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<p>[quote user="petitnj"]</p> <p>Interesting that the Calif HSR site listed the cost of the San Francisco to Anaheim as $98B. They list $100B as the saving in traffic lanes, airports gates and runways if the passengers are moved to the rail. The politicians had to spend $100B in the next few years, it was just a matter of whether they are going to change the way they move people or whether they were going to continue to build highways and airports. </p> <div style="clear:both;"></div> <p>[/quote]</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Yes, if you can believe it, coming from people who want to spend the money on rail as a starting proposition.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Serving the public good, spending money now to avoid spending more in the future, buying rail to save money on highways—these things can be platitudes to serve as pretexts to keep the ever-expanding government gravy train rolling forward.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">The people who are served by these platitudes have even been able to convince themselves that spending money is the way to accumulate wealth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>They tell us they will spend their way out of financial burden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">This California project is so large that it will sink under its own weight of cost overruns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>That is the critical mass that all public projects must struggle to avoid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>That critical mass is like a black hole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The more money you throw at it, the more money it swallows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>And the more it swallows, the harder it is to abandon it and cut the loss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">This project is so large that it starts already beyond that critical mass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></span></span></p>
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