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Re: Amtrak might do better if.....and the "peace dividend"?
Author: BOB2
Date: 11-12-2017 - 17:23
Imagine, if I had more of my money in my pocket, I could afford to take Amtrak more often.......
We probably should spend more on rail and transit, we spend about 3% of the Transportation budget of GDP on rail and transit, and we get about 3% of trips....mostly in a handful of places and corridors......
And, yeah, there are a lot of places where a lot more trains, a lot more frequently, competitive with at least competitive to a "normal" drive time in these often severely congested corridors, like LOSSAN, or over the pass to Palm Springs, or up to where those awful people are buying that more affordable housing in the Antelope Valley, as part of the "vast evil conspiracy"....... It can be a more efficient and worthwhile alternative, if we are willing to make a serious investment to do it right, and if we are willing to pay for that, and actually use it when it makes sense....
As to defense policy, the "peace dividend", and magical funding for Amtrak.... All I can say is that I read several articles over the last 14 years since we invaded Iraq about the Iraqi railroads, and how we was rebuilding effectively "recapitalizing" all of that, to the tune of somewhere between 800 million and 1.2 billion dollars of US taxpayer largesse over 3 years, depending on the accounting (and, maybe even more with the interest on the national debt we borrowed to pay for it)..... It is also my understanding, that this is more than we ever spent on new capital investment on Amtrak period ever in its entire existence. And now, I want you to google a recent picture of the Mosel Station, and tell me what we exactly have to show for our money....?
In addition to the cost of maintaining the defense forces of the US, we've purportedly spent a fully allocated 5.7 trillion of mostly deficit borrowed dollars and future expense obligations over the last 16 years on the GWOT/Iraq/Afghanistan/Somali/Niger/Afghanistan (yet again?, or did we really ever leave?)....with an end not yet in sight.
So we could have all gone on a lot of Amtrak trips for that kind of money.............
However, there are some real bad guys out there, and they do bad things, and sometimes they do them to us, so we have some skin in this game. And, that's represented by those we send out there to fight for us and serve. We have real risks and threats that must be dealt with to protect us, and those folks deserve our respect and support.
I just wish we had leaders that showed they had some kind of idea of what the real dangers might be and that you have a plan or any prospects for some kind of realistic "victory", which restores peace and good order, in a timely and effective way, before deciding to seemingly wade into every shithole we can find, with the lives of those folks serving, and our taxpayer supplied treasure,.......
We probably should spend more on rail and transit, we spend about 3% of the Transportation budget of GDP on rail and transit, and we get about 3% of trips....mostly in a handful of places and corridors......
And, yeah, there are a lot of places where a lot more trains, a lot more frequently, competitive with at least competitive to a "normal" drive time in these often severely congested corridors, like LOSSAN, or over the pass to Palm Springs, or up to where those awful people are buying that more affordable housing in the Antelope Valley, as part of the "vast evil conspiracy"....... It can be a more efficient and worthwhile alternative, if we are willing to make a serious investment to do it right, and if we are willing to pay for that, and actually use it when it makes sense....
As to defense policy, the "peace dividend", and magical funding for Amtrak.... All I can say is that I read several articles over the last 14 years since we invaded Iraq about the Iraqi railroads, and how we was rebuilding effectively "recapitalizing" all of that, to the tune of somewhere between 800 million and 1.2 billion dollars of US taxpayer largesse over 3 years, depending on the accounting (and, maybe even more with the interest on the national debt we borrowed to pay for it)..... It is also my understanding, that this is more than we ever spent on new capital investment on Amtrak period ever in its entire existence. And now, I want you to google a recent picture of the Mosel Station, and tell me what we exactly have to show for our money....?
In addition to the cost of maintaining the defense forces of the US, we've purportedly spent a fully allocated 5.7 trillion of mostly deficit borrowed dollars and future expense obligations over the last 16 years on the GWOT/Iraq/Afghanistan/Somali/Niger/Afghanistan (yet again?, or did we really ever leave?)....with an end not yet in sight.
So we could have all gone on a lot of Amtrak trips for that kind of money.............
However, there are some real bad guys out there, and they do bad things, and sometimes they do them to us, so we have some skin in this game. And, that's represented by those we send out there to fight for us and serve. We have real risks and threats that must be dealt with to protect us, and those folks deserve our respect and support.
I just wish we had leaders that showed they had some kind of idea of what the real dangers might be and that you have a plan or any prospects for some kind of realistic "victory", which restores peace and good order, in a timely and effective way, before deciding to seemingly wade into every shithole we can find, with the lives of those folks serving, and our taxpayer supplied treasure,.......
