synonymouse Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 1:15 pm

Killed is quite a challenge. Even in hell-holes like Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan it is hard to kill a neighborhood, even for the Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc, etc.

Shutting down the escalators because the locals are shitting on them does present a pretty accurate image of BART, tho.

Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 1:45 pm

That’s easy: Mid-Market (5th-Van Ness) San Francisco. Pretty much killed off 1965-2010.
Oakland Broadway downtown didn’t go a lot better — being raped by the freeways didn’t help either.

Richard Mlynarik Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 1:46 pm

Yes, I know. Not viaducts. But if you think they would have been better …

Alon Levy Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 2:38 pm

Syn, there are tons of neighborhoods that were actually killed by freeways, or shrunken due to bisection. Tremont, sections of East Harlem, Bay Ridge, parts of Washington Heights, Red Hook…

Miles Bader Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 3:03 pm

Hmm, surely viaducts often are better though …
kinda depends on the particulars.

adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 3:04 pm

…and that’s just in New York City.

Alon Levy Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 3:12 pm

The Flushing Line viaduct over Queens Boulevard is nice, but that comes from the boulevard’s excessive width.

synonymouse Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 6:54 pm

I couldn’t agree more with Alon’s point about neighborhoods being trashed by freeways. You can find an example of genuine damage in most every city.

That’s why I oppose an iteration of hsr that is unnecessarily a freeway on rails. Why create another linear blight zone, another no man’s land like every damn freeway? So if at all possible locate the 220mph hsr lines in existing no man’s lands, ergo freeways. This is a primary reason I strongly favor I-5 – hsr will gentrify it.

Most rr corridors are not as blighted as freeway ROW’s. Why make them worse?

adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 7:17 pm

no no no. the HSR overpasses along I-5 would create insta-slums. Just like the railroad did in Cos Cob. But then maybe the problem in Cos Cob was the enormous coal powered electricity plant.

Miles Bader Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 7:22 pm

@syn
Freeways are typically much wider, have far more “auxiliary/connecting” infrastructure that takes up space, and are far, far, noisier. Freeways encourage car-oriented development near exits, which of course results in even huger amounts of space being consumed by low-density use but unattractive uses. Rail, by contrast, encourages dense pedestrian development near stations.

Of course you can avoid some of the issues by buildin a one-lane-each-way freeway on a tall viaduct with noise walls, but in the U.S. they rarely seem to do that.

Two track HSR lines, by contrast, are the norm, and together with the other advantages of railways, mean there’s little comparison between an HSR line and a freeway.

Tom McNamara Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 9:45 pm

It’s also important to note that in California, freeways were especially designed to racially segregate and isolate neighborhoods. BART, even though it used freeway right of ways, actually hasn’t too many neighborhoods where this is the case. Take a look at Lafayette for example, Rockridge, or sunny Fremont. The Brutalist architecture might be butt-ugly, but the beat goes on….

synonymouse Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 6:41 pm

In fact I think I’ll pour another shot.

adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 7:15 pm

..that explains a lot.

VBobier Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 6:45 am

Yeah, Syno’s drunk and maybe a whining wino to boot.

synonymouse Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 11:36 am

Every now and then I get a bottle of Foxbrook Shiraz for $1.98 that’s pretty good. Always get the newest year possible. The cheap stuff doesn’t age well.

VBobier Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 5:39 pm

Like I care, ruin yer liver if Ya want, it’s not My problem if Ya die, I just don’t buy alcoholic bevages as I don’t need them and I like being sober thank you…

BruceMcF Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 8:52 am

Anybody pretending that government debt has something to do with a country living within its means is promoting a confusion of money that is created by government and resources that are not. A nation’s means is its labor, productive equipment, and natural resources.

synonymouse Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 12:11 pm

Krugman and the other Keynesians have no effective mechanism in place to determine when to terminate stimulus spending. These are compulsive big spenders, even in the face of an inflating bubble. An inability to budget has sadly become part of the definition of a latter-day liberal.

adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 1:09 pm

Yes that staunch conservative Bill Clinton was the one to give us a surplus that was expected to pay off the Federal debt in 2011 and that wild eyed Librrrruuuul GW Bush cuts taxes, increased spending and started two wars.

synonymouse Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 1:17 pm

Clinton was a very popular president and the rich never did so well. Go figure.

