Hearing for South Mountain Freeway on May 11

[swbrotha100]

I hope ADOT learns some lessons on this whole South Mountain Freeway deal. I wish the opponents would let this go, it's only been over 30 YEARS already. Supporters should be the adults in the room. No need for a "victory lap" of sorts, just get this construction started. Besides, some houses and businesses have already been demolished, so I think in the end this will be a small bump in the road for this section of Loop 202.

[ScottsdaleMark]

Originally Posted by locolife

Econ anything tells you how economies work, it doesn't enable you to predict the future. You act as if anyone is doing a better job at knowing what's going to happen in an incredibly complex system of markets that is now so globalized that a tsunami in Asia will impact commodity prices here.

I agree. Economics uses data from the past, not the present (because real-time macro data is basically impossible to get, e.g. all the government reports on hiring, firing, etc., that are delayed weeks to start with and revised, sometimes majorly, weeks or months later once more data comes in), so it's like driving a car using only your side and rear-view mirrors, at least that's a good way I have seen it described. If I hire or fire an employee today, how long before the government economists know about it and include it in their data? That kind of thing.

And because you don't have future data, you have to make all kinds of assumptions, basically guesses, to try to predict things and to try to get your models to work. And if you have to put made-up numbers or out-of-date numbers into a model to get it to work, there's not much accuracy to it. Economist joke: How does an economist get out of a 10-foot-deep hole in the ground? First, he assumes a ladder...

The government in particular is guilty of this type of magical thinking. When was the last time a taxing entity predicted anything less than wildly optimistic growth? They have budgets to "balance" and hard choices to make with various programs and entitlements and so they put on their rose-colored glasses and massage things until the math works. The math behind Prop. 123 is an example of wildly optimistic projections -- e.g. triple the withdrawals and still expect the fund to grow. I might as well go buy a Rolls Royce on payments and justify it by saying I assume I will receive a XX% raise every year for the life of the loan.

[Pink Jazz]

I just found out that even though the hearing will be today, the final ruling will actually be a few weeks from now. Let's hope that the judge rules in favor of ADOT and that she doesn't let her Native American heritage get in the way (that would be a major conflict of interest).

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by Pink Jazz

I just found out that even though the hearing will be today, the final ruling will actually be a few weeks from now. Let's hope that the judge rules in favor of ADOT and that she doesn't let her Native American heritage get in the way (that would be a major conflict of interest).

Today is arguments. In my experience, judges usually have their minds made up by this point through their own research and skimming briefs from claimant and defendant.