"Unless there is real federal involvement and a massive infrastructure repair program like all of the G7 and developed nations have done, not only will we become a third-rate economic power, but public safety and our quality of life are going to be endangered as well."
- Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, July 2008
"What we need is we need leadership from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and in both sides of the aisle in Congress to have a grand scheme. What are we trying to accomplish? What do we want this country to look like two decades from now? And then how do we get there?"
- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, July 2008
August 06, 2008
HousingPANIC Quotes of the Day - Crumbling Infrastructure Edition
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
71 comments:
This is incredible. The nations infrastructure is supposed to be financed by the 18% fuel tax that we pay. So what happened to all of that money? So in order to pay for our nations crumbling infrastructure, we will have to pay more in taxes.
I am a civil engineer and just by doing routine maintenance, a lot of problems could have been avoided. For example, after inspecting a bridge, there is a list of inexpensive set of recommendations and always they were just put off for another day.
"Unless there is real federal involvement and a massive infrastructure repair program like all of the G7 and developed nations have done, not only will we become a third-rate economic power, but public safety and our quality of life are going to be endangered as well."
The Libertarians in Washington D.C. don't give a rat's behind about any of that. If they want to go somewhere, they just hop on their plane or charter a private flight. Only the working people have to take off their shoes and drop their drawers to board an airplane.
Private pleasure palaces. Public squalor. It's the American way.
Bow to your Libertarian overlords.
Let me guess, the FED is running low on treasury paper, so more government borrowing is needed in order for FED to have more treasury papers to swap for the toxic waste held by banks.
Yes, Virginia, that's how our monetary system works, treasury papers are used as monetary base, so more "public" reckless spending allows for more reckless waste in the banks. That's the secret FDR discovered in 1933 (hence the need to delink dollar from gold). You wonder why we are down the road to national bankruptcy and serfdom ever since.
This is by far the best depiction of Obama:
http://tinyurl.com/6dr5h2
Infrastructure Bubble anyone?
Hey,I'd pay for that.The Idiots may have screwed it up by having a Housing bubble first.
Err doesn't that take money .
How are we supposed to do that and bail out irresponsible home buyers and banks Plus fight a useless war not to mention give out ridiculous stimulus packages Surley the people don't actually expect us to do anything truly productive with there money.
Wait i got the perfect solution.
Start the printing press...
I heard Iran has a suplus maybe they can help us.
BTW-If the I-Bubble does materialize then Commodities go NUTZZ.
Chances are good.
China would love it,and needs it,So does India,Europe,and Everyone else.
Try not to get ripped off by Wall Street this time.
The world is still at the feet of the Bankers,and pretty much always will be.So I will be extracting my cut ,and hiding it from The Con Men.
Gold,Silver,and no debt.
If the I-bubble fails....You are all fukt.You can still go vote if that's any consolation.
Yeah, there's nothing I want more than these two authoritarian scumbags to be involved with "rebuilding" America. I don't argue with your point about the need to do this but look at the first two political gophers who pop out of their holes!
Developers build crappy streets that last just long enough for the 1 year warranty to expire then let the local Govt take over and patch them for life...Cost to taxpayers is unmentionable.
I say the 1st step in the right direction would be for the Cities to require 5 years of repair at no cost to the taxpayer and then money would be there to upgrade the rest of the streets in Town.
Anybody else out there noticed the new subdivisions are the worst built roads in history? Potholes & Manholes that jut out of the pavement because the road is sinking around it are the norm around here...but the homes cost $500K - Up.
AMERICA = turd world ghetto.
DIE AMERICAN PIGS
Sorry Gov Rendell but all the money is already allocated for welfare to support all your Democrat voters: millions of lazy a$$es who breed like flies.
If there's any better symbol of the U.S.A. than the Winnebago, we're unaware of it. Nothing says "America" like a gas-guzzling McMansion on wheels.
Unfortunately, two trends have now shoved recreational vehicle sales off a cliff.
$4.50 gas (7-12 mpg)
Strapped consumers ($20,000 - $200,000 sticker price
Suggestion:
See what goes towards gold plated pensions and health care benefits of federal, state and city retirees (and what must be set aside)
Compare to what is spent on infastructure.
We are a government of the government employee, by the government employee and for the government employee....
Translation: we need to tax people more in order to build more bridge to nowhere. Grand idea Keith.
