"price gouging"

[lgb&dtuba]

Rail passenger service may be politically correct, but like most politically correct stances it completely ignores the economic realities involved.

Or like most politically correct stances, it recognizes realities that we've been ignoring. The time we spend behind the wheel sitting in traffic, so that we can enjoy the "convenience" of driving. The fossil fuels we burn, a non-renewable mineral resource, and the CO2 and other gases resulting from that combustion. Not to mention the carnage, grime, noise, visual blight, flooding from impermeable pavement, waste from disposal of vehicles, since for whatever reason those don't get mentioned so often. But they're all at some point economic realities, we've just become so accustomed to them that we see them as affordable, or costs already paid, unlike the train tracks we weren't thinking of laying down at relatively little cost. I don't see them as affordable, and the accelerating rate at which we build out that automobile dependent settlement pattern defies reality.

And there's your politically correct cliche answer. Let's address some of these points.

Or like most politically correct stances, it recognizes realities that we've been ignoring.

You have got to be kidding! PC is nothing but an attempt to dress up a program to get everyone to think alike and in certain easily influenced ways so they can be more easily be manipulated by those with their own agendas.

The time we spend behind the wheel sitting in traffic, so that we can enjoy the "convenience" of driving.

Meaningless. Note the use of quotes around convenience.

The fossil fuels we burn, a non-renewable mineral resource, and the CO2 and other gases resulting from that combustion.

Name any form of practical transportation truly available to everyone that statement doesn't apply to.

Not to mention the carnage, grime, noise, visual blight, flooding from impermeable pavement, waste from disposal of vehicles, since for whatever reason those don't get mentioned so often.

It seems that about every accident involving motor vehicles is mentioned constantly, in the news. Grime, visual blight (whatever that is), noise (you must be referring to rolling boom boxes now), flooding (you've got to be kidding). As for disposal - everything gets disposed of at some point.

This is another one of those pc rants full of emotional hyperbole that the pc crowd is well known for. And as is always the case in these rants it's implicit that all these problems would be solved by more government spending. And that's a gentle way of saying steal the money from everyone through more taxes.

If I stepped on some pc toes, then wonderful. They need stepping on from time to time.

[Donn]

The time we spend behind the wheel sitting in traffic, so that we can enjoy the "convenience" of driving.

Meaningless. Note the use of quotes around convenience.

Right, I quote convenience because, on those occasions when I have to drive to get somewhere, I regularly experience what seems to me the opposite of convenience in certain areas, and there are plenty of other people there with me experiencing the same thing. On a more statistical level, people in urban areas spend hours driving, each day. That's an economic reality.

The fossil fuels we burn, a non-renewable mineral resource, and the CO2 and other gases resulting from that combustion.

Name any form of practical transportation truly available to everyone that statement doesn't apply to.

Can't - no form of transportation is "truly available to everyone". Walking is the closest I can think of to meeting that criterion alone, and of course you're not going to buy that whether I do or not. But don't you think rail is capable of better efficiency than automobiles?

Not to mention the carnage, grime, noise, visual blight, flooding from impermeable pavement, waste from disposal of vehicles, since for whatever reason those don't get mentioned so often.

It seems that about every accident involving motor vehicles is mentioned constantly, in the news. Grime, visual blight (whatever that is), noise (you must be referring to rolling boom boxes now), flooding (you've got to be kidding). As for disposal - everything gets disposed of at some point.

At this point I'm unclear as to what you're trying to communicate. Do you want to get into how pavement relates to rainstorms and surface water? Has playing next to too many accordions made it a mystery why house prices are lower near busy streets? "Everything gets disposed of at some point"?

This is another one of those pc rants full of emotional hyperbole that the pc crowd is well known for. And as is always the case in these rants it's implicit that all these problems would be solved by more government spending. And that's a gentle way of saying steal the money from everyone through more taxes.

