jobs program! Click on the picture, and you go to the CHSR website.
How many jobs will the California high-speed rail project create? Like their numbers on future ridership, the CHSR inflates the number of jobs the project will create. See a discussion of the inflated job numbers in this document (pages 85-87). See also the discussion on this website.
Labels: High-Speed Rail
posted by Rob Anderson @ 12:27 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
ROFL. That means "Rolling on the Floor Laughing" for you sexagenarians.
When I go to Daily Kos, I get ads for bikes. You get ads for HSR. It has NOTHING to do with the fact it's Daily KOS you moron. Your browser has left cookies on your machine showing that you spend a lot of time on sites related to HSR, so the service that Daily Kos uses to serve up ads sniffs your cookies and Poof! It gives you a HSR ad because you read a lot about HSR.
The HSR people are not buying ad space from KOS, they are buying it from a big ad server, probably not Google but very similar. If you went to any other site using the same ad service, you'd get the same ads.
Okay, but the main point is that the CHSR Authority is selling the project as a jobs program, which is why all good Democrats also support it---Obama, Feinstein,Boxer, Pelosi, etc. As a Democrat, I'm hoping that Governor Brown will redeem my party and kill this dumb project, but preliminary indications aren't encouraging.
Maybe Rob needs to stop reading about the HSR project, the ads are following him around the internets.
That's a problem HSR supporters will never have, since they obviously read nothing about the dumb project.
On this side - Rob Anderson and Randall O'Toole. On the other side, the Mayors of the biggest cities in California
Is it so hard to believe that the "mayors of the biggest cities in California" are full of shit? In his short time in office, Mayor Lee has only shown that he's a stooge for the city's establishment who can't even deliver on his primary errand: getting a deal with the unions to protect the city from the pension tsunami heading our way.
It's particularly stupid of Mayor Lee to take part in this lame editorial exercise, since SF's Muni system is chronically in the red and underfunded. That's where the transportation money is needed---to help city transportation systems for working people, not to build a very expensive system for rich people.
With the mayors, it's all about the money, not a sensible transportation project. They refer to the Legislative Analyst's report but fail to come to grips with any of the points listed. Federal money? It's all about "competing" for the federal money pot, not the merits of the proposed system. They boast about getting $3.6 billion from the feds, but don't mention that the state will need another $16 billion from the feds just to get the system built. How likely is that? It is in fact impossible.
They simply ignore the fact that, two and a half years after Prop. 1A, the authorized bonds are unmarketable and there's been absolutely no private money invested in the project, because AB3034 prohibits any government subsidy and/or profit guarantees for investors, who understand that the system will never make money.
And they ignore the growing opposition to even the "train to nowhere" in the Central Valley.
The reference to "Asia" apparently means "China," which has grossly over-invested in high-speed rail and is now struggling to maintain the existing system that few Chinese can afford to ride.
Randal O'Toole is an excellent source on HSR.
As is this blog.
And this one.
And this one.
A link for O'Toole's latest on HSR.
Once again, Randall O'Toole is PAID to say what he does by people who stand to benefit from his conclusions. Ad Hominem? Well, I learned from The Best Ad Hominem Man Around
Yes, if I call you an asshole, that's ad hominem. But I've also provided a number of links above on HSR. And if you click on "High-Speed Rail" at the bottom of the post, you will find a number of posts on the subject.
Here's a good analysis of the California HSR project, particularly on the finances.
Is it so hard to believe that the "mayors of the biggest cities in California" are full of shit?
You are saying they are full of shit because they are the Mayors of the biggest cities in California, not because what they said is wrong. That is the definition of Ad Hominem. You follow with more Ad Hominem, then you repeat O'Toole's stuff, without discussing the content of their article. Standard Glenn Beck.
Look, I've linked six sources of criticism of high-speed rail, including O'Toole. I made several points about the mayors' op-ed. You're ignoring all that in favor of your Fox News obsession. Either at least try to make a substantive point or I'm going to start dumping your comments.
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