68 billion dollar high speed rail from LA to San Fran... (Los Angeles: closing, price)

[wrcousert]

Originally Posted by ZhugeLiang

Doubtful. Whitman couldn't have possibly been any worse than Brown. At least she would have attempted to do something about the source of CA's budget issues. Not saying she would have succeeded, but at least we wouldn't have schools being sacrificed at the expense of a train to nowhere and union pensions.

At least she wouldn't have been able to kill HP.

[ZhugeLiang]

Originally Posted by wrcousert

At least she wouldn't have been able to kill HP.

Dude, get your facts straight. HP was already in ruins before Whitman got there. Things have only improved since she took over. She saved HP from the former CEO's error that could have put them on the ash heap of history.

[Fontucky]

Originally Posted by 04kL4nD

Actually, she was pretty outspoken about making cuts to education

Both of them are terrible

I was willing to give her a chance to prove that to me, as her opponent already did prove it his last time in office.

[citynomad]

oh yeah, let's just use taxpayer's funds to help the rich get richer .

Either the naysayers of HSR worked for the rich and/or just enjoy being spanked by them. Siphon tax dollars from the Cali HSR project to the fill the wealthy's bank account .

[krudmonk]

I can't wait to smoke weed and marry a dude on high-speed rail.

[Dean Trails]

The next decade will be so interesting here is Cali! Yeah, that's right i said,,Cali!!

Now, can we just get on with the high speed rail? The important question is,,,,,,Will it be named after Jerry?

Any suggestive names? I mean suggested names?

Jerry Rigged Rail

Side Trakked

BrownRail

I wonder who gets to drive the silicone spike?

[Think4Yourself]

Originally Posted by ZhugeLiang

Dude, get your facts straight. HP was already in ruins before Whitman got there. Things have only improved since she took over. She saved HP from the former CEO's error that could have put them on the ash heap of history.

They weren't in ruins by any stretch but they had become fat and complacent on just a couple of high margin businesses. Their PC business was always an also ran yet Fiorina doubled down on it by buying Compaq in a deal which really didn't do anything but lose shareholders money; the Compaq brand name was worthless and the hardware designs go obsolete in just a few months so why spend billions on it especially as the margins on PCs were plumeting to zero? They were late to the server and enterprise software market and so never became anything more than distant also rans while the hardware side tried to just sit around selling up market calculators and printers though they practically had to give away the printers and then charge outrageous prices for ink to make the business model attractive.

The problem is there are dozens of low end Asian makers who could all do the same thing and undercut HP's profit hogs on price so their main profit makers faced continually shrinking margins. Yes, this was a leadership problem because both Fiorina and Whitman utterly and completely failed to invest in new products which could replace the shrinking margins on older product lines. Both of those women did pay out big time to shareholders for a while but that's short term thinking for greedy short term investors not the long term game. Successful tech companies (think Apple and Samsung) hold on to cash like Scrouge no matter if the invbestment funds want to loot the company's savings and instead they reinvest that money into ever more new products hoping some of them take off and become new high margin businesses.

The problem is it now only takes ~ 6 months before you brand new high margin toy attracts copy cats and it becomes just another low margin business. That means you must CONSTANTLY be coming out with new and better products on the cutting edge or you'll end up with quickly shrinking margins as the low cost copy cat companies eat up market share. Neither Whitman or Fiorina (both ran for office as Republicans in this state) did that and that WAS their personal failures as CEOs.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

I can't wait to smoke weed and marry a dude on high-speed rail.

In other words, you incapable of independent thought and go along with whatever your party says because you think it makes you cool or something. lol

FYI, Im a democrat too but I dont let them dictate my beliefs to me. Just something to consider.

[Think4Yourself]

I really, really like the idea of high speed rail and think this could be great. The problem is the current route is a complete joke as it zigs and zags all over the central valley just to pick up some population 20k town which will not generate any riders but whose state rep's vote is needed. For this to be done right it should go in as straight a line as possible thus following the I5 corridor from San Diego to L.A. to San Francisco would be ideal. Has anyone seen what a hideous monstrosity the current route has become? it has five 90 degree turns and three 45 degree turns in it which the train will have to slow to a crawl so it doesn't derail plus they've added so many stops the journey will take forever (figure at least 10 minutes at each stop to off load and load people).

Even though I voted for this and think it would be great for our state if the route was done properly... The current routing adds about 40%-50% additional track miles and 200%-300% to travel time. That's unacceptable and completely retarded. Worse they've made all these changes in an attempt to appeal for Republican votes even though it is obvious none of them will actually vote for it even though, behind the scenes, they're all trying to get the route to connect their district as some sort of stupid pork. Unless the route gets changed back to the I5 corridor I would like to see this project killed.

The current retarded route map:


The much straighter and faster I5 route which we were originally sold (in yellow):

[Think4Yourself]

Look especially at the L.A. to San Diego section where it could go straight down the I5 taking about 125 miles in a completely straight line but instead it zig zags up the I15 corridor, then makes a 90 degree turn, and goes into L.A. along the I10 corridor. That's just an attempt to pick up votes from Republican reps from the Inland Empire who will allow just vote against the project anyway. Worse it literally doubles the amount of tracks required and almost triples the travel time (due to all the additional stops) so that it is literally faster to just drive.

In order to be viable HSR needs to be an express train which travels ONLY from big city center to big city center along high traffic routes. It is not a local commuter train which stops every 10 miles to let people on and off; unfortunately clueless politicians are treating this like a commuter train in order to bring pork home to their districts. This will result in a system no one uses because it will be so slow with all the stops along with all the zigging and zagging to pick up towns which won't actually generate much additional ridership. The really highly traveled sections which will generate virtually all of the revenue will be SD, OC, LA, SF area. If service to those areas are fast and affordable then HSR will be a success but if it is not (for those specific areas) then it will be a financial failure which no one rides.

The current route pretty much guarantees the system will be a failure because those four key areas (again, which will generate virtually all of the actual paying passengers) will not be well served for reasons I already stated. Change the route so that it follows the I5 corridor and we'll see lower costs and faster travel times for the key areas (as the line will be 40% shorter distance wise). Anything else is doomed to failure.