Trains.com

Will lower oil prices due to new findings mean that Passenger/Transit use be decreased ?

6612 views
127 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    January 2009
  • From: Maryland
  • 12,897 posts
Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Thursday, December 1, 2016 4:14 PM

CandOforprogress2

Well...I just took Amtrak from Buffalo NY to Syracuse  NYfor 30.00 I dont think I could drive for less. and I got a nap. This is about behavoir modfication or social engineering. At what point do we make people move in closer to downtown and walk/bike/take the bus or train. Cheaper Oil makes that harder. Europe with its socialist model saw driving as a luxury to be taxed and Americans saw driving and the freedom of travel as there birthright.

 

My work is not "downtown", where do you propose to "make" me live?

Such a statement is either intended to bait responses, or shows the depth of the divide in this culture today.

To even consider the idea that the government, or anyone, could tell people where to live goes against every principle this nation was founded on.

Can I buy you a ticket to the Socialist country of your choice?

"The universal misery of capitalism is the unequal distribution of the blessings..the universal blessing of socialism is the equal distribution of the misery" - Winston Churchill

Sheldon

    

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • 9,610 posts
Posted by schlimm on Thursday, December 1, 2016 4:39 PM

Paul Milenkovic
I suppose you would label all of that "self-evident conspiracy theories"?  Before criticizing people for not being well-read, a person could freshen up their own reading

Paul:  Diverting more long haul truck traffic to the rails is great.  But where Atlantic Central derailed was in stating this socialist conspiracy gem:  [Climate change mitigation] "is simply the "new religion" of the socialists so they can control us.........by telling us how to live and stealing our wealth to pay for "saving the planet" and to prevent us from living as we choose."

 

C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan

  • Member since
    January 2009
  • From: Maryland
  • 12,897 posts
Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Thursday, December 1, 2016 4:44 PM

schlimm

 

 
Paul Milenkovic
I suppose you would label all of that "self-evident conspiracy theories"?  Before criticizing people for not being well-read, a person could freshen up their own reading

 

Paul:  Diverting more long haul truck traffic to the rails is great.  But where Atlantic Central derailed was in stating this socialist conspiracy gem:  [Climate change mitigation] "is simply the "new religion" of the socialists so they can control us.........by telling us how to live and stealing our wealth to pay for "saving the planet" and to prevent us from living as we choose."

 

 

Not a conspiracy, just a defacto agenda of those who believe they should be able to tell me how to live, and who think socialism will work........

Sheldon

    

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • 9,610 posts
Posted by schlimm on Thursday, December 1, 2016 4:45 PM

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

 

 
CandOforprogress2

Well...I just took Amtrak from Buffalo NY to Syracuse  NYfor 30.00 I dont think I could drive for less. and I got a nap. This is about behavoir modfication or social engineering. At what point do we make people move in closer to downtown and walk/bike/take the bus or train. Cheaper Oil makes that harder. Europe with its socialist model saw driving as a luxury to be taxed and Americans saw driving and the freedom of travel as there birthright.

 

 

 

My work is not "downtown", where do you propose to "make" me live?

Such a statement is either intended to bait responses, or shows the depth of the divide in this culture today.

To even consider the idea that the government, or anyone, could tell people where to live goes against every principle this nation was founded on.

Can I buy you a ticket to the Socialist country of your choice?

"The universal misery of capitalism is the unequal distribution of the blessings..the universal blessing of socialism is the equal distribution of the misery" - Winston Churchill

Sheldon

 

So now, whenever someone says something you do not like or understand, you attack his character with your McCarthyite smear tactics. There is no place for ideologues here.  Take it to one of the alt.right or Ayn Randian websites.  CandO was not telling you where to live.  You misread.

C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan

  • Member since
    January 2014
  • 8,215 posts
Posted by Euclid on Thursday, December 1, 2016 4:47 PM

BaltACD

Oil & fuel prices have very little if any relations to the reality of the costs of production and distribution.

OPEC announced yesterday they have agreed to limit production January 1, 2017.  Today my local gas price jumped from $2.13 to $2.25.  Not one ounce of oil that is affected by the production limits is in the world distribution pipeline.  What we end up paying is purest of a speculation market.  Charge what you think the hype machine will give you cover to hide behind.

We should know all about hiding behind hype and keeping reality buried.

 

There is nothing unfair about speculation.  It is not about hype.  It is about risking your hard earned money for investing in future outcomes.  If you see a rosy outlook, you invest a lot.  If the outlook is gloomy, you invest little. 

