The Long Cold Winter

[can't sit still]

geekster, the wheels fell off a while ago. We just haven't used up all our momentum and come to a skidding halt yet
"These will not be political decisions, but rather economic decisions"
"economic" is spelled s-u-r-v-i-v-a-l
I just advised my boss to always carry some money. One of the Salvadorians here went to a car show and got jumped when he went out afterwards. When the Latinos who jumped him discovered that his wallet was empty,,, they beat him up. He later had to have brain surgery.
Time to switch threads.

[Here and there]

Some years ago, Mexico launched a comm-sat for schools in remote areas. No teachers wanted to work in the boondocks. The state hired it's most interesting, competent and charismatic teachers to teach a class in front of a camera. This was relayed to thousands of classrooms where a big monitor relayed the instruction. All, they needed was some local adult to keep order. There is NO cure for this kind of efficiency.

Other than the employment of a little, basic common sense. Can a videotape answer questions in class? This "efficiency" is gained at the expense of the student, who is done a disservice, while he and his parents are expected to pretend otherwise, lest they be thought of as being "malcontents".

The problem in this case isn't technology. The problem is hucksterism.

[can't sit still]

I believe that the idea was to teach in front of an actual class. They were encouraged to ask questions. There are thousands of "poblados" in Mexico that don't have water, power or even a store. No one will go there to teach. Millions in Mexico don't even speak Spanish. You can bet that there is a shortage of teachers who speak Maya, Zapotec, Nauwatl, toltec, mixtec and a few other indigenous languages.
The Tarhumara don't speak any more Spanish than the average gringo. The women deliver their babies standing up,, in a cave. Any kind of education is an improvement.
Yes, the kids suffer.

[Here and there]

I believe that the idea was to teach in front of an actual class. They were encouraged to ask questions.

You're missing the point, and I believe that you're doing so deliberately, because it is a point that doesn't support your theory that the advance of technology makes unemployment inevitable. What is relevant, for a particular student, is not the answer to the question that another student will ask. What is relevant is the answer to the question that he will ask, himself. Any "teacher" who does nothing more than read from a script, no matter how well prepared that script might be, is no teacher at all.

There are thousands of "poblados" in Mexico that don't have water, power or even a store. No one will go there to teach.

If this is so, then who lost his job as a result of the use of these videotapes? You would seem to have just acknowledged that your example was not on-point. To remind you of the context in which this side discussion arose, you said

The speed of change has accelerated to the point where many professions and careers do not have a life-long application. As man's efforts and labors receive ever-more amplification from machines, there will be ever-less need for man.

Some years ago, Mexico launched a comm-sat for schools in remote areas. No teachers wanted to work in the boondocks. The state hired it's most interesting, competent and charismatic teachers to teach a class in front of a camera. This was relayed to thousands of classrooms where a big monitor relayed the instruction. All, they needed was some local adult to keep order. There is NO cure for this kind of efficiency.

implying that the teachers had been rendered technologically obsolete by the introduction of the videotapes. Now, you seem to want us to forget that this was your earlier point.

Yes, the kids suffer.

And they'd be suffering even more were the tapes not there, in the scenario that you lay out. What I am objecting to is not your opposition to "Corporatism", but to the fatalism you seem so eager to encourage. There is nothing inevitable about the bad course that history is taking, at the moment. To confuse the effects of mindless corporate greed and stupidity (and the willingness of governments around the globe to indulge the same) with job losses resulting from technological change, as you do when you write

Any economy is going to have birth and death of jobs and niches. In days of old, the changes were so gradual that retirement took care of people who were obsoleted. People shifted from going into horse-related trades to automobile-related trades. Look at type-setters. How many young people opt for type-setting for a career?

The speed of change has accelerated to the point where many professions and careers do not have a life-long application. As man's efforts and labors receive ever-more amplification from machines, there will be ever-less need for man.

is to do just that, to take choices that genuinely are vile and make them seem legitimate and unavoidable, taking the element of moral judgment out of the equation, and element without which the very notion of social progress isn't merely vain, but impossible to even conceptualize.

We learn specialized knowledge for specialized professions. MUCH of this specialized knowledge can be formulated into a computer program. Remember when a law office had hundreds of volumes of law books. A specialized search service does it much better.