Yeah, lets give more money to the mafia ridden construction companies in the ny metro area so they can block off a lane or two of a few major arteries and just let them sit like that for a few year.
Once in a while they'll send out a guy to pound on something with a hammer for half an hour or so.
The sheeple will sit in even worse traffic jams for years, never wondering why no work seems to be getting accomplished.
The mafia will extort more money from the incompetant state legislatures. After about 5 years a project might get completed. Like they say in New York, if it involves pouring concrete, it's controlled by the mob.
I was hoping Spitzer was our new RFK. But that's a different story.
HEY! Waddayawant?! We got democracy in Iraq! That's all that matters!
Government money spent on infrastructure is marxist. Why not just let Blackwater and Halliburton do it???
.
Federal involvement is the problem!
.
Amtrak is run by the govt. It is a disaster. It has lost money for 30 years.
So of course it makes sense that we should get the govt to run the entire transportation system.
DOPES!
Our infrastructure is terrible and it's almost all designed for cars. I get depressed coming back from Europe after seeing their gold plated roads and rail.
Our cities are awful. It makes me wonder why pilots don't turn around after along a flight from Europe, when they look out the window and see our horrible infrastructure and cities.
Construction workers are union workers.
Unions own the Democrats.
Democrats demand more money spent on construction projects.
The more construction projects allocated to unions, the more unions contribute to Democrats.
The more they contribute to Democrats, the more power Democrats have.
The more power Democrats have the more construction projects they dole out to unions.
Get it now morons? Of course not. Just keep voting for these blood suckers and soon enough we'll be paying $7 a gallon of which $3 will be taxes to build up new infrastructure boondoggles like the big dig which was a 5 mile tunnel that cost $20B of your tax dollars to build. And why not, after all it's not the government's money, they don't give a shit.
Maybe Philadelphia or NY will be lucky and get its own Big Dig too. Get ready for 15 years of gridlock. Ask anyone in Boston how much fun the 90s and 1st half of the 00s were driving downtown.
So my message to Bloomberg and Rendell is STFU!!
Shakster said...
'The world is still at the feet of the Bankers, and pretty much always will be.'
Ummmm,
Can you please explain what you mean by that?
Can you please be a little more specific, like an example were a ‘banker’ did something really bad, names and dates please.
A bank is no different then any other corporation, they are publicly traded and there goal is to reduce cost and increase income.
The asset they deal with ‘money’ is not really much different than say cars. (aside from the obvious that one can use money to buy just about everything and it would be more difficult to buy groceries with a car)
A car is a depreciating asset and so is money.
Avis and Hertz lend cars
Banks lend money
Hotels lend rooms
My point is that bankers don’t ‘control’ anything, they are a business.
They can’t even really control key terms of their own loans, due to competition, especially now that they are competing with banks across the globe.
You are not going to find many banks charge 12% for a loan because the bank next door sells the same item for only 7%.
If an FBer lied to a bank so that he can get a loan, it’s not the banks fault for trusting him.
And as we know now, banks aren’t even all that profitable, look a the insane losses they are experiencing.
Please educate us with real facts.
(pointing to looney site does not count)
The 2nd post is an asinine post. I'm a Libertarian and I see no problem with using federal money to pay for infrastructure repairs and upkeep. We just ask that it be done using modern materials (there are some new carbon based materials that are stronger than and cheaper than steel) and that the bureaucrats cut some of their wasteful spending elsewhere. Bringing home several hundred thousand troops from Iraq, Germany, Japan, South Korea sounds like a very good place to start.
Lots os people think the infrastructure projects in the New Deal were socialist. However, projects like Hoover dam have paid for themselves over and over and continue to provide water control and needed electricity. The $600 billion stimulus could have paid for 100+ new nuclear power plants.
Let's see..... 100 clean plants producing cheap electricity and jobs for decades or flat screen TVs for everyone?
Our Government is the worst.
GT Charlie
PS: STock market seems unfazed that Freddie MAc confirmed the Alt-As are the new, very big problem. The casino is open.
The basic assumption that everyone has here is that this is not being planned.
Why assign something to malice which can be attributed to greed and stupidity right?
Well the fact is that the rate at which the American Empire is being destroyed is increasing exponentially (ie the destruction of your infrastructure is speeding up).
And it's all infrastructures - your road, your medical, your political, your personal/moral. It's as if everything is falling apart all at once.