The common cited idea that it is unfair for a gas station owner to raise the price of gas in his storage tank and already paid for is economic nonsense.  The real value of that gasoline changes as expectations of the future supply changes.  It is normal supply and demand.    

  • Member since
    January 2009
  • From: Maryland
  • 12,897 posts
Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Thursday, December 1, 2016 4:53 PM

So how did my response attack anyone? I simply disagreed with the idea that anyone could or should be "told" where to live.

Trust me, I'm done.

Sheldon

    

  • Member since
    February 2003
  • From: Guelph, Ontario
  • 4,818 posts
Posted by Ulrich on Thursday, December 1, 2016 5:00 PM

The OPEC countries and others can collude to cut supply, thereby driving up the price.. thereby causing everyone to pay more at the pump. and the media I listen to call that a win win. Let's try that in other markets, like transportation by having the large rail carriers agree to cut supply. Let's also allow food distributors to limit the supply of food.. so that a  $3.49  loaf of bread becomes a $6.85 loaf of bread. Maybe allow supply and demand to set prices.. let the poor consumer win once in awhile. Colluding to control available supply is tantamount to price fixing.. I guess that's become ok now.  

  • Member since
    February 2005
  • From: Southwest US
  • 12,914 posts
Posted by tomikawaTT on Thursday, December 1, 2016 5:37 PM

Ulrich

The OPEC countries and others can collude to cut supply, thereby driving up the price.. thereby causing everyone to pay more at the pump. and the media I listen to call that a win win. Let's try that in other markets, like transportation by having the large rail carriers agree to cut supply. Let's also allow food distributors to limit the supply of food.. so that a  $3.49  loaf of bread becomes a $6.85 loaf of bread. Maybe allow supply and demand to set prices.. let the poor consumer win once in awhile. Colluding to control available supply is tantamount to price fixing.. I guess that's become ok now.

According to OPEC, it has been OK ever since they got together to do it.

Cartels of industries can be, and have been, subject to anti-trust action.  Hard to enforce that US law when the colluders are corporations owned and run by sovereign states.  After all, they aren't meeting in New York or Washington when they scheme to screw the world...

My hope is that some mad scientist will collude with a sane engineer and invent a gadget that completely does away with the need to burn petroleum products for energy.  The market for chemical feed stocks is a bare shadow of the energy market.

(Holdeth not thy breath.  According to my unpublished History of the Confederation of Galactic Civilizations, the first practical mass converter will be used to power the first human starship.  It will be about the size of a marine main diesel.  Scaling it down to fit in a wheeled vehicle will take a couple of centuries of development.)

Chuck (bemused sometime SF writer)

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • 4,190 posts
Posted by wanswheel on Thursday, December 1, 2016 5:58 PM

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

1 acre and 4,000 sq ft 1901 Queen Anne in rural

Can I have it when you're done with it?

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: US
  • 25,262 posts
Posted by BaltACD on Thursday, December 1, 2016 6:08 PM

If we recall recent history, the oil countries and speculators raised the price of crude over $100 a barrel - and low and behold Bakken fields and the Canadian fields began producing and drove down the prices.  If OPEC is not very, very careful, all the efforts they did to flood the markets and make Bakken & Canadian oil too expensive to produce will be done in by their own arrogance, and then Bakken, Canadian and East Perminan fields will be back on the market.

As we have observed over the years, the Saudi's and Russian's rarely abide by the restrictions they agree to.

This just another step in the game of mine is bigger than yours.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

  • Member since
    February 2003
  • From: Guelph, Ontario
  • 4,818 posts
Posted by Ulrich on Thursday, December 1, 2016 6:12 PM

tomikawaTT

 

 
Ulrich

The OPEC countries and others can collude to cut supply, thereby driving up the price.. thereby causing everyone to pay more at the pump. and the media I listen to call that a win win. Let's try that in other markets, like transportation by having the large rail carriers agree to cut supply. Let's also allow food distributors to limit the supply of food.. so that a  $3.49  loaf of bread becomes a $6.85 loaf of bread. Maybe allow supply and demand to set prices.. let the poor consumer win once in awhile. Colluding to control available supply is tantamount to price fixing.. I guess that's become ok now.

 

According to OPEC, it has been OK ever since they got together to do it.

Cartels of industries can be, and have been, subject to anti-trust action.  Hard to enforce that US law when the colluders are corporations owned and run by sovereign states.  After all, they aren't meeting in New York or Washington when they scheme to screw the world...