Well, it's true that if we want to accomplish anything in the areas mentioned above, it will be some kind of miracle if someone figures out how to get there with some kind of pure laissez-faire market approach. We're here because it's in the short term interests of everyone involved. If we want to move in other directions, we have to take responsibility at a public policy level in ways that are bound to conflict with those short term interests, either by regulation or by investment of public funds. In the present case, I'm saying, and I think others here are saying, rail is a good public investment, compared to roads for example, and that is in light of economic realities.

[Rick Denney]

Well, it's true that if we want to accomplish anything in the areas mentioned above, it will be some kind of miracle if someone figures out how to get there with some kind of pure laissez-faire market approach. We're here because it's in the short term interests of everyone involved. If we want to move in other directions, we have to take responsibility at a public policy level in ways that are bound to conflict with those short term interests, either by regulation or by investment of public funds. In the present case, I'm saying, and I think others here are saying, rail is a good public investment, compared to roads for example, and that is in light of economic realities.

Did the government invest tax dollars in the construction of railroads when they were the break-through alternative to horse-drawn carriages?

Initially, the government didn't even get much involved in building roads. But the people clamored for them. Everyone credits Eisenhower for the Interstate System, but if the American people had not wanted it, it would not have happened. Nobody complains about them now, except for being too crowded in spots or being too rough. in other words, they complain about them when they have insufficient capacity and when they are poorly maintained. Of course, capacity is a capital expense issue (taxes to pay the bonds used to fund construction), and maintenance is an ongoing cost, funded by local taxes of various sorts. Very little maintenance in the grand scheme of things is funded by federal funds, though reconstruction can be. Americans are very good about building things, but absolutely rotten about supporting their proper maintenance. Just look at their houses. But that's the hand we're dealt. And that's why the stuff I design is simple and maintainable--I learned the hard way not to make each new project an opportunity to show off a design too sophisticated for the agency to maintain.

When people use the phrase "responsibility at the public policy level," I'm immediately suspicious that they mean to impose a policy desired by a few on the many who don't want it. Like I said before, people are not always rational, nor do they always make long-term choices in their best interests, but they are always We The People. It took me some years of public service to really understand that, and before I did, I spent a lot of time debating elected officials, claiming that what they wanted was not the best thing. When I was defending the silent majority whose opinion was not being voiced, I often prevailed. But when I was defending what I thought was good engineering practice against what the citizenry wanted, I nearly always had my posterior handed to me.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Rick "worried when powerful people decide they know more about what's best for the citizenry than do the citizens" Denney

[Rick Denney]

I think face-to-face "business meetings" are also becoming nearly obsolete. Occasionally, Rick needs to travel to a site, but probably mostly only when on the front-ends of business deals where $X,XXX,XXX - $XX,XXX,XXX is at stake for his company. Once the deal is done, (surely) most of the engineering work can be done at his desk...

...

- "Government" built (and builds) roads. They can certainly build *rail*roads...even (sometimes) in the medians or side-right-of-ways of the roads...or in the place of and alongside existing railroad beds.

I'm not arguing that trains for freight movement are not more efficient, I'm arguing that your understanding of the cost of an infrastructure for passenger movement is grossly simplistic. And the above statement bears that out. For example:

1. Only in flat land with straight roadways can railroads follow highways, especially if you want a 100-mph design speed. Highways can have grades up to 6% and meet Interstate standards--non-interstates, and even interstates in places where it was too costly, often have grades of 8 or 10%. Trains cannot have grades steeper than about 4%.

2. Trains can't go fast around curves. Cars and trucks can. Therefore, if you want a high design speed, you'll have to go in straight lines, which means taking right of way that the highway people found politically impossible to obtain.

3. Trains can't just hop up over a crossing road the way a freeway can.

4. Track standards for high-speed passenger service are utterly different for slower freight. Freight cars often weigh 120 tons loaded. Passenger cars weigh perhaps 20 tons. You can put even heavy-rail passenger cars on rails built on concrete ties and a concrete roadbed. Freight traffic, though, will tear up a concrete roadbed, and even after a nearly two centuries we have not really found a better system for slow rail than a compliant gravel roadbed with wooden rail ties. But that leads to a rough ride for passengers unless very expensively maintained.