At what point will the average person react? Unfortunately, like the frog in the pot, people will boil to death in their own stew as things slowly heat up rather than take action.
The ability to make decisions has been beaten out of everyone quite well!
Just privatize all that sh*t.
Problem solved.
Raise all public transit fares so the riders are actually paying the true cost instead of sticking it to taxpayers who never use it.
Taxpayer funded transit = socialism.
This is incredible. The nations infrastructure is supposed to be financed by the 18% fuel tax that we pay.
That is an 18c federal fuel tax on every gallon (state taxes vary), not 18% tax. It is already all spent on roads, and nothing else. They are projecting a shortfall in funds this year, so maintenance will need to be deferred or paid for somehow.
High oil prices make road building/maintenance more expensive, and the drop in gas use in the US has also cut into tax revenues as well. It's not hard to see why we're going to have a shortfall in funding for road maintenance.
"Raise all public transit fares so the riders are actually paying the true cost instead of sticking it to taxpayers who never use it."
Why don't we do the same for people who drive and companies that ship by truck? Let's see how many start using public transit and shipping by rail once all the costs of our highway system are imposed on the user.
To get started you'd have to add at least another $1 per gallon to cover maintenance that's not being payed for by the Federal Highway Trust Fraud.
New infrastructure can only be developed at a reasonable cost with non-union construction labor.
The goobermint must ban all its contractors from employing unionists immediately.
If that results in any strikes or labor shortages, well, we finally found a good use for all those Mexicans. Nationalize one Mexicano for each unionist we arrest and deport. Then I won't mind having to pick up a little español. Two birds with one stone!
You do realize that it's cheaper for the taxpayer to buy an airline ticket for a passenger traveling from TX to CA, than the cost of subsidizing that trip by Amtrak. Since Amtrak is another one of those union-quasi-rip-offs which always loses money, the taxpayer has been subsidizing all its passengers. What, didn't you know that? Folks, that's your Democratic party socialism at work.
First poster (anon August 06, 2008 2:52 PM):
According to the transportation authorities in MN, where the I35 bridge collapsed, the federal funds provided could only be used to repair a bridge that scored under 50 on a scale from 0-100. The bridge scored a 50.
So apparently the feds don't give money to the states and say "fix your roads", they say "fix your roads according to this checklist".
At least that's the gist of it. And now we know exactly how bad a score of 50 is.
I just hope the people crushed in the bridge collapses and road failures are all republicans who voted for this cheap, stingy piece of shit culture. In other words, people who vote for republicans that live for tax cuts instead of supporting the infrastructure and services we all need. I also hope they're the ones poisoned by bad food and pharmaceuticals ignored by a weak regulatory system. Oh, and their kids too. Especially their kids.
xoxo,
BR
Amtrak sucked - that's what happens when the government RUNS anything.
Give interstate train to free enterprise, on high speed rail built by government, then you have something.
Start with buses and light rail. Get America out of their cars and into convenient and cheap mass transit.
Then work on interstate trains. Gotta be high-speed. The nice thing is that since the US is 50 years behind, we leapfrog right to the latest technology. Like the developing world is doing with telecom - they bypassed wirelines and went right to wireless. We get to do the same with transit.
America in 10 years could have the best transit in the world.
At the same time, we need windmills, solar and nuclear everywhere. The USA is blessed with some of the best areas in the world for solar and wind. And wave too. Now time to use it.
We also need to raise MPG standards by 5% a year for the next 10 years and offering tax incentives to buy hybrid and electric.
This isn't hard. What's hard is getting around the auto and oil lobbyists running DC.
The best thing that ever happened to the USA was high gas prices. That was the game changer, even when they head down. People are thinking different than they were just a few years ago.
The genie is out of the bottle.
ahh...the next bubble soon to begin.
Invest In America!!!!
opp,
Where did you get the idea that money should be a depreciating asset? Money is the unit for accounting. It should be stable, as preserver of value. If Money should be depreciating asset, where can I write down the losses in my tax forms for holding money?
What other industry allows collective price setting like the Central Bank does?
What other industry requires everyone to accept its wares . . . as in legal tender laws? Mind you, the cost of money creation to the Central Bank itself is zero (until the population sees through the charade and abandon the con game for good).
