Railroads are Big

It's not immediately apparent how big a railroad is. Try to pick up a piece of rail and you start to get the picture. But the real bigness of the railroad lies in the right of way and the structures, much of it critically important to transport by rail, and won hardly over a century of struggle.

Taken all together, it's quite an investment- in fact, it's too much investment to ever pay a competitive return. And, with a few exceptions, this has been the case for the entire history of railroading. Each road built on the bankrupt wreck of two or three or even sometimes a dozen failed progenitors, and each in turn destined to fail.

The simple fact is that the investment is too large to pay over 5% on investment in a nation where 6% is the ante. Other nations have dealt with this by constructing state railways, by constructing the railway and leasing it to a private company to run, or by nationalizing formerly private roads.

It would take some mighty fancy economics to determine the ins-and-outs of societal and railroad finance. With practice this science will improve , but in the meantime we'll experiment and learn from others. At least we've learned that healthy railroads, competing in the capital markets for private investment, with dividends over 5%, ain't gonna happen.

They're just too darn big.

The Core of Transit

Judging from the local transit blogs, Seattle has developed a new generation of transit fans. This mentally fresh generation thinks all ideas are created equal and deserve to be examined on their merits. As for paying for transit, however, the thinking is quite the reverse, and here they try to milk some scheme from existing taxes and revenues.

Rail transit, however, is and will be a socialist enterprise. There are a number of reasons for this, to be explored in a future post, but the bottom line is plain- no business as usual.

Fortuitously, this is a time when we have learned we cannot continue business as usual in any case. The question is not whether we will change ourselves, but how we will change ourselves.

Seen as a social asset, transit looks much different from how it appears as a collection of kludges and wild guesses by technocrats with little or no actual historical knowledge. And that's a good thing.

McGinn's Trifecta

Seattle's Mayor McGinn must feel as though he's died and gone to heaven. Where else could you find an entire city of such rubes?

Last week McGinn announced he had a plan to create 60,000 jobs in Seattle. In the process, he revealed the real reason for the press conference- he's learned that people are concerned, most of all, about jobs.

The Seattle papers, in a kindly manner, simply ignored the announcement. Pointing our how implausible it was would have been cruel.

And that's ok with McGinn- he now has his "plan", and his trusty supporters can be relied on to point this out at any suitable occasion.

For a demagogue, it doesn't get much better.

The Ideal Post

The ideal blog post, to my way of thinking, is the beginning of a conversation, to be continued in 'comments'. There are, of course, other ideals, but in this case I'm referring to a non-expert post that can't justify long-windedness, but hopes to stimulate an enlarging discussion.

In this regard, a little controversy becomes a good thing, encouraging readers who choose to disagree- that is, to say, if disagreement is permissable in your audience. The audience that cannot civilly disagree will react violently to disagreement, and the ensuing discussion may be less than enlightening.

Much like a short paper for high school, a post should have an idea that is asserted, developed, and summarized in somewhat less than 300 words. Then, if you combine your wait for eager readers with contemplation of the seaside (photo courtesy Matt Yglesias), your soul will find peace.

'Lapdog' Hardly Covers It

MacChrystal and his band of merry-makers knew they had a journalist with the- they just figured this journalist would be like all the others, that is to say, the truth would be hidden from the public and the falsity conveyed.

Out of the dozens, or possibly hundreds, of 'embedded' journalists in Afghanistan, not one had reported the truth to those of us at home. The possibility of such a thing happening simply did not exist in MacChrystal's brain. He knew all about how to leak and talk to the press to undermine Obama's stated policy goals, he was no babe in the woods when it came to the press- he simply hadn't met a reporter who considered telling the truth more important than maintaining 'access' to the rich and powerful.

Shows how much we know.

Stolen, Not Created

A kind of Republican fantasy, that "free enterprise" created the wealth we see around us, has become a dangerous insanity. We did not create this wealth- we stole it. That is to say, we stole an entire continent and murdered almost all of the original owners.

In every other part of the world, the previous owners had to be accommodated in some way. In Europe layers upon layers of ownership and obligation needed to be purchased, bought off, and ameliorated. In South America the native peoples were displaced initially by European technology too weak to exploit the continent, and by the time technology grew strong, South American oligarchies defended the backwards economies they ruled.

This subject could be, and has been, elucidated at great length, but the key facts are these- America grew wealthy during the 19th century because we stole an entire continent, without let or hindrance, and had two oceans to protect us from the threat of war, and the cost that entails.

Hoist on Own Petard

The tea-partyin' anti-immigration freaks seem not to have understood one thing- you can't issue papers declaring people to be illegal immigrants, so the alternative is to issue papers declaring people to be 'legals'. IOW, a national ID, which comes complete with black helicopters on the border. Or maybe just an identity chip injected into every 'real' citizen.

And now they're doing it again. The healthcare bill enacted by Congress includes funding for people who are uninsured because of pre-existing conditions, coverage which can be administered by the state, or by the federal government. And the states that just hates the federal program the mostest are refusing to administer their own programs, leaving it up to the federal government to do the work.

Well, the liberals tried to give the states a role here. If the teabaggers prefer big government, so be it.