An "Overall" Rant . . . . I've had it..... (Pittsburgh, Republic: get credit, how much)

[raubre]

Originally Posted by jimmyev

if he looses, he'll loose it because he's a Democrat and Republicans are in favor right now.

That's sad, but probably true. His party affiliation should have nothing to do with it. It should be his job performance. And me being a Democrat, I think he's doing a poor job.

Personally, I don't understand why a person's party affiliation should sway thier voting decision. I blame these political pundits and so called "biased" news channels for this.

[nuwaver88]

Just wondering. How can the Port Authority be losing money when so many buses are sardine cans all day long?

[curioushuman]

The port authorities make a fortune i know i paid 5500.00 for a container to be brought into TN. One week they held it so i would have to pay the max, it should have only taken 48 hrs at a cost of 1800.00

[hnsq]

OP - if you think there aren't enough jobs in the region nothing is stopping you from developing a business plan and creating some on your own.

Either do something about these problems to don't talk about them. Don't whine about something without a plan on how to resolve it. OK?

[airwave09]

Originally Posted by jimmyev

What makes people think that you can have MORE services with LESS money? That's totally retarded. I'd just like local governments to be a little more efficient, and they're not efficient at all as it stands. Nor are they (politicians) held accountable for their inefficiencies. Onarato won't lose the governor's race because he can't do his job (which he couldn't); if he looses, he'll lose it because he's a Democrat and Republicans are in favor right now.

On the city level we could use a change, but on the national level?? The party of "no solutions" better not be put back in charge so they can screw stuff up even worse. At least Obama and some of the dems actually want to fix things. These corporate shills known as Repubicans only want more money for their corporate overlords and nothing else.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by nuwaver88

Just wondering. How can the Port Authority be losing money when so many buses are sardine cans all day long?

If they cut back to just the busy parts of their schedule and upped their fares, they could probably make money. But lots of their schedule--most notably the parts they will cut if they can't get the state to restore its funding--is operating below cost. You can get all sorts of information by route here:

Route Evaluations

But the upshot is that they would have to charge much higher fares to cover the costs on a lot of their longer and/or less-used routes, and if they did that then ridership would plummet anyway and they still couldn't make money.

[By~Tor]

Honestly, it has less to do with party than with personal ethos.

And, unfortunately, MOST pokiticians are whores of the worst ilk, regardless of party.

The only places where party politics come into real play, is in the Big Government vs. Small Government debate... and the way I see it, BIG gov't has to fund itself before anything else, so it does... at the expense of the commoner (us).

Small gov't can't effectively manage too much at one time, so it lets the private sector handle it and, if the private sector fails, there's always the court system to manage the lawsuits.

Government can't do anything better than the private sector, except fight wars... overseas.... in friendly countries.... with help from the U.N.

Rendell is a tool, whether he was a dem or a repub.... but if you look at social economics over the past 200 years, whenever there's been steady conservative rule, the economy has righted itself and done the best.

Yes, there have been spates where dems oversaw success as well, like Clinton... who largely benefitted from Bush I policies as well as his own conservative economic mindset.... he was "liberal" only in a social sense.

I've always found it funny, how the poorer someone is, the more likely they are to consider themselves liberal, but if and when they start to make enough money to be wealthy, they realize they have to be conservative both in their own principles and in their politics, just to keep what they have earned.

Its a fact of life.... if you wanna' be wealthy, ya' can't spend everything.

And a side note to BrianTH.... I expect the "jobs" to come from tax CUTS, not from additional spending... if the small businesses have more money that they need to shelter from existing tax structures, they'll usually elect to hire more people and build their businesses bigger, rather than channel it overseas... but when tax burdens get too high, as they now are starting to do, they'll be more likely to look for other shelters and NOT grow their workforce.

[By~Tor]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

If they cut back to just the busy parts of their schedule and upped their fares, they could probably make money. But lots of their schedule--most notably the parts they will cut if they can't get the state to restore its funding--is operating below cost. You can get all sorts of information by route here:

Route Evaluations

But the upshot is that they would have to charge much higher fares to cover the costs on a lot of their longer and/or less-used routes, and if they did that then ridership would plummet anyway and they still couldn't make money.

A great post..... and thanks for the eval info as well; it's interesting to see this play out.... stop by stop...

[raubre]

I still can't figure out why they would keep underused routes and dump routes that are used more. And why would they have routes that do cross county lines (like Cranberry, Trafford or (I'm assuming) McDonald or McMurray?) Makes no sense to me.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by By~Tor

but if you look at social economics over the past 200 years, whenever there's been steady conservative rule, the economy has righted itself and done the best.

Accepting this premise as true, the last "conservative" Republican was Eisenhower, and since then the Democrats have been more "conservative" than the Republicans. Which in many ways is perfectly accurate.

And a side note to BrianTH.... I expect the "jobs" to come from tax CUTS, not from additional spending...

So much for a WPA-style program.

if the small businesses have more money that they need to shelter from existing tax structures, they'll usually elect to hire more people and build their businesses bigger, rather than channel it overseas... but when tax burdens get too high, as they now are starting to do, they'll be more likely to look for other shelters and NOT grow their workforce.

So here's the thing. Many businesses right now are sitting on growing piles of cash. Borrowing costs have gotten cheap. Tax rates are actually down, not up (the stimulus bill lowered tax rates).

So why aren't they investing? Why are they leaving so much capacity underutilized? Overwhelmingly, businesses report the same basic problem: not enough customers, not enough demand for their products. And this is a vicious cycle, because one business not investing and not employing people means its is not creating demand for the products of the second business, and vice-versa.

That's the problem we have to address right now--the shortfall in demand--and there is a proven way to do it: governments can borrow some of that excess cash and spend it, thereby increasing demand (and with borrowing rates low and lots of excess capacity and unemployed labor available, you can get a lot of bang-for-your-buck doing that). Once businesses start investing and expanding again, you can then withdraw the government's extra spending and let the private system sustain itself.

But instead of doing that--or rather, instead of doing nearly as much as that as we should--we are paralyzed because a minority party which believes tax cuts are the answer, regardless of the question, and which believes the worst the economy, the better they will do in the upcoming elections, are filibustering sensible economic policies.