Phoebe Vet Let's not forget all the money in black budgets for research and development of all those super secret weapons programs. I, for one, would like to see that money used on our infrastructure. Roads, Air, Rail, etc. Both development and maintenance. When you spend trillions on weapons, there is always too much temptation to use them. To quote Abraham Maslow: "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. "
Let's not forget all the money in black budgets for research and development of all those super secret weapons programs.
I, for one, would like to see that money used on our infrastructure. Roads, Air, Rail, etc. Both development and maintenance. When you spend trillions on weapons, there is always too much temptation to use them.
To quote Abraham Maslow: "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. "
Does the same apply passenger rail? You can run over 200 MPH, but is a $200 hammer worth the cost?
Let's not forget the lives lost, the men and women maimed: US dead and wounded - Korea 128000, Viet Nam 211000, Iraq 36000, Afghanistan 7000. That can't be measured in dollars. If you spend lots of money on a military, the tendency is to shoot first and talk later.
Think about what we might have done with a fraction of the 21 trillion dollars (BTW, that was actual dollars, not converted into today's dollar worth. If in today;s dollars, would probably be 4X that figure).
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
The current hysteria that every dime spent is destroying our country is causing a great reduction in common sense.
You can buy a bicycle for about $100 and ride it to and from work at around 15 MPH for very little operating cost. Is a $30,000 car really a good investment?
Yes, transportation options that increase speed, comfort, and efficiency are a good investment. Putting all your transportation eggs in one basket is NOT a good investment.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Guys- this thread went off track after about the first page. Since then, nearly all the posts are pure politics. Let's see if we can get back to trains and railroads.[ thread locked ]-Norris user/moderator
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
I think we are much more enamoured with being outright consumers, and that would include the consumption of the automobile. We like to shop, to buy, to own, to have, to ingest. In order to accomplish this often, we also realize that we need to spend less on more....to economize. Or, to spread the cost around more neat, cool, items.
Those whose living depends on our orientation to consumerism learned long ago that they could make more money by offering cheap goods of a certain minimal quality and making them available widely. We all know how that was accomplished. But, we have ourselves to blame for our orientation to the dollar and its value. It is always viewed as a means to an end. It is a utility. In that respect, its value is what we assign to it, and on what we are willing to part with it. HSR is not a known quantity today, and solves no salient problems in the minds of the electorate. Salient problems are those which stand out as needing our attention. Yes, the car solves many of those great needs, but so do cheap gas (where the rest of the industrialized world pays double or triple our costs) and cheap goods in nice packages. We can't have it all unless the price comes down.
HSR is small potatoes and seems hugely expensive. Once/if we decide that it solves a salient problem....
Crandell
Now I'm confused - Is or should this thread be 'locked', or not ?
What I want to know is, why 302 mph?
Paul_D_North_Jr Now I'm confused - Is or should this thread be 'locked', or not ?
Looks like a case of: "After further review, the call on the field was overturned!"
Bucyrus What I want to know is, why 302 mph?
I guess because the speed reached was 486 km/hr, which converts to 301.986 399 43 mile/hour.
While there was, as predicted, an enthusiastic debate about spending priorities, I didn't see anything political. No mention was made about which party is responsible. Just the opposite. The consensus seems to be that ALL our leaders have lousy priorities.
Short answer- yes it's being locked. The forum software has a glich where it seems to keep coming unlocked (?) By my count 2/3 of the posts were purely politcal content. The 1/3 that were railroad related were mostly on the first page. Yes it was enthusiastic debate. But it was 2/3 politics only. The intent of the forums is to discuss trains/railroads/similar. Inasmuch as we are trying to not get to strict(?) about political issues that are part of a railroad discussion, I feel this thread doesn't fit that description. It had become a discussion about the our country's spending on the military. While that's certainly an important issue worthy of serious discussion, I'd suggest that it's a topic for some other, current events type forum. The forum policies are written to keep this from becoming such a forum.-Norris
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It figures that the lock doesn't work with the new software.
The discussion started about the Chinese HSR record. Naturally enough it morphed into a discussion about US HSR, or the apparent lack of it, the lack of government funding etc. and then a question of funding priorities. The question of wars and defense spending was NOT political; it was about the government, and entirely non-partisan and calm. Why do you need to lock down anything that diverges from some straight and narrow path of what is to be tolerated? If a discussion on a topic closely related to railroading remains civil, in the interests of having threads that a lot of members might show an interest in, why not try to lighten up? It is only when name-calling starts that steps should be taken, and even then why not just delete/ban the offenders instead of locking down? How about a little respect for the 1st Amendment in a journalistic endeavor?
I agree with Schlimm.
Dan
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