But he would be to the right of Moonbeam as governor of LaLa, new name for the Golden State.

Alon Levy Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 3:19 pm

Krugman and the other Keynesians have no effective mechanism in place to determine when to terminate stimulus spending.

Except they actually do: when unemployment drops to levels close to full employment, and inflation is starting to pick up to the point that the Fed needs to raise rates above the zero lower bound to keep core inflation on target, it is no longer necessary to engage in deficit spending.

adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 3:34 pm

Except they actually do…

Like Clinton did? All of that takes thought. It’s much easier to make the solution “cut taxes on rich people” for everything. Economy doing well? Cut taxes on rich people. Economy in the shitter? Cut taxes on rich people. Martian invasion incinerates Iowa? Cut taxes on rich people.

Alon Levy Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 3:55 pm

We need to cut taxes on the people who will do reconstruction and also manufacture the weapons necessary to deal with alien invasions.

But yeah, Clinton did cut the deficit, after Greenspan forced his hand. Of course when Bush was in charge Greenspan was happy to keep rates lower than he should have – if he’d done the responsible thing and started raising rates in ’03, Bush might have lost reelection.

BruceMcF Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 4:03 pm

Syntho-mouse ~ the closer we are to full employment output, the less deficit spending is required. Indeed, if we had more robust automatic stabilizers, we could run a structurally balanced budget in all except severe recessions and the swings of the cyclical deficit would put the deficit at about the right level.

Of course, as Paul Davidson explained back in the 1980′s, a stronger investment in infrastructure as a part of that provides long-term protection from demand-pull inflation without requiring the surge in unemployment required to suppress demand-pull inflation by playing interest rate.

Neville Snark Reply:
July 30th, 2012 at 4:34 pm

For JN, who said ‘Plenty of economists believe that tax cuts not spending drive recoveries. It is called supply side economics.’

From the New Republic (!):

Among those aghast at the position Republicans have taken are economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers. As they explained in a column for Bloomberg View on Tuesday, the political debate over economic policy right now is between, on the one hand, those who believe that the Recovery Act reduced unemployment, that the bank bailouts stabilized the financial system, that tax cuts don’t pay for themselves — and, on the other hand, those who dispute those claims.

These days, the former view is the one you typically hear from Democrats and their supporters, the latter from Republicans and their allies. But in surveys of credentialed economists, the Republican view gets virtually no support:

The consensus isn’t the result of a faux poll of left-wing ideologues. Rather, the findings come from the Economic Experts Panel run by Booth’s Initiative on Global Markets. It’s a recurring survey of about 40 economists from around the U.S. It includes Democrats, Republicans and independent academics from the top economics departments in the country. The only things that unite them are their first-rate credentials and their interest in public policy…

Angry Republicans have pushed their representatives to adopt positions that are at odds with the best of modern economic thinking… The disjunction between the state of economic knowledge and our current political debate has important consequences. Right now, millions of people are suffering due to high unemployment. Our textbooks are filled with possible solutions. Instead of debating them seriously, congressional Republicans are blocking even those policy proposals that strike most economists as uncontroversial.

This inaction has no basis in economics. Instead, it’s raw politics — a cynical attempt to score points in a phony rhetorical war or a way of preventing their opponents from scoring a policy win.

BruceMcF Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 12:03 pm

The 3 largest fed deficits ever

If someone said, “2007-2009 was the biggest recession ever”, was called on it, and then said, “Fine. Post WWII the biggest. I though it went without saying but obviously I was wrong.” would that be persuasive? Of course not, which is why people say “the biggest recession since the Great Depression” or “the biggest recession in the post-WWII era” instead of “the biggest recession ever”.

Can’t even claim, “the three biggest peacetime deficits”, since we have been at war continuously since the invasion of Afghanistan.

John Nachtigall Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 12:34 pm

Since you are being so technical I was technically correct. The 3 biggest ever in total dollars were the last 3. I was trying to be reasonable and acknowledge that you were right about as a percentage of GDP. You can’t compare the country in a total world war vs what we have right now which is not even a war (it is an occupation).