Banks generate profit through fees and interest payment, while taking risks in making the loan. Modern Central Banking however removes the risk for major bankers . . . leaving them only with the profit making part. With fiat money, government borrowing is just another guaranteed interest generation machine for banks. We are already at a state where interest payment on the national debt is approaching the entire amount of individual income tax collected! In effect, the government is collecting almost the entire individual income tax to pay bankers!
With federal debt papers qualifying as the monetary base, our monetary system is literally a house of cards: the more lending to the government allows the more lending to the society at large, while bankers collecting interest at both ends (actually the same end, since government can only pay interest through collecting taxes from the society at large, besides more borrowing, which just means more interest payment later).
Bankers losing money? Nah, that's an illusion. The public shareholders may lose money, and some low-level employees may lose jobs . . . but the big banks are guaranteed bailouts by the government. Where does the government get the money to bail out banks? Why, borrow from the central bank of course! There you have it, the very act of bailing out banks leads to more interest income for the bankers! Let's not forget, the bankers collected hundreds of billions of dollars in bonuses less than 7 months ago, in January!
The whole infrastructure cry is just another bank profiteering scheme:
(1) The banks will create money out of thin air to lend to the government for those projects, diluting your savings at the same (as your savings can no longer purchase the labor and material otherwise would have been available for purchase if not poured down the ratholes that those projects are). The contractors and the unions profit greatly. Yes, it's just like counterfeiting and giving it to yourself and your buddies, but it's legal.
(2) Multi-billion government loans thus created will enable the bankers to collect from taxpayers the interest payment every year afterwards. Yes, the government tax collectors are essentially leg breakers for the bankers.
(3) The same multi-billion dollar government loan papers will serve as monetary base for leveraging into yet more money . . . for lending into the general economy, at a ratio of 10-to-1 or 20-to-1. The US government bonds are classifed as monetary base. If and when the new money creation (further diluting your savings) result in another bubble, that means more bonuses for bankers. When the bubble inevitably pops, back to the beginning: government bailouts and infrastructure projects!
Now you know why there is economic cycle! and why your living standards as American middle class is declining.
Yes brainstems. Privatization has worked so well in the financial markets.
There's no magic in your market cultism voodoo. In fact, privatization hinders a culture's development.
But I wouldn't expect brainstems to understand that.
Keep holding on to your gutter ideology.
xoxo,
BR
Bitterrenter,
"I just hope the people crushed in the bridge collapses and road failures are all republicans who voted for this cheap, stingy piece of shit culture. "
Not quite. The lady killed by the falling Big Dig ceiling panel in Boston was not a Republican. The BigDig, at over $15 billion was the most expensive single road project ever in the US history. . . in nominal terms it cost more than the entire I-95 from Miami to Maine.
"I also hope they're the ones poisoned by bad food and pharmaceuticals ignored by a weak regulatory system. "
You are dreaming if you think bureacrats are responsible for food and drug safety. American fast food chains are very popular in China because those privately-run for-profit American companies are deemed by locals to provide far safer food than their local competitors . . . despite the fact that China's FDA employs nearly 100 times as many bureacrats as the US FDA. No, it's not for lack of enforcement: while the last US FDA chief was locked up for taking bribery, his Chinese counterpart was executed for doing the same thing.
You do realize that it's cheaper for the taxpayer to buy an airline ticket for a passenger traveling from TX to CA, than the cost of subsidizing that trip by Amtrak.
The major problem with Amtrak is that they are forced to run trips that aren't profitable. Long-range trips across the US are far better served by planes. Anything over the 700-800 mile mark is starting to push it for train travel and air travel starts to become cheaper and faster.
Still, even with that limit in place there is a lot of places where high-speed trains would be heavily utilized. The California plan for the SD-LA-SF and Sacramento high-speed is a good one. It would help ease the airport strain at SD, and give us more options for plane flights. I would much rather take a train from SD-LAX and then fly direct to my location instead of going through a hub-city.
Money for infrastructure? Ha Ha!
It's all being spent fighting Israel's wars, bailing out failed banks, bailing out depositors of failed banks, bailing out Freddie/Fannie, giving benefits to illegal immigrants, larding corporations with tax loopholes & corporate welfare, rewarding campaign contributors, lobbyists....
Sorry, nothing left for the sheeple.
Someone please explain to me how much federal, state and local money goes to each of roads, bridges and airports and then compare that with how much money goes to Amtrak (which is required to provide service to rural areas even where it is not in their best economic interests.
