I'm sure there won't be any waste involved in that project. :rofl
Annnnnnnd, the money is going to come from, where?
The main purpose was for ease of military movement within the country. However, it is a wide and vast system which is utilized by the vast majority of common citizens now. It is a project scale on the order necessary for government involvement and has implemented a system which has vastly benefited the lot of us.
That's irrelevant.
If it brings in a billion a year and it costs two billion a year to operate, then it's obviously a dud.
Projects of this nature will always have waste associated with it, even within the private industry. But for sure, you'd have to be on the look out for it.
Government has a printing press.
Also, did you ask this question for the Iraq War or the bailouts after the banks and markets collapsed the ecnomy through unregulated means of reckless behavior which could only lead to the collapse of the system?
Or is it just now because at this time Obama happened to say something about it?
That's right!
It just turned out to be a huge asset to interstate commerce. I don't see a nationwide passenger train system accomplishing either.
So something which costs less than any of those things, which would provide jobs while the economy can recover, which would net out a positive and new transportation option to get around the country would be a dud because.....you say so? But it's ok to spend 10's, 100's, even 1000's of more than that on other things because...well we don't need to worry about money then?
Maybe if you were consistent with your criticism I could believe that your opinion is an intellectually honest and non-partisan one. But you seem to dismiss huge spending on some fronts and criticize smaller spending on other fronts so long as it appeals to your partisan ideology.
Maybe you're too short sighted. The rails initially popped up to ship people and things from one end to the other. Now we do it by air freight or truck/rail (across the US). But air freight can be expensive, where as by rail is relatively inexpensive. A high speed system gives you something which can compete on the order of airlines. This is particularly useful for personal transportation as it will give people more options rather than flying. Maybe you haven't taken a family of 4 on a plane...it's expensive. But rail, even high speed rail, tends to be drastically cheaper than airline fair. And if the time increase is only maybe a factor of 2 instead of 10, it becomes a much more viable option. It also opens up ease of business trips through rail, rail is safer and less likely to be driven into a building than planes, it can increase tourism to varying States by making it easier and more convenient to travel between the States.
There is a wealth of potential in high speed rails. When the interstates were constructed, it probably was not foreseen to be as successful and accepted as it is now. High speed rail is in the same category.
We can count on the government to be on top of that. Right? :rofl
That's not making money. That's printing money. Big difference.
During the Iraq war, were we in the middle of a depression? As far as the banks are concerned, I said let them fold.
Or, are you saying because Obama told you it's a great idea?
Then, the airlines will start losing money and they'll need a bailout. How is this supposed to be a good thing?
The more I hear about cockamaimy ideas like this, the more I favor private investment in such projects.
If the return is less than the investment and the operating costs, it's a dud. Amtrack, comes to mind.
I'm very consistent with my criticism. I've said for years that the government can't 1) create wealth nor, 2) create jobs. It just can't be done. The government has been trying to do it for two years, now and it has been a massive multi-trillion dollar failure.
For those who say government cannot create wealth, how would you then classify infrastructure?
As much as any other major corporation. You don't think all those places that got our bailout money did so without "waste" do you? Or are you just making partisan arguments, ignoring the larger sum of money we spent on even more wasteful avenues than one which would provide a service to America at whole?
There is a bit of a difference, but you asked where the money would come from. We can print money at our leisure. Congress has that power.
No, but we've spent trillions of dollars on it now. I think that if one were to legitimately be asking where we can cut down, the first place would be from the war. Like Iraq fend for itself, it's not our duty to make them a government. I don't want to pay for their crap when we're worrying about paying for our own crap. The only think about this high speed rail is that during normal times I would have said no. But since we're in this big depression, there are ways to use government to alivieate the stress on the middle and lower classes while producing a positive net for us all as a whole. We don't need to carve faces into a mountain, but a high speed rail system would be a huge benefit to the lot of us.
Nope, I don't particularly like Obama. But I said at the very beginning of the depression that what we should do, instead of bailing out the "too big to fail" jerks was to build a high speed rail system and create a high speed internet backbone for the country as well. I thought those would be worth while work projects to temporarily employ folk out of a job and to give us something positive in the end. We didn't get anything positive from spending all our money on those banking jerks.