Anybody who honestly believes that hasn't ever used Google, and tried wading through the ocean of useless results that it will turn up, or visited Borders, and tried dealing with one of the clerks. Many of these clerks have taken to believing, as you say you do, that search engine technology has made human knowledge of the contents of this text or that obsolete, and seized on that as an excuse to not become familiar with their stock at all.

I remember walking into their store, one day, looking for a book about recipes from Sicily that had been influenced by the cooking of the Arabs. They went onto the computer, did a search, pulled up nothing, and firmly insisted that no such book was in existence. I sighed, shrugged, and went on to browse. A few minutes later, I pulled the very book I was looking for from their shelves. It had been sitting there, no more than 20 feet from the girl who had so loudly denied its existence, for weeks, apparently courtesy of a customer who had put in a special order a few months ago and never picked it up. Not only was it there, but what I had asked was a paraphrase of the subtitle of the book. A human being, familiar with the stock, would have picked up on that. A mindless piece of software did not.

The problem, again, isn't technology. The problem is hype, and indifference to bad service. The girl, herself, later admitted that she had been the one who had entered that special order into the computer, the book having passed through her "hot little hands", as she put it. One might have imagined that she'd be a little sheepish at that point, but if anything, she got cockier. Technology had not rendered that part of her job obsolete, it just gave her an excuse to not be bothered with doing it, because of managers and customers who had let themselves be conditioned into not challenging anything that the magical computers had to say.

The law firms that replace their staff with software aren't capitalizing on the technological obsolescence of the latter, they're merely being cheap at the expense of their gullible clients. One need not have technological progress at all for people to be callous, unmotivated or cheap. Or gullible. But one does need a base of customers who let themselves be intelligent enough to greet outrageous claims with skepticism, and assertive enough to demand decent service, for bad service to carry a price. One needs unhampered lines of communication between those customers, and a press that won't let itself be bought, for the customers to have a chance to find those firms that are willing to offer better service. One might even, horror of horrors, have to break down and let the government respond to bad business practices with regulation, something that, pre-Reagan, nobody outside of the lunatic fringe would have had much of a problem with.

Somebody at this point will usually bring up the Robber Baron era. In this case, I'd probably point them toward those search engines in which they have such an exaggerated faith, and tell them to Google "Upton Sinclair" and "The Jungle". In that era that Reagan supposedly returned us to, when the unhealthy realities of the meat packing industry became a matter of public knowledge, one didn't see the ideological rigidity of the millennial era, with the supposedly backward people of that era insisting that we had to let the free market do its work, even if it killed us. Regulation, as it was needed, was passed, practicality and common sense trumping ideology instead of the other way around, as it does today. One might well ask which era has the greater claim to being called modern.

The Far Right needs to meet real opposition in the West. The problem is that the present day Left never seems to offer it.

[pizzamancer]

What is the connection between Wal Mart, the trade deficit, foreclosures and the end of domestic middle-class ownership of the means of production?

.. Wal Mart with economies of scale, a surplus war chest for cut-throat competition and advantages in the import of foreign produced goods, Wal Mart focuses on driving each locally owned or domestically owned competitor out of business. People may not want to shop at Wal Mart but their own budgets and deflation which makes "making ends meet" progressively more difficult forces them to give in sooner or later. Only after the local competition is bankrupt will prices climb to monopoly pricing levels.

You are talking about luddites... This is it. The local businesses that aren't profitable need to go. They don't add to the economy. If wal mart doesnt do it, someone else will.

The converse here is that getting rid of wal marts is a tax increase for the stupid. Why? Anyone with an internet connection can get the cheapest goods available on the planet. Kind of blows your monopoly example out of the water.

[Here and there]

You are talking about luddites... This is it. The local businesses that aren't profitable need to go. They don't add to the economy. If wal mart doesnt do it, someone else will.

The US economy managed to get by quite well without the government allowing the dumping of goods, for about a century; that kind of predatory marketing is what Wal Mart has been well known for, for quite some time, and we're now asked to believe that's a good thing. Which brings us to why Economics is not a real science, contrary to popular opinion.

Real science is empirical. It submits its predictions to test by experiment, and discards its theories when they fail that test. Some will say that there can't be experiments in Economics, but that's nonsense. History provides us with that real world testing of our theories, and we've been living in the middle of one of those experiments for about 30 years, now. An experiment that has been failing with increasing severity, a reality responded to with denial by people who think that a recitation of political doctrine constitutes evidence.