After that, please tell me which of the above is truly the money loser.
I am not defending Amtrak and am sure they have a lot of problems, I am just saying that the amount of government money spent on Amtrak pales in comparison to that spent on auto and air transport.
[i]Give interstate train to free enterprise, on high speed rail built by government, then you have something.[/i]
Keith,
You're usually on the ball, but if I were you I'd look into why "free enterprise" passanger rail didn't work in the US. All passanger trains (outside of a few commuter rail operations) lost money. After the USPS cut back funding for RPO (railway post office) in the 1960s, there was not a single interstate passanger train that turned a profit. Why? New technology (planes in this case) came along, supplanting the slow trains. Railroads didn't want to support trains that bled money, so in order to maintain a skeleton network for interstate travel, Amtrak was formed. It was never intended to be a permanent solution, but it has limped along for the last 30 years.
Long distance passanger rail only works up to a certain distance. It's easy to travel by train in Europe because all the major cities are so tightly packed. High speed rail will work in certain coridors (LA to SF/Sac, Chicago to Minneapolis or St Louis) that are close enough to compete with air travel and driving. You'll never see a successful HSR train from LA to Ny though, sorry. For examples of corridor systems that work, check out Acela in the Northeast and the Capital Corridor from SJ to Sac. Both earn significantly more money than their traditional counterparts.
Everyday car traffic is an incredibly subsidized activity, but we take that subsidee for granted. A 1996 study concluded that it would take a $9/gallon gas tax to cover costs like:
- road construction
- traffic
- emergency medical services due to accidents
This did not account for wars over oil, general oil subsidees, eventual pollution clean-up costs or pollution-related health issues.
Just think about it, if you were starting from scratch, would you design a system where each person gets his own vehicle and can go wherever he wants or a system where people share a vehicle for the bulk of their transportation? If individual transit were cheaper than mass transit, why wouldn't the airlines have us all flying single seaters?
I am all for making government projects pay for themselves. If it costs us $9/gallon of gas to drive in our cars, I have no problem paying that at the pump and in products that are shipped. (However, in that case, no other taxes should be used for transportation.)
Right now, we subsidize driving so people drive a lot. We subsidize long-range shipping so people buy food from all over the map even if the same products are produced locally. The recent rise in gas prices has proven that Americans will drive less when it makes financial sense to do so. Some grocers are even looking at local sources for their food.
There are a lot of areas where the market could produce environmental change. In most cities, we pay a flat cost for garbage pickup. If you had to pay the actual disposal cost per bag, would you think about how your products are packaged and how much you can recycle?
Old news...
Matt Simmons is writing a book "RUST"...all about our aging infrastructure.
He also wrote about the world being out of oil in "Twilight in the Desert"...
He was right in that book too.
100 Trillion is needed.
Not ever gonna happen.
Enjoy the die off!!!!
Bwhhahahahahhahahahahahhahahah!
"Amtrak sucked - that's what happens when the government RUNS anything."
I never had a problem with Amtrak other than the fact that frieght traffic is prioritized over passenger traffic so passengers sit around for hours in their trains.
of course, the roadways during rush hour are no different...
I don't blame the government since america is a big country and everyone wants a first class road to their doorstep. To become like europe, we'd have to give up on the suburbs and go to high density living. The funny thing is, every european I know who has been in america liked our sprawl and lamented that their country didn't have the space for better homes.
as they say: the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.
Ex-pentagon workers are defence contractor workers.
Defence contractors own the Republicans.
Republicans demand more money spent on military projects.
The more military projects allocated to defense contractors, the more defense contractors contribute to Republicans.
The more they contribute to Republicans, the more power Republicans have.
The more power Republicans have the more military projects they dole out to defense contractors.
Get it now morons? Of course not. Just keep voting for these blood suckers and soon enough we'll be paying $7 a gallon of which $3 will be taxes to build up new military infrastructure boondoggles like the Iraq war which killed 5000 soldiers that cost $2 Trillion of your tax dollars so far. And why not, after all it's not the government's money, they don't give a shit about the soldiers.
Maybe Philadelphia or NY will be lucky and get its soldiers dragged to Iraq too. Get ready for 15 years of war. Ask anyone in Boston how much fun the wars are.
So my message to McCain and Rove is STFU!!
