The original overall plan called for Bham and ATL to be linked to NO, at least I thought it did.

And Billy, that is why I explained above that you're looking at this through a free market lense, and Squirg, Kingfish and I are all saying "If you build it they might come, and even if they don't come, hey, we built some shit that injected some money into the economy, which is still needed really fucking bad, and this is a bit better than digging holes and filling them in."

No one knows what Nobody is saying, because he'll change it as soon as either he or you begin to sound remotely rational.

I kind of agree with you there, but the distance between Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis and the volume of people in those places is exactly why it's the perfect location for it. Obviously, Milwaukee and Minneapolis aren't the size of Chicago, but both are top 50 in size in the country.

I don't want to argue that either frankly, it's been done to death by people smarter than both of us and the two sides will never agree...well, except that bit about lowering tax rates and getting more revenue being bullshit. I will say, I'm still not entirely sure how lower taxes = more jobs and reduced capital gains taxes = more investment isn't trickle down to be honest. And, that and the false claim about lowering taxes not decreasing revenue were what got supply side advocates accused of voodoo economics.

And, I really think it is an exaggeration to say only a supply side advocate believes if you charge less for something people buy more of it.

Oh...and I will shut up now. Unions I give a shit about...supertrains not so much really.

Am I correct that Scott Walker is only asking the unions to accept a 2% contribution? If so, that's kind of bullshit that they won't take that.

The only direct subsidies out there (at least in the US) are the margin guarantees given for service to all the podunk airports like Idaho Falls. It is designed to make the carrier whole, and if the local traffic supports the service, the subsidy isn't paid. These subsidies are usually only granted for one or two years to get the service started, and we're talking thousands, not millions, and certainly not billions of dollars.

Carriers got a cash infusion just after 9/11, but that was a one-time deal.

As I understood it, there was no such offer, just the loss of their right to bargain, somehow. I'd like to know details though. 2% fails the smell test.

I don't think that's right.



I recall hearing that the unions had turned down a much smaller match prior to the election. Maybe that's what you are thinking about. I couldn't find that amount in a quick search though.

[/quote]

Given my acid-damaged, meta-socialist persona, I probably have little credibility with the thinktards in this discussion. But my brain and heart compel me to observe:

There has been an astonishing redistribution of wealth in this country since the early 1980's. Any rational examination of a variety of authentic metrics will demonstrate this. The super-rich continue to aggregate wealth at the expense of the middle and working classes. There is less social mobility in the United States than in class-bound societies like England and France. The pace of this re-distribution increased through the last ten years.

The steering mechanisms at play in the public sphere are managed by the interests that want to obfuscate this truth and accelerate the leveraging of wealth to those already wealthy. The communicative actions of those steering mechanisms change with time, but cluster around "free market principles", "oppose class warfare", "government isn't the solution, it's the problem", "take our country back." The effort to manipulate and control is strategic and organized. In this current season listen for any "connected" conservative saying "listen to the American people" and see if it's not followed by advocacy for some policy that adversely impacts most Americans. Orwellian at its base.

The Tea Party (with some exceptions... including attracting some who are genuinely and reasonably afraid of the modern world) has formed to carry forward these carefully crafted attacks on the middle class and the working poor. It is the most recent expression of strategies developed for decades in well-funded conservative think tanks. (c.f. Koch Bros.' dominance of conservative Washington, CATO, American Enterprise... on and on).

What's happened in Wisc. is part of a national strategy to marginalize the power of working people (the "budget crisis" in Wisc in part a result of tax cuts for the wealthy). The ability for workers, any workers, to organize around compensation and working conditions, has been the singular strategy to create a middle class in the last 100 years. President Reagan's "breaking" the air traffic contoller strike in 1981 was the first salvo in the war against the middle class. If you can't see the significance of what's happening in Wisc, that it is more than some reasonable concession requested on a % of benefit costs... well, then I might suggest you too are being steered, and the next step is to join a religion with Xenu and thetans in its cosmology.

Thanks for that, Harry. Sometimes you can make Obner worth reading.