Life has growing steadily harder, not easier over the last generation. That's a fact, easily confirmed by talking to almost anybody who has been around for the last thirty years, who isn't a member of the Old Boys Club or a regular viewer of Fox News. Neo-liberalism is a failure. The fact that even its defenders are now having a serious discussion of the merits of reducing the vast bulk of the American public to a third world standard of living, poverty that even education won't provide them with the tools to escape, should be enough to convince any reasonable person that the remaining defenders of free market fundamentalism are either dishonest or insane. Or, most likely of all, just plain evil.

The time for dialogue with the Far Right should be seen as being long over. Does one debate geography with a flat earther, or sexual morality with a rapist? Plonkity plonk and goodbye, pizzaboy.

[ygmir]

do you contend, that, communism is the better way to go?

If not, what is your vision of a better economic system?

[Here and there]

Feeding a troll I had put on ignore ...

do you contend, that, communism is the better way to go?

Yes, because Lassez Faire and Communism are the only alternatives, right? How about regulated Capitalism, as it existed, pre-Reagan? You know, like under such well known Communists as Nixon and Eisenhower?

Sometimes, one has to have the sense to see, as one reaches a dead end, that one has gone the wrong way and needs to go back. Absolute financial ruination for almost everybody, quite obviously, represents one of those dead ends. If the average American gets reduced to the income of the average Ethiopian, rapidly, he isn't going to be living like the average Ethiopian who, again, can pay for his groceries in soft currency. He's going to be left starving to death, out in the winter chill, wondering whether he will be taken out first by hypothermia, starvation or the gangs. The shelters in a city are set up to handle people by the thousands, not by the hundreds of thousands.

Sure, prices will eventually drop, but without water, you're dead within a week. Without food, in a few months, at best. Without heat, on a typical winter evening in places like Chicago, consider yourself fortunate if you see the morning. "Eventually" doesn't cut it, when one is talking about survival.

[Here and there]

That much having been said, the very concept of Communism sticks in my throat and makes me want to puke. If Communism was the only alternative to mass starvation, then I'd have to accept it, but I don't think that it is.

To be fed and housed by another without being able to provide for oneself is a life for a housepet, not a man, and even the dogs seem dissatisfied with such an existence.

[can't sit still]

Well, obviously, I see things a lot different than Here and There.
I have a different perspective and a different time sense. I do reporting, not justification. I'm only fatalistic within certain bounds.

Man organizes in a more-or-less chaotic and self-serving manner to procure more material goods, more security and more mates. At different times, different groups hold power. Sometimes, it's religion... sometimes GOV,,, sometimes, the mob,,,, sometimes business.
People organized GOV to serve them. It is on-again,, off-again co-opted by religion or business. GOV accretes so much power that it is always a target for being co-opted.

It's an endless power struggle and those who don't have good representation in the halls of power get the shaft. Religion once held much power but, has lost much of it. Royalty had much power but, is now in decline. Popular GOV once held power but, is being replaced by a banking oligarchy.
To a certain extent, their actions are predictable. This does imply fatalism but, not necessarily at a personal level.

At this moment, it is easy to confuse causes and effects.
Unemployment has been increasing all along. The PTB "papered over it" by allowing us to spend tomorrow's wages today. Ultra-cheap shipping has thrown us into the global market for manufacturing.
While I'm happy for the Chinaman who just graduated from $ 1 a day to $ 10 a day,,, I do not want to join him. I'm content with a Western standard of living.

The temperate counties in the West passed through the industrial revolution first. We reaped the benefits first. The hunter-gatherers and agrarians have benefited greatly from the knowledge that we passed to them. They're worse off then us and better off than they were previously.
Our Western economy is NOT viable if we are earning the same wages as they earn.
You can say "let the most efficient market produce the goods"
If our producers work for $ 10 a day, then we'll have a survival economy like they do.

Part of the mis-understanding in these issues is caused by the time lag between cause and effect. Look at the overall picture.
AGGREGATE global purchasing power is diminishing as producing jobs move to lower wage producers. There are about $ 10 quadrillion in instruments. The rich are temporarily getting richer. AGGREGATE consumption MUST diminish proportionate to purchasing power. It can be temporarily "papered over' by credit but, that has strict limitations. As worldwide consumption diminishes, worldwide productivity is utilized less and less.
We now see competitive currency devaluations by countries trying to hold on to their accustomed share of consumptive sales. The pie is shrinking.