It's funny how just a few small changes to the text can throw the argument 180 degrees.
But the biggest thing this dolt hasn't realized is that unions don't go across the world killing people... they just stay home and build stuff.
Oh... and btw... the Iraq war so far would have paid to completely rebuild the entire US infrastructure... it would have created more jobs... no one would have died... gas prices would have been lower and everyone would have been happier.
Even if the unions would have gone home with a fat paycheck... so what? They're still cheaper than the war at ten times their price.
Now just you bend over because the tax man is coming again... gonna start another war in Iran soon enough!
"The best thing that ever happened to the USA was high gas prices."
Yes! It's amazing how few people hold this thought. When making the suggestion that gas prices should be higher, the response I get at best is "You want to pay higher gas prices?!" to the worst being "drop dead."
I'll tell you what though. Gas prices will continue shooting up well into the next decade whether our oblivious fellow citizens like it or not.
The coming oil and gasoline crises are shooting straight for us from a mile away. It should be obvious to everyone just like the stock market and housing bubbles were. Oh yeah, no one saw those either except for some people on the internet and Peter Schiff.
Living in California, I know I get screwed but here is what I pay in taxes and fees- I have an Isuzu 12 ft box truck for business $450.00 a year registration, a van $250.00 a year in addition to the 18.5 cent Federal tax per gallon of gas there is an 18 cent State tax, plus sales tax on top of that! Some counties have additional sales taxes to pay for "infrastructure" projects. The Feds collect something like $2.7 trillion in taxes but run a $500 billion deficit!
I'm wrinting in "Andrew Hac" on my ballot in November.
Has anyone ridden the bus from Thailand/Cambodia border to Siem Reap(ankor wat)? 100km's takes over 8 hours, the worst potholes I've ever seen, big enough to swallow a car...all dirt road. That's 8 hours of pure sacrum hell...i still don't poop right!
Let's hope it never turns into that.
To Opps
You have taken the high road,so I will take the lower road.
-----------------------------------
Very good Question,and I should have my ass blistered for not being specific.
"Banks" ,specifically I mean The Fed,or London central banks etc.Any Bank with a trademarked paper currency,and access to printing presses.Federal Reserve notes, to remind everyone ,are not money,but function as a"stand in" for it.
The Federal Reserve Bank,a private organization,has dominance, complete with enforcement on the currency(notes) used in the US.
Meaning that we may be subject to serious scrutiny for competing directly with Federal Reserve Notes.An Example would be laws of contracts(notes),and the self proclaimed decider of contracts,the US district courts.
Go for it,to date no body has succeeded in challenging the Federal reserve,and their notes.Why is that?Google it for yourself.I know the answere,why don't you?
You are right about banks being no different than a corporation.They both are about the money.The US Dollar is trash over it's lifetime,especially lately,and for example GM is trash too.When given the choice(choices regulated away)Men ,and women in most cases are not repeat buyers of GM cars unless they are under duress,or have no other viable choice.GM is about the money,not cars,and competition is killing them,and their CEO gets Millions to lose 15 billion per quarter or more.COOL.
The Federal Reserve has no competing currency operating as a note,and probably never will.
I have traded gold,it retains great value,but the majority are clueless about it.
If I know of any "BAD" bankers I'll just keep that under my tinfoil hat,because if I do,I was probably in on it.We are at there feet,and they know it ,and like it.By "at their feet" I mean there is no real competition to the Federal Reserve within America.By the way check out the Indian interest rates ,and compare those with the FEDs.Check China,Check the EU.
Bankers don't control anything?
Dude. Oh well,guess that absolves them from losing all that money(fictional value).Ooopsy,my bad.
Do you mean to say that all banks have the same interest rates?The same guidelines for setting a rate? OK if you say so.
Can you do me a favor Opps.Look into certain banks that offer loans for 90% interest.Crazy talk.
Get your own facts if you have the guts,and who is "we"?
The banks are not at fault for applicants lying on loan documents?OK,it is their fault for loaning the money right?You were just kidding right?Oh the poor bank couldn't control anything,and those blood thirsty vampire applicants all got away with MURDER!!The Gall.
If any applicant has gotten away with a liar loan,and turned the contract around on the lender then more power to that applicant.They both entered into a nasty gamble,and Fair is fair right?
One more thing.Since I have elected the low road,I must say you come off like a BITCH,or a six year old brat,or maybe you are just a FAG.If there are any unanswered questions,Google it dipstick.
