And now for some liberal porn...
By CaptainShuddup Follow Fri, 22 Jun 2012, 8:15am 2,719 views 28 comments
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Please explain to all of us why trains are liberal? Most of the things you buy and eat are freighted by trains. I've lived in many cities across the country where public transport was used by massive chunks of the local population, and as far as I could tell they weren't riding them because they were "libs" but rather because its what was used to get people to their jobs. Trains are machines. They move stuff. Last time I checked machines don't care about politics....
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But what they don't show you, if all of those tracks in use and proposed, were to placed over a map of the US, it would barely cover the north east corridor.
Philly, Boston, NYC, Rochester, Buffalo, Chicago, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Nashville, St Louis ect...
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Davis, CA
As Kunstler likes to say
America used to have a train system that was the envy of the world. Now we have one that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of.
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17,000 km = 10600 miles
$255,000,000,000 just the track costs
$1,250,000,000 just for 50 trains.
You know we probably could have afforded it, if Obama brought all of the troops home in 09 like he promised.
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Reston, VA
225 billion for 10K miles of high speed rail? Not so bad. I wonder what the roi would be & how it compares to bank bailouts.
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CaptainShuddup says
or bush had stayed out of iraq and not let the banks crash to economy.
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Santa Cruz, CA
I like trains, they're fun (outside of amtrak).
I now detest flying because of the absurd nonsense in the airports. Flying used to be fun and a luxury, now it's a chore.
I have an idea: instead of food stamps for the illegal alien anchor babies and sec.8 housing for lazy women and SSI for drug addicts who now have a "disability" we spend that money on the trains? How about no free emergency room health care for illegals and there is plenty of dough for those cool trains.
Sound good?
Trains and buses were super in Switzerland, trains were great in England and Japan. Took some very scenic train rides in Japan, it was cool.
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YesYNot says
It should be fair to point out each 25million(on the cheap side) dollar train can only move 300 people a pop.
50 trains moving 300 people = 15000 people. every 3 hours
15000 X 8 = 120,000
That's only 120,000 people in a 24 hour period.
The stretch of i95 from Miami to Fort Lauderdale moves more people than that just from 5:00pm to 7:00 pm.
Now how much would a ticket be, or is this a rich man's toy? That only the Rich Elite that championed it, gets to ride?
I think to be fair an average ticket should be $12.00
But of course it wont be anywhere near that. Because trains are freaking expensive, It will be more like the train that takes you only 70 miles from Cusco to Machupichu and costs $125 a pop.
Let's do this with a $12.00 ticket.
1.4 million a day.
$511,000,000 a year.
$263,165,000,000 515 years to pay it off.
So even if were to make the tickets $120 a pop it would still take 51 years to pay off.
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Los Angeles, CA
monorail episode of simpsons comes to mind.
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Reston, VA
Are you talking about going from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale for $12?
If so, you need to fix the cost basis from 250 billion for 10K miles of tracks to 750 million. + 25 million per train. One train could take 3 round trips per hr, or 1800 passengers. At round the clock service, with $12 / ticket, it would take in 189 million / yr & the payoff would be four years.
Obviously, the economics are more complicated, but you need to be more clear about how much of the overall track you would be utilizing & how far you expect to go for $12.
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CaptainShuddup says
Assuming your arithmetic is correct,...so ? Then it gets subsidized a little, for the common GOOD. What a concept.
Better than so many subsidies that are only for some companies profits, or worse. Yes, yes, profits ar generated for the builders of the trains, but also jobs are genrerated by the building and running of the trains (and taxes are paid).
This is far better than subsidizing wars that we have no clue about who the outcome benefits other than haliburton. Or subsidizing tax breaks for the rich or for corporations or subsidizing corn and high fructose sweetners.
At least the people get something very tangible and beneficial for their money.
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Well one thing for sure, the trains in other countries are NOT luxuries.
And they aren't Johnny Come lately playing catch up. It started years ago with small tracks and more was added. There was no political motivation behind it, nor was it at the expense of one class while another class enjoyed it.
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marcus says
No it would be better to subsidize a National Health Care Agency that encompassed not only Hospitals and their staff, but the schools where the doctors were educated. As well as federal pharmacies where drugs are not only manufactured but new generation of meds are researched. But that would really cut deep into your quarterly Bio stock profits and dividends.
That's got to be worth way more than your little Toy Choo Choo train.
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I wanted to get an example of conservative porn, but every time I Google Image Searched Santorum, well, safe-search isn't safe enough.
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PockyClipsNow says
Obligatory:
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edvard2 says
Investing in infrastructure that results in increased productivity is, according to conservative philosophy, extremely liberal. A conservative would rather use those funds to bomb infrastructure.
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Dan8267 says
This is magic of america. Both parties working together for common good and profit. R party bombs the shit out of Iraqistan - everything destroyed.
D party members facilitate the rebuilding of bombed out shit.
everyone wins!
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PockyClipsNow says
Spoken like a true Keynesian!
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Ruki says
No, it's about saving America. I'm not in favor of high speed rail, but rather an alternative, high speed personal maglift vehicles, PMVs. But the advantages are similar. With PMVs...
1. America will have zero dependency on oil, including foreign oil.
2. We won't have to waste money and lives fighting wars in the Middle East.
3. We won't pollute our environment
4. Which in turn means less spending on health care.
5. Zero deaths per year in traffic accidents. That's over 43,000 American lives a year saved. So much for hating America.