You understood the basic point, the deficits are high and the economy is not improving. But if you want to play word games I suppose we could go that way, but it is boring

BruceMcF Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 4:20 pm

As I said:

Anyone using nominal value of deficit as opposed to share of GDP has either been misled or is doing the misleading.

The reason we know that since 1960 Republican Administrations have been more likely than Democratic administrations to expand the national debt is by looking at debt as a percentage of GDP. Doing the same comparison in nominal terms would reveal the person doing the comparison as either ignorant or a dishonest charlatan.

Total government spending on goods and services have been declining in real terms over the past two years ($2005, [Fed:State&Locak]):

GDP-Government, 2007: $2,434.2b [$906.1b:$1,528.1b]
GDP-Government, 2008: $2,497.1b [$971.1b:$1,528.1b]
GDP-Government, 2009: $2,589.4b [$1,030.6:$1,561.8b]
GDP-Government, 2010: $2,605.4b [$1,076.8b:$1,534.1b]
GDP-Government, 2011: $2,523.9b [$1,047.0b:$1,482.0b]
GDP-Government, 2012Q1: $2,483.7b [$1,023.1b:$1,465.3b]
GDP-Government, 2012Q2: $2,474.8b [$1,022.2b:$1,457.4b]

That decline in total government spending in real terms is what the shrieking about the deficit is trying to distract people from. (1) Put policies in place to cut direct purchases of goods and services by government (2) spread the lie around about “runaway” government spending”, laying the foundation for (3) pretending that if General Theory reasoning was correct, there “ought to be” a strong economic recovery, when the reality is that Republican austerity policies at the federal and state level over the past two years is predicted by the General Theory model to result in more sluggish economic growth.

Alon Levy Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 2:10 am

What about face? The support for unemployment benefits and aid to states over infrastructure?

Alon Levy Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 4:00 pm

Krugman himself did not say too much about what spending is the best, but the various liberal organizations did. Back in ’09, you had urban organizations like DMI (there are others) quoting Mark Zandi as saying direct cash benefits to the unemployed and aid to states had the highest multiplier. A few people, like Lindsay Beyerstein, were warning of an infrastructure and construction lobby, specifically the feminist implications of spending too much money on men’s jobs (i.e. construction) and not enough on women (i.e. teachers and social workers). Nowadays you’re not going to hear infrastructure lobby complaints from that direction.

Essentially, what happened in late ’09 and ’10 with HSR was a politicization of infrastructure, with the exception of roads and oil, so that now people on the left align for it and people on the right align against. In ’09 Gingrich was calling for maglev trains; he said nothing about it in the primary.

adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 6:08 pm

Gringrich spews whatever is in his addled brain at the moment. I think his best was when asked how to stop spiraling healthcare costs he went on and on about how in the future we would sit in an intelligent lounge chair and it would diagnose all of our problems and design a care plan that involved macrobiotic tax cuts and supply side prescriptions.

Alon Levy Reply:
July 30th, 2012 at 12:17 am

I’m well-aware that Gingrich can be idiosyncratic. It’s just that in 2009 this included a national maglev network, whereas by 2011 any and all transit was put in the “only for communists” basket.

adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 7:56 pm

adolescent Krisha too.

StevieB Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 9:53 pm

Transit’s Not Bleeding the Taxpayer Dry — Roads Are.

Alon Levy Reply:
July 30th, 2012 at 12:16 am

Thanks.

Peter Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 7:56 am

Historically, freight trams were used quite efficiently in many cities for “the last mile” delivery of goods. The fact that we decided in the mid-19th century to dump the vast majority of our tram systems worldwide was a matter of policy, not destiny. Government subsidies of the road system over the rail transit systems directly led to the decline of the transit systems.

BruceMcF Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 8:24 am

But when costs are attached to the use of one mode, and not attached to another, as when freight rail runs on a transport corridor subject to property tax and truck freight runs on a property tax exempt corridor subsidized by property taxes, that changes the difference in the private cost of using the systems and at the margin certainly results in situations where the cheapest full cost option is not the cheapest option in terms of costs directly charged to the users. Given the massive total subsidy to road freight, in many markets the bulk of road freight’s market share is due to the differential subsidy it enjoys versus alternative ways to move freight.