5. All existing intercity railroad rights-of-way are privately owned. If you want them upgraded to support your 100-mph passenger service, you better have a business model that will pay for it. If you want the government to do it, they'll have to buy that right-of-way up. A better way to balance the costs is to impose user fees on trucks commensurate with the true costs of maintaining the infrastructure they use. Fat chance. And if you do that, expect the cost of having stuff delivered for all that Internet buying you are doing to rise significantly.

6. If you don't like trucks on interstates, consider the cost of building trucks a separate roadway infrastructure. This is being done in places (e.g., trucks are not allowed in the center express lanes of the dual-dual portion of the New Jersey Turnpike). But just as passenger-car drivers don't like the rough roads and traffic conditions they perceive (often correctly) as being caused by so many trucks, passenger trains are not really compatible uses of railroad rights-of-way with freight trains. In places where people travel intercity by rail, they often use a separate infrastructure. If you think you can pay for this with the improved efficiency, then I would like some of what you are smoking.

Rick "still seeing rafts of unintended consequences being towed along" Denney

[Donn]

When people use the phrase "responsibility at the public policy level," I'm immediately suspicious that they mean to impose a policy desired by a few on the many who don't want it.

The "public" in public policy means what it's supposed to mean. It isn't the product of hereditary tyrants or military dictatorships, it's ours. (Speaking of things we aren't very good at ...)

What it doesn't mean is private interest. Either we have meaningful public policy, or we let private interest do its thing. Public policy doesn't have to be responsible, but at least it has the potential.

[Rick Denney]

What it doesn't mean is private interest. Either we have meaningful public policy, or we let private interest do its thing. Public policy doesn't have to be responsible, but at least it has the potential.

It's the opinion of those who founded this country that you have it exactly backwards. (I, on the other hand, think you only have it mostly backwards.) They believed that private interest, if allowed to express itself, would yield the most just outcome. For them, "public policy" meant King George.

We have no King George (despite the jokes). But we can certainly have tyranny of those who believe (often in good faith) that their idea of how to live should be imposed on their neighbors.

They also believed that the "potential" of "public policy" was not responsibility, but tyranny, while the potential of private interest was prosperity and freedom. Their beliefs can't be discounted as outdated or irrelevant. It's the fundamental difference between our system and most other systems. Some of those other systems were successful for a time, but none have sustained the kind of long-term societal success, even in the presence of a sometimes violently heterogeneous populace, that marks the American experiment.

China makes an interesting illustration. To the extent that they have allowed individuals to profit from their own labors, they have seen an explosion of prosperity. They have not yet seen all of the freedom, but the people of China will get the freedom they desire with time, unless the government clamps down and takes away the wealth that they have been able to accrue in recent years. And if they do, they might have revolution on their hands, though the result of that would be anybody's guess.

The notion that individuals profit from their own labors establishes a primacy to the individual in public policy, as opposed to the collective. The founders, and those who still follow that concept, believe that individual interests (private interests, if you will) will accumulate to something more than the collective interest as dictated by those in power.

Consider cities. Many cities in the U.S. have been operating on the principles that public policy, as you have used the term, should override private interest, as I am using the term. The result has been high taxes, policy dictated by the objective to minimize loud complaints (which leads to pandering), and the desire to maintain the perks of elected office for as long as possible (and in some cases, to enhance those perks). The outcome is significant abandonment of central cities, far worse in the cases where the above local government concept was taken to the greatest extremes. That may, as much as anything, contribute to the growth of suburbs. People want to move where the schools are more responsive to parents (and less to the Education Establishment), where the police enforce the law vigorously rather than cynical and selective enforcement, and where elected officials are responsive to their wishes and not just those of the loudest complainers.