They're just priming the pump folks, get the sheeple subconcious ready for house bill blah blah blah. You know, the one that mandates GPS in all vehicles by 20XX so you can pay for every inch you drive, it will be deducted from your bank/credit card every time you stop moving for more than 2 minutes.
DOPES
Time to start the revolution.
Vote for Andy Taylor
Andy Taylor
think positive.....invest in ferries!
Macaca
Another socialist Utopian post from Keith. What you and your fellow leftists don't seem to understand is this: Americans like their cars. They don't want to ride a train or a bus. They don't want to come and go based on a bus schedule. They don't want to be stuffed in a bus with 100 people. They don't want to wait for a bus in the rain or snow or 95 degree heat.
They want the comfort of a car and the freedom to come and go as they please.
so if and when they start these infastructure rebuilding will these be the new jobs for illegal mexicans who will undercut American workers. Bet on it.
I have never seen a bunch of dumber comments about such a serious subject. This country is in big trouble.
Fellows, the days of the tram car are over. The auto/oil industries, via NCL holding group, did away with it decades ago.
Today, it's cars for local transit and planes over distances greater than a 3-4 hr drive. Now, how about fixing those planes and airports and increasing capacity at all regional and municipal airports? Provide a govt subsidy for better air transit and those industries can literally take off. I suspect that when departure/taxi-ing to take off/landing get shortened to the time it takes to check-in all the customers than we'll see a massive surge in air transport and this could even include local flights, Boston to Providence in 5-10 mins, DC to Philly in 20 mins, etc.
10:02pm:
You are so typical of the libtards. When you can't refute an argument, you change the subject to Iraq.
Now try again, this time sticking to the topic. Think you can do that?
What do we need roads for, with all those SUV's out there? Aren't those designed for use off-road?
"Taxpayer funded transit = socialism."
Does this mean roads=socialism, or are the roads priavatized where you live?
New infrastructure can only be developed at a reasonable cost with non-union construction labor.
You asshole, you have never worked a day in your life nor have you ever had to be truely productive. When this shit caves in I want you working for me. The last time this fake economy hit the skids I had great fun watching you barbie fu fu suites attempt to work for a living, what a pathetic joke. Your a girly man. Oh, maybe you think you could compete with a 25 year get it done contractor. Bring it, your IT job and day trading deal are done. When its time to rebuild sit down jobs won't pay shit.
union members = human filth
"Americans like their cars. They don't want to ride a train or a bus. They don't want to come and go based on a bus schedule. They don't want to be stuffed in a bus with 100 people. They don't want to wait for a bus in the rain or snow or 95 degree heat."
What a bunch of whiners. What you want is not necessarily what you get. The days of cheap gasoline are coming to an end, and not everyone will be able to afford to drive.
Also, some people don't want to drive, and are too young or too old for it. What about those people. Our singular mode transport system sucks for people who can't use it.
yeah let's spend trillions of dollars so old people and kids can have high speed trains
damn there are some idiots on this board
I'm a Libertarian and I see no problem with using federal money to pay for infrastructure repairs and upkeep.
------------------------------
You are a MARXIST.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Lots of people think the infrastructure projects in the New Deal were socialist. However, projects like Hoover dam have paid for themselves over and over and continue to provide water control and needed electricity. The $600 billion stimulus could have paid for 100+ new nuclear power plants.
--------------------------------
OMG. This site is crawling with Marxists.
Vanilla Ice,
There is nothing special about oil or gasoline. An ounce of silver is still equivalent to a little over 4 gallons of gasoline. A silver dollar up to 1964 had 3/4 an ounce of silver in it. In other words, a gallon of gas is about 30 cents in silver dollars . . . which still holds today! It's the silver price for gasoline for the last half century . . . all the rest you see is just the debasement of the dollar and devaluation of human labor.
Real wages in America stopped growing from 1930's through 1971; it went into negative after that. Before that, American real wage increased at 2% a year from the founding of the country to about 1840, when canals (privately funded) linked the midwest to New York. From 1840 to 1930 the growth rate was about 4%. At 2%, the real living standards could expect to double every 36 years, or roughly each generation. At 4%, the real living standards could expect to double every 18 years . . . that's the sort of rapid growth that attracted millions of European immigrants to the US in the second half of 19th century and beginning of the 20th. Those growth rate can be easily verified just by reading wage records from the time, as gold and silver were circulating coin money from the founding of the country through 1933.