Indeed, it would not even take a level playing field to shift half or more of long haul freight to rail, just a shallower slope ~ an interest subsidy with the original capital cost paid for out of user and access fees would suffice to finance a national electric freight rail network that would take over half the long haul truck freight off the road.

adirondacker12800 Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 1:16 pm

…..property taxes… that nice private siding next to the building is taxed. Every building has driveways and parking on the other hand and is taxes like all other buildings…

Neil Shea Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 10:47 pm

The issue is not about whether something is paid for, it’s about the economic signals sent by the relative value of alternative options. If consumers will buy one apple for the price of 5 pears, I may want to allocate more of my fields to apple trees. If truck transportation costs more without others absorbing the costs, I may want to build more factories around the country and reduce my reliance on shipping.

Similarly if it does not appear artificially cheaper to transport by roads than it really is, it would level the playing field for the decisions both whether to invest in non-road transportation infrastructure and which mode for travelers to use.

BruceMcF Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 8:11 am

If you don’t want to get into a semantic argument, don’t start trying to redefining words from what they normally mean.

Another point we do not agree on is whether all of the public support for the automobile transport other than roads should be ignored every time the public support for the automobile transport system is raised. Omitting parking provision ~ much of it a legally mandated taking from private property owners ~ pollution, and ignoring that much of the state gas tax payments are not a transfer from the general fund in the form of sales tax exemptions for gasoline will always result in substantial undercounting of the public support provided to the automobile transport system.

John Nachtigall Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 9:43 am

I am not redefining the word, i am using it as it is used in reality, not in a dictonary, If you asked 100 people on the street if police were a subsidy I wager most would say no. For example, if I call someone ignorant they would take offense because it has a negative connotation, but in reality if I look it up in a dictionary it simply means you are unaware of the information or facts. Technically correct,but in use meant to imply a negative. Subsidy is used the same way.

As for your other point, well it is a democracy. If the majority agree with you then you are free to get funding for whatever you want. I suspect, however, what bothers you and Alon and others on this boards that the majority does not agree with you. Perhaps because they are ignorant (in the negative or non-negative way). Perhaps it is because they see how the subsidy is spent now with Amtrack and have decided the road transport system is the lesser of the evils. Or maybe it is because a lot of people don’t live in urban situations where biking and walking are feasible and rail is not cost effective under any situation. Hard to say, but get your majority and you can do as you wish

BruceMcF Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 11:45 am

I am not redefining the word, i am using it as it is used in reality, not in a dictonary, If you asked 100 people on the street if police were a subsidy I wager most would say no.

And if you told 100 people on the street, without saying that you were talking about roads, that a facility used by people was partly funded out of a tax paid by users of that facility, and partly funded out of local property, sales and/or income taxes was a subsidy, and asked whether the part paid for out of local general funds was a subsidy, a majority would say yes.

A lot of people share the misconception that gas taxes pay for the public costs of automobiles. The fact that they have that misconception does not make it true, even if it is a misconception shared by the majority.

As for your other point, well it is a democracy. If the majority …

If you have no defense for the status quo except that it is the status quo, with a majority of people having the view that the way things have been done for as long as they can remember must be right, that sounds like a concession that the policy you are arguing can not stand on its merits, and can only stand on the basis of being an entrenched policy supported by vested interests.

D. P. Lubic Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 12:03 pm

You’re correct about ignorance in both negative and non-negative connotations; I have to confess to a lot of that about air service, not really having time to study it properly. I’ve also run into people who have said this or any other rail project is a part of a plot to take away their cars and their freedom, and to make them live in an anthill. The same people are often the ones who say there’s plenty of oil in the ground, when oil flow charts from wells, and the extreme measures now being undertaken to get oil out of places like sea beds would strongly indicate otherwise, at least in terms of getting $2.00 per gallon gasoline again.

It is important to recognize that the road subsidy we have been talking about DOES tip the playing field. This is not a new problem. Check out this film from the 1950s, in particular a segment starting at 12:37, and especially at 13:54:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e08v0KqImes

This is the very definition of a subsidy, and a definition of a rigged game. If you don’t want to subsidize rail, unrig the game, with at least honest accounting, something that seems to be in short supply in regard to the cost of the road system.