Cities where these tendencies have been kept in better check have done much better, though all cities I've observed have suffered from this tendency to some extent. Cities have really been the experiment in liberal politics, with poor results.

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." There is no form of government that will overcome the human condition fully. The problem is that there are some who believe they aren't part of "All", at least in terms of their pet policy topic. They believe that their policy is "right" and therefore should be imposed on everyone. Given that all who advocate any given policy hold this view, we need some check to prevent policy advocates from overrunning the will of the people. That's why we have elected officials, and that's why policy gets debated. (It's also why we have a judiciary with responsibility only to our founding document, in particular the Bill of Rights, which fully establish the primacy of the individual over the collective.) And it's why we put our ultimate faith, in terms of the authority to govern, in We The People, even when we are in the minority on a particular topic and think the majority are a bunch of ignorant and misguided rednecks (or ignorant and misguided hippies, or evil and arrogant elitists, etc. etc.).

As soon as we think that we should protect people from themselves, we are probably screwing up. We should probably try to hold it down to protecting those who cannot protect themselves from others, though drawing that line is never easy. Again, that's why we have debate.

The suburbs have won. The car has won. Traffic congestion and inefficiency is the result, but that's the choice people have made and continue to make. Making it not so would undermine a formula at the heart of the success of this country. We've already enough expansions of government power, much of which has not accomplished what it set out to, and often accomplished just the opposite. There are those who hate the result, but there are places they can choose to live where they don't have to deal with it if they don't want to.

Rick "who has worked in and around government for too long to have much faith in 'public policy'" Denney

[Donn]

(Edited to remove a comment that didn't meet my standards for civil discourse, sorry!)

If you like things the way they're going, then you're free to tell us why, but 5 Kb of rambling defense of the founding fathers, motherhood and apple pie, cities as proof of the evils of liberalism, etc., is just too much to respond to point by point, and not clearly relevant. (Also rather weird to read about all the glory of unfettered enterprise in light of current events, but that's another story.)

I'm with those who feel that investment in rail makes as least as much sense as investment in roads, and I'm just as free to tell you why. They're both public policy, and both have been subject to direct public votes, with varying results in either case. Next year I expect to ride the light rail system we voted for in my city, and we're already running new commuter heavy rail that connects a couple of regional cities, so it's far from a lost cause.

[Rick Denney]

(Edited to remove a comment that didn't meet my standards for civil discourse, sorry!)

What you did leave was still less polite than what it responded to. But I accept your apology.

I took the last sentence of your post, which seemed to me to reveal quite a lot about your beliefs about the role of government in our system. It may have revealed more than what was there, but in so doing certainly mirrors the perspective of lots of folks, namely: Government is inherently good, if not always competent, and can at least attempt to solve big problems; private enterprise, being inherently based on greed, cannot.

The crisis of this week does not make that belief true. All systems are subject to anomalies, because all systems are created by man, and man is profoundly imperfect. The question is: How to respond to those anomalies. Those responses reveal more about the basic beliefs than do the discussions of what's wrong and who to blame. I hear a lot this week about how free enterprise really is evil after all and really government should control the markets to a much greater extent. Oddly, I'm hearing it loudest from places in other parts of the world that exert the greatest control.

The overall suffering of the American people in this crisis hardly compares to the suffering of most of the rest of the world even when their times are good. That's one of the reasons people in the rest of the world don't like us much--we scream when we cut our finger.

The fact is that government is no more nor less evil than private enterprise. But it more often suffers the arrogance of good intentions.