How does that create wealth? Where does the money come from to build that infrastructure?
They already get bail out money and huge subsidies. I'm willing to let the airline industry go and let it survive on its own. It would consolidate into only a few carriers because of the costs involved. Meanwhile, the high speed rail would then offer good alternatives for the rest of us
who don't want to be felt up by TSA.
It creates wealth because it is a vehicle in order for people to maximize their efforts.
Taking the highway system as an example, it allows for a greater volume of shipping than would otherwise be possible. It makes the shipping easier too. It is essentially a capital investment in the same way a stamping machine would be for a machine shop.
It comes from taxes.
Of course they wasted their money; all the more reason why I oppose bailouts.
Yeah, the Weimar government tried that to fix their economy. Sorry, but paying a million bucks for a loaf of bread won't be an economically positive sign.
Ok, that's fine; tell me again how that justifies wasting billions more on a friggin' train line?
But you sure do sound like a Libbo.
Government intervention doesn't maximize private industry. A lack of government intervention maximizes private industry.
Does the government buy the stamping machine? No?
And, where do taxes come from?
How so? Am I going to be able to buy my own train, put it on this line and operate a train business?
Tell me that you have enough common sense to know that that won't go away, just because you're getting on a train.
A true, national high speed rail would be well worth the investment of money in addition to providing many jobs to see people through the economic turndown. I mean, that's if you care about the average American instead of sending the billions upon billions of dollars to bailouts of the banks and CEOs who made the mess.
Fair enough. Money was going to get spent, where should it have been spent? Bailouts for the wealthy, or work projects for the middle class and poor to make it through? I'd prefer the work projects. Actually, I would have preferred the proper oversight and regulation necessary in the first place to have avoided this whole mess. But it is what it is, and now here we sit. I think we are served better collectively through work projects than through bailouts.
We'd just revalue our currency.
People need jobs. The "solutions" we've done thus far are not solutions for us, but ways to keep the rich rich while the rest of us are left on our own. By spending the money on an actual national high speed rail system you will create temporary jobs so that people can start getting back to work. Not only do they earn wages to pay taxes, but you'll put them back into the economy so they can start consuming again. We net out a national high speed rail system as well, which will prove very useful and convienent for traveling around the country. It will spur people to visit friends/family more by making the trips cheaper and more accessable, it will spur tourism to particular States for the same reason. We all win with a high speed rail system.
That's just a deflect designation in order to disregard what someone has said. I'm not a liberal, not in the modern sense anyway.
How? It's better for the environment, cheaper to run, and causes people to venture out more because of the fact that it is cheaper and allows them to travel further and more often.
Where is the downside? Charlotte is going to build a highspeed train to Washington D.C. and I, along with others here in Charlotte, are extremely excited about the prospect of being able to get from here to D.C. or NYC in a reasonable amount of time for a reasonable price.
I might even drive my electric car to the train station when it is built in a few years. How awesome would that be?
Ok, so I explain how it works and you reply with a mere statement of principal with nothing to back it up? Please use logic.
The stamping machine was a comparison, so I do not suspect that they would buy a stamping machine, unless it was a different agency (for example the US mint would probably buy a stamping machine).
People and entitites that pay the taxes.
Possibly. Depends on how large an infrastructure you can build. Government owns all the rail lines now, the rail companies are allowed to use the rail system. So I don't see why you would necessarily be forbidden from using the rail for commercial purposes if we develop it well enough.
They can stick to the planes. Currently, the rail system while it does have security it is not on the level of TSA. TSA can stay away. They'll just have to find a different set of chumps to feel up.
Some of you seem to be conflating "profitable" with "good policy." Is the interstate highway system profitable for the government? No...it costs billions to build and maintain, and generates almost no revenue aside from a few toll roads. Yet very few people would say that the interstate highway system was a bad investment.
I think high-speed rail would be much the same. Will it bring in more government revenue than it costs? No, of course not. But that's not the goal. The goal is to provide a benefit to society.
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