Notes on the Decline of a Great Nation

[Farm Boy]

I'm with Farm Boy. Abolish private property.

It'd be beautiful. You think we can make it work where others have failed?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It'd be beautiful. You think we can make it work where others have failed?

Someone's trying hard to avoid the FEMA deathcamps.

Don't forget to heil Obama-Hitler-Lincoln.

 

[Farm Boy]

Someone's trying hard to avoid the FEMA deathcamps.

Don't forget to heil Obama-Hitler-Lincoln.

I get the feeling this is funny and I'm whiffing.

I do think abolishment of private property would be a dream in the good way. We just seem to have no functional way of actually implementing it that doesn't, in reality, wind up worse. If we want to try it again(to borrow from my man Cutlass), I'm sure this time will be different.

Can't stop a man from dreaming though.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah it was meant to be all joke, zero substance. Unfortunately this is so similar to my normal posts that you couldn't tell.

 

[Cutlass]

To an extent. If we're complaining about the cost benefit of it, then I guess it's great that a rail line can make life more convenient for the relatively well to do. Seems like it sucks up a lot of opportunity cost for the government when it doesn't seem to improve the lot of those that need their lots improved the most.

But, it is valid that if we don't want to have to sit next to undesirable elements, or if the bus stopping in the "ghetto of every city" is a bad thing for our patrician friends, then pricing the smelly and dangerous poor out of using our beautiful trains is good for economic efficiency.

What in the hell are you on about?

 

[Farm Boy]

What in the hell are you on about?

Well, it's been assessed that taking the bus is bad for a myriad of reasons, including the fact that it stops in ghettos. If we make the trains too efficient and useful for the populace, those very same people might find their way onto the trains!

 

[Cutlass]

Bus stations tend to be located in ghettos because poor people tend to use the bus for lack of other options that they can afford. The feedback loop from that is that buses tend to become ever less attractive for other people. If the bus stations were moved to more attractive locations, then it would be harder for their customers to use. Trains in some senses offer better services. Not in all respects, but in some respects. And so they have broader appeals.

In urban-suburban real estate, proximity to bus stops and routes is a positive for raising price. Many people don't want to drive everywhere all the time. Where transit is good, it attracts users both to the transit, and to the housing and businesses that are proximate to the transit. Where transit sucks, it drives people in the opposite direction.

 

[Farm Boy]

Oh whew. So it might be gentrification instead. I guess that's a relief.

 

[Crezth]

It'd be beautiful. You think we can make it work where others have failed?

Hey, a man can dream.

 

[Glassfan]

National Intelligence Council Forecasts Megatrends

"WASHINGTON, Dec. 11, 2012 – The American Century is drawing to a close, and the U.S. Defense Department will have to be more flexible in dealing with a faster-paced multipolar world, according to the Global Trends 2030 report released yesterday."