I don't like the way some things are going, but I put it in perspective. Things are much better now than they were during most of my life. The stock market has "crashed" back to where it was about, oh, five years ago. House prices are no lower than they were in 2002 or 2003, after they had already appreciated hugely since the late 90's. When people I know were buying and "flipping" houses in 2005, I was not, because I saw the same thing happen, with the same unhappy results, in Texas in the middle and late 80's, and in the country at large in the late 60's and early 70's. Fast rising prices and frenzy to pay those prices equals, in my mind and experience, an asset bubble. This is just another dip to fix a particularly nasty asset bubble, like so many that have preceded it. Good! I'm still 15 years from retirement, and it will be nice for my 401K contributions to buy shares less expensively for once. Prices have been too high for too long, and my dollars have bought too few investments. The people who suffer the most are those who buy when the rush is on (when prices are high) and cash out to stuff what's left into their mattress (when prices are low). That's not an indictment of our system--in most countries, there is never any high and (small) retirement pensions are paid by the government. Nobody starves while the system survives, but nobody dreams big, either.

The bailout is terrible, but at least we can contemplate it. That's what our system has provided for us: resilience.

Now, you'll complain that it's more rambling. If you already believe it and it doesn't apply, then blessings upon your house. If you don't, then I submit that it is relevant.

Rick "irrelevance in a Tubenet post? Say it ain't so!" Denney

[Donn]

The fact is that government is no more nor less evil than private enterprise. But it more often suffers the arrogance of good intentions.

My point was just that it can have intentions. Private enterprise can really have only one intention, and while there's a marvelous Darwinian elegance to the way that one intention creates an efficiently functioning world, that isn't enough. It doesn't account for future generations, it doesn't account for compassion, etc. If concern for these things is arrogant, then evidently a little arrogance is a good thing, as I have always thought anyway.

[Donn]

The court system (rather than subsidies or continually-generated new laws) is the place where individuals and groups may find relief from any private enterprise or corporate abuse, and rulings should *only* pertain to *individual* cases. When government legislators, judges, or adminstrators are caught in corrupt situations, they should be taken out (no appeal) and shot in front of a concrete wall.

Right, degree of tolerance for corruption in public office seems to correlate strongly with general misery, if you look at other places around the world. Though I have read an interesting argument (from an ordinarily knot-headed conservative type, as it happens) that the petty corruption of ward politics in years past was a sort of ballast to the political system that now takes its money in larger, more destructive ways in national elections etc.

Anyway, "relief from private enterprise or corporate abuse" depends on a definition of "abuse" which is the subject of law, representing our expectations as a people. For example, in my locale of late we have lately begun to perceive that the body of water our cities cluster around, Puget Sound, is rapidly losing its ability to support marine life. Does it matter? This is a question of public policy, and the outcome will certainly be new laws, governing development, farming, transportation - invading the private sphere nearly everywhere to some extent, because nearly everyone participates in the problem. If you take for granted that we won't abandon Puget Sound to destruction, we don't have any real choice, we can't afford not to be "arrogant", it's only a question of how far we have to go.

And of course we intervene quite a bit in the production and distribution of fossil fuels. A conspicuous military adventure and surely lots of less conspicuous dealings overseas, but also regulation of domestic industry. I think future generations will wish we had been far more stringent, but anyway I just mention it in case anyone wishes to return to our off-topic topic, if everyone's had a chance to comment on whether government is evil as a matter of general principle.

[Rick Denney]

[Private enterprise] doesn't account for future generations, it doesn't account for compassion, etc. If concern for these things is arrogant, then evidently a little arrogance is a good thing, as I have always thought anyway.

No argument from me. Where we differ is that government also doesn't account for future generations or compassion. The difference between government and private enterprise, however, is that government believes that it does do these things, when it demonstrates time after time that it's just no damn good at it.

Charity should be left to charitable organizations run by charitable people. When government does it, it ends up being the tool of politicians for their own political gain rather than the tool of compassion, etc. The arrogance is that the do-gooders in government believe they are doing good, when most of the time they are confiscating money from regular people and then doing things those regular people don't want done. At what point do we side with regular people?

Note that regular people are not consistent. They are quite happy for the do-gooders to do their good in ways that don't impinge on their interests. Again, that's why we have debate.

