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I agree with the transferring most freight traffic from the roads to the rails considering most of the traffic congestion and damage is caused by trucks. Some Railroads (BNSF IRRC) are already carrying trailers on flat cars and all major railroads can handle shipping containers. Just raising road taxes on diesel fuel and weight based license fees would give most shippers incentive to move their loads to rail. The increased traffic would allow the railroads to make the investments they need to carry more freight. Their response to the rapid increase in oil traffic is an example of private sector response to more business. Note - They have to use less than completely safe tank cars because there are simply not enough crash resistant cars in existence but they are being built.
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In case you haven't heard the RR's are swamped. The BNSF in particular. They are so busy hauling oil that they don't have the power (loco's) to haul coal or wheat.....
We have millions out of work, and our infrastructure is in tatters.
Would you support this type of program again to help jumpstart America and get it caught back up with the 21st Century?
The program was generally considered a success, and the raw truth is that many of the niceties we love and enjoy today came from the WPA program.
If you wouldn't support a revived WPA, then tell us why not?
You almost had me going there for a minute, and then you claimed that the WPA was successful. It was a good joke until the punch line.
The WPA, like most of the New Deal programs, was nothing but political pandering. It didn't teach people a work ethic, as the theory behind the WPA was to employ as many people as possible. With that many people, you didn't need diligent workers - you merely had to throw enough bodies at the task to get it done. After working for the WPA, many people had a hard job finding a job due to the terrible reputation that WPA workers had - a well deserved reputation, at that.
The WPA was also very discriminatory, focusing on the Northern states and cities while largely ignoring the South.
When it comes to the WPA, as well as most of the rest of the New Deal programs, the thing to be most thankful for is that WW2 broke out and gave us a reason to stop the idiocy.
Hoover Dam (Black Canyon of the Colorado) was mostly built by WPA workers. Same for the "Road to the Sun" in Glacier National Park. Did they do such a bad job?
I am really impressed by the number of people want to force people to work using economic coercion and, if possible, physical coercion. I just love the attitude that exemplifies the control freak need to force people to be just as compulsive as them. What is a "good work ethic" but willing slavery. The "if I have to work so does everybody else" is just whining and usually excludes the folks lucky enough to inherit wealth. Those Princes of Mammon will never have to work.
I do not condone starving children even if it means giving their mother's money. If you want people to work pay them enough to make it worth THEIR time and effort.
Hoover Dam (Black Canyon of the Colorado) was mostly built by WPA workers. Same for the "Road to the Sun" in Glacier National Park. Did they do such a bad job?
112 deaths during the building of the Hoover Dam and numerous voids left underneath it that had to be filled in after the fact in order to keep the entire thing from collapsing? Yeah, they did a fairly bad job.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW
I am really impressed by the number of people want to force people to work using economic coercion and, if possible, physical coercion. I just love the attitude that exemplifies the control freak need to force people to be just as compulsive as them. What is a "good work ethic" but willing slavery. The "if I have to work so does everybody else" is just whining and usually excludes the folks lucky enough to inherit wealth. Those Princes of Mammon will never have to work.
If you really think that a good work ethic is willing slavery, then you don't have one. Also, you might want to take a quick jaunt through history books and see how slaves were treated vs. modern day workers. Slaves didn't get breaks, they didn't get paid, they didn't get vacation, and they didn't have sick days. Not to mention, I've yet to go to a workplace and see the boss standing over his workers with a whip.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW
I do not condone starving children even if it means giving their mother's money. If you want people to work pay them enough to make it worth THEIR time and effort.
So we should pay every individual based on what that individual considers to be worth their trouble, even if they are completely unskilled? How long do you think the average business would stay open following that plan?
I absolutely would. Be good for a lot of people.
Unfortunately, I don't think it would survive.
Worker breaks a fingernail and the lawsuits would start
We have millions out of work, and our infrastructure is in tatters.
Would you support this type of program again to help jumpstart America and get it caught back up with the 21st Century?
The program was generally considered a success, and the raw truth is that many of the niceties we love and enjoy today came from the WPA program.
If you wouldn't support a revived WPA, then tell us why not?
No, never. The WPA was a disaster. The man who engineered the program, Henry Morgenthau, admitted that himself.
As far as many of the niceties we have today being a result of WPA, that's true, but you have to separate a project from the reason that project was undertaken. Sure the WPA resulted in a lot of useful projects being done. But the purpose of the program was not the individual projects. The purpose was the effects on the overall economy that mounting many such projects would produce. That purpose failed. Other nations in the world which did not attempt to use government spending to engineer their economy recovered from the Depression faster than America did. You jumpstart an economy by jumpstarting private industry, not by engaging in massive government spending.
If you want to rebuild some roads or lay new rail lines down or whatever, then do that. But do that as an end goal in and of itself. Doing that as a means of improving the economy will not and has not worked. Government spending does not produce lasting benefits to an economy. It has never worked. It didn't work for the Roman Empire, it didn't work for the USSR, it didn't work for the FDR administration, and it won't work now. Keynesian economics does not work.
6] Money would be better spent on a plan to shift 85% of your over-the-road trucking to rail freight. As I said 7 years ago, it would create several million jobs that cannot be exported, and the jobs would range from lowly yard ape to senior executive with everything in between.
It would also help extend the life of your infrastructure and reduce your continual fruitless pointless repair costs.
It would also reduce demand for diesel, allowing production of gasoline and increasing the supply of gasoline to help meet continually increasing demand.
Once 85% of your freight was shipped by rail, it would lead to the develop of mass public transportation by private business, which would create even more jobs, plus avoid wasting money on lines no one really wants.
Finally, I find it both amusing and disgusting that global warming nutters would even consider spending money on highway/road infrastructure.....talk about hypocrites.....
Not supporting...
Mircea
I'm interested in this theory. Can you expand upon this some more? How would this affect a company like Amazon which is based on getting their product to the consumer in the most on demand way as possible.
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