6. No traffic jams as tracks can be built easily in three dimensions and lanes can be repaired or expanded w/o affecting other lanes. Add to that the lack of accidents and the resulting gawkers, as well as the lack of intersections and stop lights and traffic lights.
7. No need for auto insurance.
8. Cheaper energy costs as PMVs are way more energy efficient than cars and we can produce electricity way cheaper than gasoline.
9. You can fuck or get some work done rather than wasting your commute to work.
10. No drunk drivers.
And these are just some of the advantages of PMVs. And the only disadvantage? It would create so many jobs that this depression would be over right away. And unlike Keynesian stimulus, this stimulus spending would actually yield a considerable profit.
And while we're building the PMV highways, we can install fiber optics to every household in America so that we can actually compete with economic powerhouses like Korea -- and no, that wasn't a typo.
So, getting back to Ruki's original statement: Because its not about the rail, its about them hating America.
It seems to me, that the Republican Party, which has sabotage our country just to convince people not to vote for Obama is the party that hates America. They actively prolonged the depression for political gain. That's pretty un-American.
I just type in "republicans sab" and Google fills in the rest… 'Nuff said.
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Huntington Beach, CA
Trains are good for the people, giving cheap reliable transportation that doesn't require a 1)car payment (note: you must have credit for this), 2) car insurance, 3)car tax/registration, 4)car fuel (note: price can be variable depending on the level of sword waggling the politicians have been paid by oil companies to perform), 5)car maintenance, 6)tolls where applicable, 7)taxes for increased upkeep of heavily trafficked roads. At the cheap end of the range, a car would require around $1000/month to own and operate.
I'm probably missing a few items here, but it's very very expensive to own and operate a motor vehicle. Buying the aforementioned $12 train ticket seems absurdly cheap in comparison. You could buy a whopping 83 train tickets at that price and break even as a consumer of transportation. If you commute both ways to work and take a trip each weekend day that's still 30x2=60 trips X $12= $720. More likely that you would pay far less.
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Ruki says
I don't think Ruki has looked at a population density map in a long time, if ever. Big swaths of the US are far from low density. So the obvious solution for the thinking person would be to promote high speed rail in the high population corridors of America where it would make sense. FYI Brazil and Russia do have high speed rail lines.
Where did the post say anything about trashing the US or did you find anyone expressing their hatred of America. The only thing it said was high speed rail in the US is mired in controversy. A simply declarative statement. Do you see the bogeyman everywhere? Paranoid much?
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bob2356 says
Which is what has been discussed or is in planning stage. I haven't heard about plans for a coast to coast high speed rail.
CaptainShuddup says
I don't know about that, my guess is there was almost always politics involved. Besides that is politics at it's best, when they put forth popular and practical ideas, in exchange for your vote, and then even deliver. Not that this all happens very often, but if and when it does that would be politics working.
CS, you know that your personal political views are royally messed up when you resent a politician or political party for proposing something that you like.
Think about that.
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There isn't an argument here. Again- I fail to really see why a train or a train system has become a "Liberal" thing. Put it this way: If trains are liberal, then it would only be fair to also call the Freeway System "Liberal" as well. There is ZERO difference...
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Thanks for this interesting thread. I wish there were a federal budget Wiki where actual voters could choose what (if anything) to subsidize with public $. Several online budget exercises make it easy for one person to balance the budget, but most people don't participate, and politicians are bribed to waste as much as possible.
For example, high speed rail would cost less than Obamacare, and would actually save lives. For the price of the Iraq war, we could have had high speed rail nationwide, including trains and stations.
Current high speed rail would be uneconomic at most American distances outside the northeast corridor, and even there it might depend on subsidies as urban mass transit usually does. (Regarding Sky Tran, the issue is the last mile: how to get to and from the station. Also, you'd be amazed how badly certain people abuse public transit; almost every SF Muni elevator is used as a toilet, even when free public toilets are nearby, and those get abused even worse. You'd need a personal vehicle that picks you up and drops you off.) Meanwhile, research into future technologies that might be economic seems a better use of $.
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CaptainShuddup says
just talking points and using limited knowledge and selective quoting to arrive at ur own hypothesis
One sparrow doesnt make a summer
Trains,if using common sense in thinking, are the cheapest alternative.. think about it.. no more oil guzzling and no more unions in Detroit
Since you quoted Machu pichu,did you ever think about the ticket in new speed trains in China?
Or for that matter..the ticket prices in India?
Once you have a train and line that is actually laid to service ppl and with intention of getting ppl to use it rather than as directed by the auto industry lobby,the country would have been a far better place to live and travel
I cant understand why this obsession of Republicans to hamper and halt anything that might remotely do good to the larger population or country
NJ gov'er and the fraud one in FL have cancelled the proposed ones
Why did we bail out banks and wall street whose only business is to make money off us and dont bring any benefit to the table
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Liberal porn? What I get when I search for that term, is stuff that makes Ricky put on his O face.
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Repubthug says
India doesn't have high speed rail. India has ordinary speed rail, which can be efficient and economical.
Freight rail can be extremely efficient, but is too slow for most long-distance passengers. If you want to argue for efficient rail travel, organize a campaign of people who are willing to travel at freight speed with no dining car if they can travel at freight prices. Currently it's mainly hobos who ride the freights and pay nothing.
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curious2 says
I had a buddy with a regular job, who viewed it as a "sport". He got some time off, he'd hop a freight for fun, then work his way back in time to return to work. To each their own.