Rick "thinking this one has run its course" Denney

[Rick Denney]

For example, in my locale of late we have lately begun to perceive that the body of water our cities cluster around, Puget Sound, is rapidly losing its ability to support marine life. Does it matter? This is a question of public policy, and the outcome will certainly be new laws, governing development, farming, transportation - invading the private sphere nearly everywhere to some extent, because nearly everyone participates in the problem. If you take for granted that we won't abandon Puget Sound to destruction, we don't have any real choice, we can't afford not to be "arrogant", it's only a question of how far we have to go.

If you go back and read again what I wrote, you'll see that I do not oppose such actions. Government does things poorly, but some things nobody else can or will do. But it must be transparent and open, and that's where government fails, because it underestimates the role of We The People.

That transparency and public response will provide the check and balance for the arrogance of good intentions.

In my line of work, everyone wants a traffic signal at the place they leave their neighborhood. When I had authority over such things, I applied a consistent and well-document process for evaluating the true need for a traffic signal. Most that were requested did not rise to the standard of need, and putting one in would unfairly restrict traffic on the main street to favor those on the side street. No matter that those who want it for their side street bitterly complain about the signals on someone else's side street.

I have many colleagues who have fallen on their swords to uphold those standards, and I was once one of them.

But I grew up and realized that at some point, the people have a say, even if the consequences are less than optimal. I still applied my standards, but if the elected officials ignored that recommendation and asked me to build a signal, I built them a good one that would minimize the damaging effects. The only place I drew the line was when they wanted me to manipulate my engineering conclusion to match their political intent. That I refused to do (politely). I have colleagues who had to leave the public sector because they could not "sell out" (though I think in being that tough they were actually being rather arrogant, as I was early in my career), and I have colleagues that had no commitment at all to the engineering standards. Few found the middle line, and that's the problem with government--it's run by people who are sinners just like me, in a system that very poorly evaluates the outcomes of their decisions.

That doesn't mean I think private enterprise could do a better job with traffic signals. But we are always seeking the balance point, with the fundamental principal that the less government does, the better.

Rick "who, as an empowered individual, voluntarily avoids practices that cause nitrogen pollution in Chesapeake Bay, based on persuasion rather than coercion" Denney

[tofu]

==

[Rick Denney]

One, why a seller can raise the price of petrol when he still has the same gas in his tank underground as he did yesterday.

That's the difference between cost and price. What if they paid a lot for the gas in their storage tank but the price drops before they sell it all? Then, they have to lower their price and absorb the loss, else the gas sits in their tank while people drive down the street to their competitors. If they have to eat the loss when prices drop, I can't see why it's wrong for them to benefit when prices rise. Competition will keep prices down, and demand will keep prices up.

Rick "who remembers changing the price of groceries on the store shelf, both up and down, back in the stagflation period under Carter" Denney

[Todd S. Malicoate]

We must please remember that every car still running cannot USE some of these mandated and subsidized additives unless they wish to get 20% less fuel economy.

My 1993 Dynasty (3.0L V6 engine) gets 20mpg using gasoline without ethanol and 17mpg using gasoline with it. Fortunately, I have a choice here locally, and pay about 5 cents more for the "un-ethanol" gas. I wind up paying 80 cents more filling up my 16 gallon tank but get about 50 extra miles per tank (which, at 17mpg, would require 3 gallons of fuel or about $10).

How many of you don't have a choice but only have gasoline with ethanol added available in your area?

[tofu]

--

[lgb&dtuba]

When given a real alternative to highways the public will choose a mass transit alternative. Here is one example. Instead of building more expensive ugly highways we can only hope that government gets it right and buys more bicycle carrying rail cars.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1368SV.DTL

-- Provide subsidies for people to buy folding bicycles, the number of
which is not restricted on the trains, as long as they can be stowed
beneath the seats.

It seems to me that if I was living in this area and wanted to take my bike on a train I'd see the advantage to buying one of those folding bicycles for myself to make my life easier. What I wouldn't see is that this deserves a subsidy, which is just another name for making my problems someone else's and stealing the money from them to pay for my stuff.