You are thoughtful, as mentioned above–but oh, how I wish you wouldn’t buy that “roads aren’t subsidized” argument; that’s just not true in the numbers I see.

John Nachtigall Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 12:50 pm

Bruce

I am not defending the status quo. Change the system if you wish. There used to be a horse lobby, they lost out. A steam engine lobby, they died. Technology is always marching on, in part because of people such as yourself that continue to agitate against the status quo. You are an important part of the system in presenting the possible ideas that the majority eventually vote on, but stop being a sore loser when they don’t accept your ideas

D.P.

I recognize gas taxes don’t come close to paying for roads. I just wish others would recognize they help everyone, not just drivers, but that argument has been beat to death. In reality all forms of transit are subsidized including cars, rails, busses, even bikes and walking (bike lanes and sidewalks). I just view it as a basic government function. You think they are rigging the game towards cars, but I think they are just giving the people what they want. Change what the people want and they will find the alternative

Alon Levy Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 3:12 pm

Do you actually know that there were strong horse and steam engine lobbies, or are you guessing? Because, in reality, the biggest players in steam were the people making the engines (who also made diesel and electric engines, and so didn’t care about which was accepted), and the coal interests (who produced coal mainly for industrial and commercial power generation, and so didn’t care what was used in trains). Nobody important had a real reason to lobby for regulations against dieselization or electrification.

On the contrary – the political lobbying was for banning steam power, because it was so polluting. New York and Brooklyn both spent much of the 19th century trying to get rid of steam trains and instead make railroads pull trains with horses within the urban core, and once mainline electrification proved feasible around 1900, New York forced the New York Central to electrify.

Likewise, with horses, cities thought they were a logistical and environmental nightmare in the early 20th century – too much manure and such. They liked cars partially because they were a replacement for horses, though the biggest reasons were that cars would be useful in suburbanization, which the urban elite favored as a way of getting rid of the ethnic enclaves.

D. P. Lubic Reply:
July 29th, 2012 at 4:25 pm

Ironically, the birthplace of railroading in America, Baltimore, Md., also required trains be pulled by horses due to smoke concerns (and others, too); when steam locomotives took over from horses, they were special-purpose tank engines, and were oil-fired, too.

Edited film clips, featuring the railroad action, from the film, “The Tall Target,” about the attempted assassination of Abraham Lincoln on the way to his inauguration in 1861. A reenactment of the train being broken up to be hauled across Baltimore by horses starts at 8:18. This is a good movie, by the way, and I highly recommend it, despite certain inaccuracies. These include such things as a station in “New York” that looks a lot like the 1869 version of Grand Central in the opening credits, an apparent operation by train directly from New York into New Jersey (I believe the first direct link to the south from New York was the Penn Station tunnels, opened in 1910; a boat ride would have been necessary before then), air brakes (not around in even the most primitive form until 1869 or so, and then only as an experiment), the engine crew and apparently the train crew (and the locomotive) running though Baltimore to Washington (a Baltimore & Ohio locomotive and crew would have handled the train south of Baltimore), and poorly synchronized locomotive sounds (very common movie error). Good things include authentic whistle signals from prior to 1947, uniforms, and car interiors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJZeKFCe6Hg

Another clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTBgxfe9OUY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tall_Target

BruceMcF Reply:
July 30th, 2012 at 3:13 pm

John,

Arguing that the money paid out of local sales, property and income taxes to fix streets is not a subsidy, and that the gas taxes paid by motorists driving on those streets that go to qualifying highway projects is not a cross-subsidy, and that zoning mandates to provide parking minimums is not a subsidy in kind, treating the cost of pollution caused by driving as a factor to be ignored …

… that is arguing in service to the status quo.

Receiving a critique of an argument that you present as not being well founded upon substantial evidence, and replying that the majority believe something and therefore it must be accepted a true, and it would seem that critics should silence themselves until the majority somehow spontaneously changes its mind, that is arguing that the status quo is correct because its the status quo and the conventional wisdom takes it for granted.

joe Reply:
July 28th, 2012 at 9:11 pm

No, independent contractors don’t have the technology to adjust the mass of their cargo.