The rich West is spending down their wealth. Because the bankers removed the money [instruments] from circulation, there is shrinking purchasing power. This has resulted in shrinking wealth produced. The bankers have increased the proxies for wealth but diminished the actual wealth.
The implementation of automation has caused the bankers to receive increased proxies for wealth and the producer to receive diminished proxies for wealth. This has resulted in a much higher perceived wealth for the bankers but, much less overall tangible wealth.
These proxies for wealth are ever-increasing and the actual wealth is decreasing. This runs the risk that the proxies will lose value until they are commensurate with the actual wealth.
Over-issuance of instruments has been common in history. Because our instruments are all interest bearing, they are especially burdensome to service. And more importantly, they can't be redeemed. GOV hopes to put off this day by stealing more from the producers.
This too is predictable. GOV hopes to squeeze out and "extra" $ 3 trillion from us.
http://batr.org/view/112110.html
This would predictably diminish the economy by $ 9 trillion.

Fatalism doesn't enter this so much as historical example. At the moment, those who hold all the proxies hold control. BUT, they have a formidable opponent. Actually, 2 opponents. GOV legislates but, the market exerts a huge amount of control. What GOV and the market do not control is; GREED.
When the market loses confidence in the proxies, greed and survival will dictate actions.
A short time back, the 30 year treasury bond had to pay more interest than a 30 year mortgage. This indicates that investors are losing faith in the power of GOV to repay.

When, the bond buying community loses trust and demands higher interest, it will all be over.
Throughout history ALL proxies have eventually failed. Those holding the proxies that they created will fail also. There is a time lag.
The $ 10 Quadrillion is just too much. It can never flow into tangibles. Imagine $ 5,000 for a loaf of bread. Without purchasing power, there is no consumption. Without consumption, there is no need for production. Without production, there is no economy.
Either the economy evaporates or the proxies evaporate.

[Rabbi Dali Rick]

And not to mention they create artificial situations that make that encourge masses spend an inordinate amount of their savings on meaningless holidays that really are merely distractions from the fact that once spent they will not be able to replace the funds in this downturn economy.



the rebbi

[can't sit still]

What do you mean meaningless? Thanksgiving is when kill the turkey to symbolically commemorate killing the Red man.

[Here and there]

Well, obviously, I see things a lot different than Here and There.
I have a different perspective and a different time sense. I do reporting, not justification.

In other words, you respond to counterarguments by pretending that they weren't made, and hoping that your audience won't remember that they were, while you go off on your next rant. Got you.

Have you considered Ritalin as an option?

[ygmir]

what's with the anger, condescension, snark and rudeness, H&T?

fun as it is.........I know.

[can't sit still]

He that picketh at nits,,, findeth nits.

[Here and there]

He that picketh at nits,,, findeth nits.

Uh, huh. You offer an example in support of a point, I point to why your example not only doesn't support your point but doesn't have anything to do with your point, and that's nit picking?

Obviously, you're here just because you like to hear yourself talk. There is no possibility of having a rational discussion with you. Which I guess shouldn't come as too much of a surprise given the several hundred pages of free associating rambles we've seen out of you, already.

what's with the anger, condescension, snark and rudeness, H&T?

fun as it is.........I know.

Awww ... did I hurt somebody's widdle feelwings? 'Cause that would be just ever so mean of me, you big brave norse warrior wannabe. Remember that discussion in which you responded to my posting of a bug report with trolling, right after I dropped everything to help you with one of your problems? I sure do, and I'm not going to forget about it just because a year has passed. You were an asshole then, you are an asshole now, and you're going to be an asshole until the day you die, because assholes never change for the better. To forgive you for your completely out of line and off the wall behavior at that time would be to forget that reality. I see little sense in failing to learn from experience, or attaching an expiration date to experience that isn't ever going to cease to be a solid basis for predicting future results.



