mxdata wrote:Nobody wants a factory next door, nobody wants a refinery next door, nobody wants a railroad next door. But everybody wants the benefits of economic prosperity.Agreed!
If the recession is long enough and deep enough, perhaps the anti-business attitudes will start to change. But it may be too late altogether, in some manufacturing sectors there are almost no companies left in the US that are building some types of products. You can't very well expect "buying American" to help restore the economy when there are no US built goods to purchase.
MX
Railroad Forums
US economy/railroad industry
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Otto Vondrak wrote:"Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?"Just curious, why did you decide the exact price of 9.79 will be when you do this?
American railroads are getting more and more traffic as people come to realize that the railroad is the best way to move a lot of stuff from Point A to Point B. Now we are facing a bottleneck because over the last 35 years or so railroads got rid of their excess capacity due to the tax situation. Now they are trying to double and triple track certain corridors and running into local opposition. What's more, our government refuses to adopt a national transportation policy. We keep getting oblique references to "private capital," in other words, the government is more than willing to subsidize airlines and highways, but railroads are on their own.
Combine all those factors, and we're heading for a major crisis in the next 10 to 15 years.
But when gasoline reaches $9.79 a gallon, I'm going up to my friend's cabin in the deep woods, with some protection pointed the other way!
-otto-
My personal take on this is that whatever the outcome of the coming election, some hard facts are going to have to be delivered to a delusional public. What happens after that is anybody's guess.
Both of the major Democrats simply parrot one simple phrase -- blame it all on George W. Bush. All their followers seem to hooked on another simple, and dangerous, belief -- that the government can address issues that the law of supply and demand cannot.
But I've got some hard questions for the GOP, too. The so-called "conservatives" who flay the illegal immigration issue seem to think that generation emerging from our politically-corrected educational system will readily accept the bottom-of-the-barrel jobs currently held by the illegals, while the aging "baby boomers" hold onto their increasingly-intangible "pseudo-wealtrh" as they sink into disfunctionality.
Clearly, we are facing a huge lowering of expectations. The question is: Do we have enough restraint to allow the issue to be resolved by the free exchange of goods, services and ideas, or is the perceived threat so great that we would surrender our traditions of independence and self-reliance to a clique from inside the Beltway?
The issues that have arisen on these forums over the past three years have several components, but.are all inter-related. Likewise, the answers to the problems are different for each region and each segment of the public, which is to say "the market". The solution is not going to emerge from the fantasies of lawyers.
When I enter that voting booth this November, I will likely have to choose among the lesser of several evils. So I will be guided not by what I have to gain, but what I might have to lose.
Both of the major Democrats simply parrot one simple phrase -- blame it all on George W. Bush. All their followers seem to hooked on another simple, and dangerous, belief -- that the government can address issues that the law of supply and demand cannot.
But I've got some hard questions for the GOP, too. The so-called "conservatives" who flay the illegal immigration issue seem to think that generation emerging from our politically-corrected educational system will readily accept the bottom-of-the-barrel jobs currently held by the illegals, while the aging "baby boomers" hold onto their increasingly-intangible "pseudo-wealtrh" as they sink into disfunctionality.
Clearly, we are facing a huge lowering of expectations. The question is: Do we have enough restraint to allow the issue to be resolved by the free exchange of goods, services and ideas, or is the perceived threat so great that we would surrender our traditions of independence and self-reliance to a clique from inside the Beltway?
The issues that have arisen on these forums over the past three years have several components, but.are all inter-related. Likewise, the answers to the problems are different for each region and each segment of the public, which is to say "the market". The solution is not going to emerge from the fantasies of lawyers.
When I enter that voting booth this November, I will likely have to choose among the lesser of several evils. So I will be guided not by what I have to gain, but what I might have to lose.
Last edited by 2nd trick op on Sun May 11, 2008 7:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.
What a revoltin' development this is! (William Bendix)
2nd trick op wrote:MDo we have enough restraint to allow the issue to be resolved by the free exchange of goods, services and ideas, or is the perceived threat so great that we would surrender our traditions of independence and self-reliance to a clique from inside the Beltway?Too many people think that problems can be solved by government policy, when often it's government policy that has caused the problem. Linear infrastructure (e.g. railroads, but also electricity, pipelines, roads, etc) is a hard problem to solve, but at least government could stop making the problem worse by, as Otto says, taxing linear infrastructure based on the value of the property. There are a diminishing number of areas where you can draw straight lines between places. ROWs are precious and it was a HUGE mistake to have allowed so many to be split up.