The math after 1933 gets a little trickier as money was no longer constant. We can use cars and houses for proxies. The number of hours of work demanded of an average American worker to acquire a car or a house did not change much, net net, from 1920's to 1971: about 400hrs for a car, and about 4000hrs for a house. $0.5/hr, $200/car, $2000/house in the 1920's; $3/hr, $1200/car, $12000/house in 1971. The picture is a lot worse now: $18/hr ($12-14 after tax), $25,000/car, $220,000/house . . . that's about 1500-2000hrs for a car, and 15,000-18,000hrs for a house! The real wage of the average American worker has dropped by 2/3 over the last 37 years . . . that's what a 2.5% annual decline can produce over 37 years. That's the rate at which the American middle class is being destroyed.
BTW, in case anyone is worshipping the 1950's, please don't. A continuation of 4% per year growth from 1933 to 1971 should have more than quadrupled the average real income; that's what the "Robber Barons" and "Guilded Age" of the second half of 19h century and early 20th century would have delivered, despite the devastating Civil War and WWI. Even at 2% rate that had been sustained in the pre-industrial America, from 1930 to 1971 still should have doubled the average worker's real income. Yet, there was no real improvement in standards of living from 1930 to 1971.
reality,
The number of hours to buy a car are meaningless when comparing a 2008 car with a 1928 car. Hell even compared to a 1988 car. A car today is infintely better than a car from 20 years ago. It's safer too. A base car today is the equivalent of a fully loaded car 20 years ago. Things like A/C, power windows, cd player were luxury items in 1988 and didn't exist in 1968. Plus the reliability of a car today cannot even begin to be compared with the reliability of cars from 20 or 40 or 60 years ago.
The number of hours worked to buy a car has increased. But you get a hell of a lot more for your labor.
A better argument would be to compare hours of work to something constant between the ages. Try number of hours (or minutes) for a long distance phone call today vs. 50 years ago. Or how about a movie. Or a hamburger. Or a gallon of milk. Or a flight between NY and LA. You'll see that when you compare apples to apples (a phone call 50 years ago is the same as a phone call today, a movie is essentially the same as it was 50 years ago, etc) the number of labor time needed is much less today.
It boils down to this. A median income earner today leads a better life - in economic terms anyway - than his counterpart of 1971 or 1951 or 1931.
Anon 10:01,
Sorry, your "hedonistic adjustment" argument doesn't fly. What your are suggesting is the same sort of nonsense that BLS uses to claim that computer prices have halved because it is now twice as fast! Try find that slower new computer at half the price. The very fact that the slow computer doesn't exist on the market as new units anymore shows that the cost of making a slow computer now is not half the cost of making a fast one . . . therefore it can not be sold at half the price, therefore it's not sold any more.
Likewise, Model-T's are not sold anymore because a Model-T can not be made and sold profitably today for $200 like it was in the 1920's, or for $2000 in American factories if you rely on BLS inflation adjustment, or for $6000 in American factories if you use gold price for inflation adjustment. $25k price for an average car indicates that that's more or less the sweet spot where cars can be made profitably (and consumers still willing to pay); much lower than that price you run into costs that can not be easily cut . . . ever notice almost all the cheap cars are imported?
The house price is the same. The cost of adding a central AC doesn't even come close to the cost of land and the basic house itself.
Hedonistic approach does work. It doesn't work for those who have a romantic notion of "the good old days" which never existed.
The reason you can't find a computer has as fast is the same reason you can't find a K-Car for sale....there is no demand for it.
The average size of a house in 1970 was 1400 sq ft. Today it's 2500 sq ft. You do the math on whether you're comparing apples to apples.
"A silver dollar up to 1964 had 3/4 an ounce of silver in it. In other words, a gallon of gas is about 30 cents in silver dollars . . . which still holds today!"
There is something to be said for this argument. I'm still curios to how this will work out when we have finished off another 1/4 of our oil supply in the next 15 years. I guess a gallon of gas will still be worth 30 cents in silver dollars, it's just our labor will be worth a lot less?
"yeah let's spend trillions of dollars so old people and kids can have high speed trains
damn there are some idiots on this board"
It doesn't surprise me that this is a novel concept to much of America.
Post a Comment