When one finds that one seems to have put almost all of the recently active participants in a discussion on ignore, as I just have with "can't sit still", that's a very good sign that the time has come to leave it. I'm looking at a discussion that has degenerated into a clash between competing brands of narcissism - the far right "the poor can suck it up" brand of Ygmir and pizzaboy and the leftish, pot addled "no, man, you can't do anything, so embrace the squalor" version of can't sit still. As somebody who really does have to deal with the ugliness of the real world, I don't and shouldn't have the patience to sit though much more of that. This topic may be one big game to overindulged fools who can skate by in life without having to do much of anything, either because they entered the job market at a time when the job market was insanely generous (eg. the retired ygmir) instead of insanely hard to even enter, or because they can buy their drugs and everything else on mommy and daddy's dime (hi, "can't sit still"), but for some of us, the ones who've been denied the chance to even begin to build up that pension that Ygmir lives on while asking those younger than him why they make such a fuss over little issues like jobs and being able to pay for food and rent - and health care, if, God forbid, one should get sick - those words "life and death" carry real meaning. If I'm angry about this subject, it's only because I have a right to be.

Anybody who has a problem with that well justified anger has some real growing up to do. But given that I'm in the middle of the virtual clubhouse a few overgrown little boys just put up, I guess that I shouldn't be surprised that I can't hope for much better out of those I'm talking with, at the moment. Here's hoping that life kicks each of you in the ass long enough and hard enough that you learn how to sit down and shut up. Glad that I could explain that to you. Goodbye.

[can't sit still]

"you learn how to sit down and shut up"
I CAN'T sit down and I have no intention of shutting up. You really hurt my feelings. I'm going to get some money from mommy and buy something to make myself feel GOOD.

[can't sit still]

Well, enough of narcissism. I'm back to reporting the facts in the real world.
Our financial economy is structured so that an astute person can make money off of other people's losses. George Soros made $ 1 billion by betting against the value of the British pound. In general, the money is made by "shorting" an instrument.
There have been numerous cases where investors "gang up" on an instrument, shorting it massively. This sometimes has the result of causing the instrument to crash.

If an instrument shows weakness, this attracts bottom feeders that are hoping for it's death. At the moment, Irish bonds and Irish debt, in general are looking very weak. The bond buyers are demanding high interest and paying for default insurance.
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/new-phas ... cues-41310
If the short sellers move in successfully and drive down Irish bonds, there will be a default. The short sellers can make lots of money. Short-selling an instrument to death is very dangerous in that it motivates short-sellers to find the next weak target. If Ireland crashes, that will weaken Spain and the Euro. There is a great risk that short-sellers will move against Spain next. If Spain is successfully attacked, that will bring down the Euro. The dollar is currently enjoying some benefit as a "safe haven"

In a manner of speaking, the dollar people are attacking the Euro. It's not wise because, it risks destroying the dollar too. Bernanke has been battling to make sure that short-sellers were not attracted to the dollar. It remains to be seen just how long he can hold them off. When interest rates rise, debt service will become impossible. That is when one would expect short-sellers to be drawn to the blood [cannibalism].

[Neutrality]

reporting the facts in the real world

For you, that would be a nice change of pace.

[Sail Man]

I think the problem with you H and T is, that no matter how persuasive you think your arguments are, you just continue to come across as a





I'd personally prefer use harsher language towards you for dissing a good friend, but I prefer to wait until the burn to get my spanking from AntiM.

[Neutrality]

I think the problem with you H and T is, that no matter how persuasive you think your arguments are, you just continue to come across as a

As an asian who wants to be white?

[Neutrality]

I'd personally prefer use harsher language towards you for dissing a good friend, but I prefer to wait until the burn to get my spanking from AntiM.

You just went racial with another member. That's harsh enough.

You've also just admitted to being friends with perpetual motion guy, so we have the biased gut reaction of somebody who hangs out with a known crank. Interesting.

[ygmir]

I'd personally prefer use harsher language towards you for dissing a good friend, but I prefer to wait until the burn to get my spanking from AntiM.

You just went racial with another member. That's harsh enough.

You've also just admitted to being friends with perpetual motion guy, so we have the biased gut reaction of somebody who hangs out with a known crank. Interesting.

wow, Neut, you're a bucket of sunshine and honey............

[Neutrality]

wow, Neut, you're a bucket of sunshine and honey............

Nope. Just somebody who won't hesistate to call people on their bullshit.

[ygmir]

fair enough.
but, I don't think Sailman was being "racial" on anyone......
Just noting, you're sort of tough, on those you disagree with.
Not that you need to be "civil" to anyone,

just sayin', it'd be nice.

rude, name calling makes it harder to want to discuss things.

but, that's just me.


carry on.