I'd like to see the media ask Walker why he gave the wealthiest citizens of Wisconsin huge tax breaks if he's so concerned about the budget. It's disgusting what's going on there right now.

It's purely political and part of a bigger plan by Republicans to destroy unions, which coincidentally, are the primary financial backers of Democrats during elections.

BTW, the goal isn't just to break the unions, it's to eliminate public government schools altogether.

C'mon BG, you're better than this. The quickest of googl'n gets me THIS article and I'm sure If I try, I can find hundreds or even thousands more: If you don't understand that airports and the airline industry aren't a quasi government enterprise, then, well, you don't understand either very well.

Flying used to be a privilege reserved for the rich, the properly employed and for the families of people who worked for the airlines; it has taken less than a generation to change that completely so why can't it be changed again?

And just as an aside, all transportation industries, from auto makers to plane manufacturers to road builders are profitable based on some level of assistance from the government so this pure free marketeer anti transportation talk from BG and Bilz is laughable.

great thread.

I frequently check out the price for taking the train to various East Coast destinations, but always end up driving or flying. I think Philadelphia to NYC is the only one that makes any sense and that is mostly because the tunnels are such a mess. And it only financially makes sense if you take SEPTA to NJ Rail and avoid Amtrack.

Your point is irrelevant, and in the case of airlines, flat out wrong. The airlines are probably the only group not living off of subsidies/govt. support. They don't benefit from enormous govt purchases a la Boeing, Lockheed, etc. or from huge fleet sales a la Ford, GM. The government's single largest purchase from the airlines has always been the mail, and that business has completely dried up to the point that the majors no longer compete for it. There are no development grants to make their product more green. The only govt handout they get are the small city grants I mentioned earlier.

Everyone wants to argue that high speed rail (or rail in general) is cheaper/more efficient. The point they miss is that if you do high speed rail, it doesn't alleviate the need to maintain airports and highways. Rail investment is all incremental, it's not substitution. If you were playing Sim City and starting from scratch, the debate might be meaningful, but we're well beyond that point in this country.

What about the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act after 9/11? The fact that airports are developed and maintained using subsidies, tax free bonds and direct funds from the Department of Transportation (essentially giving airlines a free place to conduct their business), the tax loopholes that reduce the amount of fuel tax that airlines pay (those taxes are ostensibly used to fund the FAA but since they don't cover the bill, that gets passed on to taxpayers...BTW, there has been legislation proposed for some time to eliminate the fuel tax on commercial airlines. Must be nice), not to mention the technological benefits that the airlines receive from the government funded aviation research done by NASA and military.

Scott Walker: 18th Century Man

My Photos from the past few days.

Great pics mojo!

"I PROTECT YOUR FAMILY FROM THE CRIMINALLY INSANE"

my favorite

My personal favorite was the Wisconsin Nurses sign: "Screw us and we multiply"

You didn't mention that in your post directed towards me (the one where you said I was "flat out wrong") and I apologize that I missed it in your earlier post.

It doesn't change the other examples I gave to disprove you though nor does it change the fact that it happened in the first place. They are all government handouts and ongoing subsidies that prop up the airline industry. You can go ahead and admit that it was you who were flat out wrong now.

What, the free airports? Don't think so...ask St. Louis how much revenue they lost when American folded up the TWA tent. Landing fees, gate and terminal leases, PFC's....hardly "free". Are airports built and maintained by local municipalities? Sure, because the alternative is that American, United, Delta, etc. each build their own private airport wherever they want to fly. That's like asking Roadway, Covenant, and the other trucking firms to build their own private interstates.

The fuel tax? Let alone the perverse notion that collecting fewer taxes amounts to a subsidy in your mind, name me one other industry where companies are charged what amounts to a consumer sales tax on their largest production input. Why not charge 10% on the steel and rubber that Ford and GM buy? Call it a negative subsidy.

Actually, it would be like asking Roadway et al to build their own transfer stations and warehouses...something they already do. And sure the fess and leases cover some of the freight and help out the cities that run the airports but there is still the matter of running



The aforementioned trucking industry? I mean, fuel is the largest production input in my business but I'm not getting a break and nobody built me and my competition a warehouse to work out of either...