Here and There

And low-speed, even. Just rails.

Air travel took off because of its novelty and efficiency, moving large numbers of passengers over vast distances in a somewhat timely manner. Certainly faster than anything that came before.

To get rail back in vogue, this blogger thinks the immediate benefits will have to become obvious, if we’re to create and sustain a demand that justifies a supply. So, how to achieve that demand? How to make rail cool?

We could start by connecting regional hubs served mostly by short-stint flights now, eliminating the hassle of air travel, parking, commuting to airports, checking luggage, and the like. High-speed rail can get a person from (sorry to trot out this tired example) San Francisco to Los Angeles in around three hours at about half the cost of air travel. When you factor in the time it takes to get to and from the airports, the duration of travel really isn’t that different. An hour or an hour and a half, tops.

Making that same trip, say, a quarter of the cost (and the savings would ostensibly be funded by some sort of federal subsidy) would be key. But you’ve got to make that initial investment.

When demand rises, perhaps a nice, healthy, free-market industry will rise up to offer competition. That would require some expansion of the real estate tracks live on, but ultimately, train tracks take up a lot less space than freeways.

In sum, invest in building the infrastructure and subsidizing (thereby sustaining) demand, and you might just give birth to a new era of travel. One that’s kinder to the environment and land, and that would clear the skies for longer-haul air travel.

Yeah?

Let’s say the U.S. were to engage in some form of, say, “temporary’ bank nationalization, to get the institutions back on their feet. I’m talking full ownership and operation.
Let’s say it worked, and credit started flowing again to individuals as well as to companies large and small. Those companies would be able to hire again, and those individuals would again be able to buy things they don’t need.

What would kneejerk, tax-cuts-will-solve-the-riddle-of-the-universe conservatives come up with then?

Perhaps it’s lost on them, but they’re unhappy with a bill that’s close to 50 percent tax cuts (something approaching or slightly more than $400 billion). And that’s for starters.

Another complaint I keep hearing is that all the spending will cause the national debt to increase. Well, geniuses, where was that concern when tax cuts and wasteful defense spending sent the surplus into the red over the course of the last eight years? You know, the years that coincided with your “greatist presidunt in the histry of the US.”

Shut up until you know what you’re talking about. Which I suspect won’t be for a while. I know it won’t for me. I know jack about economics.

Meantime, we’ve got a true, prolonged crisis on our hands. Whether this stimulus is the right thing to do, only time will tell. It’s nowhere near perfect, but at least they tried.

No, I don’t know a damned thing about economics. So, here goes:

Diagnosis:

• Credit companies got rich by loaning people money to buy things they didn’t really need, mostly by collecting on interest on those loans over many, many years.
• This system worked fine until it crept into the housing market, where the overall amounts of the loans skyrocketed, and of course, more fraudulent/deceptive loans were being issued.
• When borrowers then began to be unable to pay back loans en masse (that’s really the key, that it happened on such a widespread scale, right?), it started to affect the credit companies (i.e., banks), and the situation spiraled.
• Credit itself began to dry up, as the sources of loans saw what was happening to their money, and started holding back.
• This, in turn, forced individuals and businesses alike to no longer be able to afford day-to-day operations as things stood, and trimming began (read: jobs were cut along with individuals’ expenses).

Treatment:

• Pay down debt, and live within your means.

(Those of you reading this who do know what the hell you’re talking about, please, enlighten me.)

That title is in reference to this (thank you, my junior senator!). Lindsey Graham, et. al, chew on this.

I’m in a horribly pessimistic mood today. It seems all those powerful Americans, the ones running the businesses, the government, really pulling the strings, are either out-and-out crooks, and just deceptive idiots and enormous hypocrits who don’t pay taxes.

My towel is ready to throw in today. Anyone know of any good vacation deals?

I guess the assholes at ExxonMobil won’t need a bail out anytime soon. They just reported another record, $45.2 billion profit for 2008. This story came right after one I read announcing that the economy shrank at a rate of 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Maybe, since they’re making all this money (and I have to assume some of this is at our expense), the oil companies can start funding all the bailouts themselves. Oh, wait, that would be wealth redistribution.

Okay, this is meant to be a serious question: Why is it that the Republicans in Congress have any ability or right to hold up stimulus legislation? I mean, they’re the minority, right? And while they beat back a filibuster-proof Senate with the 2008 elections, Democrats are only two votes short of that.

I just don’t understand how or why the GOP can retain so much power. Explain me, please.

Okay, the swearing in has happened, the balls are commenced. Now comes the sobering moment — there’s work to do, folks.

You see, many of us lost our jobs. I was fortunate to find work quickly. But others are still hurting. We’ve got to get work for them, and we’ve got to buttress our unemployment insurance programs for those who aren’t able to find work in the meantime.

We’ve got wars to end, troops to bring home, foreign alliances to rebuild. There’s an active Middle East conflict in progress, and godammit, we better really try to help bring about a peace this time.

Also, at home, there’s an urgent need to start real programs to try to stop global warming. We’ve got to kick into gear cleaner ways of generating energy, whether by tidal power, solar, wind, geo-thermal, whatever. There’s smarter, more efficient ways of going about our daily lives, like high-speed rail, hybrid vehicles, reusable bags at the grocery and drug stores. The list goes on.

The point I’m trying to make is, let’s recover from our inaugural hangovers and get to work. Lord knows there’s no shortage of work to be done.

I hesitate to use terms like “worst presidency ever.” Sure, we can analyze and rank the 43 who’ve held the office to date, but what we’re all missing is context. Relativism.

All I can do, simple-minded blogger that I am, is reflect on how this presidency affected and impressed (not in the sense of delighted, but had an impression on) me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Whoa, stop the presses, Cue the reel at CNN. There’s actual disagreement among Obama supporters, and the man’s not even president yet.

From Josh Marshall and John Judis joining some Democrats in Congress to demur on the stimulus, to Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, announcing flat out that Obama should rescind his nomination of Sanjay Gupta to become Surgeon General, it’s beginning to look a little like a democracy.

(Cross-posted at Muni Diaries)

Matt Yglesias, prominent blogger of politics and public transportation, takes on what it means to be poor and the question of car ownership in our nation’s capital.

It’s a good, quick read. Many of the arguments Yglesias makes apply to our situation in San Francisco. I especially liked this bit:

The progressive move isn’t to keep subsidizing cars, but the reverse — to use congestion charges and performance parking fees to raise funds that improve the quality of service on the bus lines that poor people rely on.

I am starting to come around on tax incentives for folks to buy hybrids and other ultra-fuel-efficient cars. But even with such lures, the poor will be left out. Similarly, I’ve been a fan of congestion pricing for dense, urban areas, but not without adequate public transit already in place. That caveat prevents such a system from being just here in San Francisco under present circumstances, as Muni/BART are ill-equipped to deal with so many people choosing not to drive.

As I’ve said before, I’m hoping governments (especially federal) will reprioritize public transit and give it the funding it demands. True, more money alone won’t solve Muni’s problems. But shoring up the agency’s deficit can prevent fee hikes, a terrible idea in our current economic state. I’m excited that the incoming Obama administration is talking of exactly this kind of infrastructure funding. Now our new local government needs to get serious about overseeing big changes at SFMTA, and to help fund those changes.

I’ll look into this more later today if I have time, but it just occurred to me that the last time the economy went south, a major financial scandal became apparent in its wreckage.

Causal relationship, or coincidence?

The worse the economy gets, the more pop-up ads proliferate.

Despite a somewhat remorseful interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson, I’m waiting for George W. Bush to tell the press that Henry Paulson has done a “heckuva job” with the economic crisis.

Any day now …