[Sail Man]

Nope, not being racial, just looking for nice way to tell someone I think they are a





I kinda thought about just saying I thought you were a twink, but the twinkie seemed to fit the bill instead. it's nice to see new people come here with the intent to start flame wars right off the bat. Congratulations on that for you have succeeded well.

I'm guessing you have no real idea of what it means to be a Burner as you seem way to exclusive to embrace the philosophy.

Do you always troll on into new forums with the intent to make enemies instead of friends?

BTW, have you even been to the Burn?

[Sail Man]

I'd personally prefer use harsher language towards you for dissing a good friend, but I prefer to wait until the burn to get my spanking from AntiM.

You just went racial with another member. That's harsh enough.

You've also just admitted to being friends with perpetual motion guy, so we have the biased gut reaction of somebody who hangs out with a known crank. Interesting.

Wrong-o


I was referring to Ygmir. Maybe you need a brighter

[geekster]

Well, I see someone else just woke up:

http://politics.usnews.com/news/blogs/w ... arket.html

Failure by Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts, especially locking in the 15 percent capital gains tax rate, will spark a stock market sell off starting December 15 as investors move to lock in gains at a lower rate than the 20 percent it would jump to next year, warn analysts.

...

Worse, talk that Congress will simply pass retroactive fixes to the tax system won't help, since investors will take the sure thing and sell rather than rely on Capitol Hill. "Fixing the issue next year will not negate these negative impacts," said Clifton.

Ditto for a retroactive fix to the alternative minimum tax, he writes in the client memo. "The talk of retroactively fixing the tax cuts ignores the fact that the AMT patch cannot be retroactively fixed and is the largest component of the tax increase. Hence, in March and April, 27 million taxpayers will be facing an additional $70 billion in tax payments. The hit to consumer spending would be particularly significant," he writes.

It is going to start getting really rough over the next few weeks as long as this Congress continues to dally with its fingers in its collective ears going "la la la" and pretending not to hear what the voters are telling them.

And I don't understand why they still call them the "Bush" tax cuts. He didn't implement them, Congress did, and the only reason they were temporary was because Senate Democrats blocked cloture so they had to use other rules to get them passed that required a 10-year sunset on the tax laws.

[can't sit still]

Wow, that guy and all his socks is really bitter. No matter. Ms crypto posted on the free energy thread that there is no free lunch and that we obey the laws of thermodynamics.
It is an accepted fact that there is a potential of about 2 billion amps between the ionosphere and the earth. There are about 200 lightning strikes every second to equalize this potential. The potential in dry air is about 200 volts at about 6 ft. off the ground. The sun is continually building and maintaining this potential by shuttling huge amounts of energy to Terra through plasma transfer through magnetic tubes that act as charge carriers to the earth.
The free lunch comes from the sun. If some brainless dipshit wants to imply that a few trillion ergs of energy from the sun is perpetual motion,,, fine with me. If this same brainless dipshit wanted to actually do something about his abysmal ignorance, he could read a bit on the subject of the various energy fields, gradients and sources;
http://www.free-energy-info.co.uk/index2.html
Since the producing economy has informed said dipshit that they no longer have any use or need of his services, he will have plenty of free time. I suspect that he will continue to demonstrate his ignorance rather than remedying it. No matter to me.
BTW, if one considers the atom, the electrons go round and round forever.... perpetually.

[geekster]

And look at what we have here:

On Thursday, the California High Speed Rail Authority board unanimously approved the 65-mile "train to nowhere" that would link two tiny towns at a cost of $4.15 billion, all because the state didn't want to lose $2 billion in federal stimulus funds.

So we are already not only broke but in debt, yet they spend 4.15 billion on a rail bed that will carry no trains.

The rail line would connect two central California towns, Borden and Corcoran, with a combined population of 25,000. But that's merely an estimate from Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza, an opponent of the plan. In reality, the San Jose Mercury News notes, Borden "is an unincorporated community for which the U.S. Census Bureau doesn't even keep official population estimates."

The line is supposed to be the first part of an ambitious $43 billion project aimed at linking San Francisco and Anaheim, but the decision to start in such a low population density area even had members of the rail authority scratching their heads earlier this week.

So if they were going to spend 4.6 billion, why not put it between places where there is actually some traffic and actually put trains on it? So we are going to spend a pot of money on something that has not a single train on it with no guarantee we will ever see the money needed to connect either end of this segment to a population center and it will *still* have to be maintained even if not in use to keep from deteriorating.

Freaking *brilliant*.