My hope is that some mad scientist will collude with a sane engineer and invent a gadget that completely does away with the need to burn petroleum products for energy.  The market for chemical feed stocks is a bare shadow of the energy market.

(Holdeth not thy breath.  According to my unpublished History of the Confederation of Galactic Civilizations, the first practical mass converter will be used to power the first human starship.  It will be about the size of a marine main diesel.  Scaling it down to fit in a wheeled vehicle will take a couple of centuries of development.)

Chuck (bemused sometime SF writer)

 

Opec and others have agreed to curtail supllies at our urging. Alberta is happy about it.. curtailed supplies from overseas mean that our domestic industry (and yours too) becomes more competitive. Music to the ears of the people who run the oil sands and the fracking operations. Left to their own devices the OPEC members would have continued to flood the market, killing off the oil sands and the fracking once and for all. 

 

  • Member since
    January 2014
  • 8,215 posts
Posted by Euclid on Thursday, December 1, 2016 6:14 PM

tomikawaTT
 
Ulrich

The OPEC countries and others can collude to cut supply, thereby driving up the price.. thereby causing everyone to pay more at the pump. and the media I listen to call that a win win. Let's try that in other markets, like transportation by having the large rail carriers agree to cut supply. Let's also allow food distributors to limit the supply of food.. so that a  $3.49  loaf of bread becomes a $6.85 loaf of bread. Maybe allow supply and demand to set prices.. let the poor consumer win once in awhile. Colluding to control available supply is tantamount to price fixing.. I guess that's become ok now.

 

According to OPEC, it has been OK ever since they got together to do it.

Cartels of industries can be, and have been, subject to anti-trust action.  Hard to enforce that US law when the colluders are corporations owned and run by sovereign states.  After all, they aren't meeting in New York or Washington when they scheme to screw the world...

My hope is that some mad scientist will collude with a sane engineer and invent a gadget that completely does away with the need to burn petroleum products for energy.  The market for chemical feed stocks is a bare shadow of the energy market.

(Holdeth not thy breath.  According to my unpublished History of the Confederation of Galactic Civilizations, the first practical mass converter will be used to power the first human starship.  It will be about the size of a marine main diesel.  Scaling it down to fit in a wheeled vehicle will take a couple of centuries of development.)

Chuck (bemused sometime SF writer)

 

 

From Wikipedia:

 

Collusion is an agreement between two or more parties, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair market advantage. It is an agreement among firms or individuals to divide a market, set prices, limit production or limit opportunities.[1] It can involve "wage fixing, kickbacks, or misrepresenting the independence of the relationship between the colluding parties".[2] In legal terms, all acts effected by collusion are considered void.[3]

 

********************************************************

 

Is the OPEC price increase really collusion?  I don’t think it is because they are just one collective producer with lots of competition.  OPEC is just charging what the market will bear.  If they charge too much, they will put themselves out of business.  How is it any different than Folgers deciding to increase the price of their coffee?

 

  • Member since
    January 2014
  • 8,215 posts
Posted by Euclid on Thursday, December 1, 2016 6:36 PM

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

So how did my response attack anyone? I simply disagreed with the idea that anyone could or should be "told" where to live.

Trust me, I'm done.

Sheldon

 

 

Sheldon,

I don’t see your comment about wanting the freedom to live where you want as being an attack on whoever might prefer to force you to live where they want you to live.  However, I do think people who do want to force us to live where they want us to live are certainly worthy of being told to go pound sand.  I am not sure whether that would be an attack.

In any case, I am not really sure which side of this CandOforprogress is on with his comment that you replied to.  He is correct in his observations about the European Socialist model, but it is not clear to me whether he agrees with it.  You simply made it clear to him which side you are on, and I agree with you, Winston Churchill, and Americans who prefer the freedom to travel.  

  • Member since
    July 2004
  • 2,741 posts
Posted by Paul Milenkovic on Thursday, December 1, 2016 7:26 PM

RME
 
Paul Milenkovic
What Pratt and Whitney engineer Michael McCune did was invent a practical form of the quill drive from a GG-1 to be light enough and small enough to fit in a jet engine.

 

I assume you mean the ability of the GG1 quill arrangement to absorb wheel shock and movement while maintaining gear alignment ... but the gears in that arrangement are all encased in rigid alignment, so much of the value of the PurePower arrangement is really novel.  There are other significant problems that contributed to the "30 year development time".  A quick perusal of the discussion section of the patent is quite instructive.

Note that, while there's an extensive literature on superfinishing lightweight gears to take the required power loads, there's comparatively little on structures that keep the gears in proper mesh under loads when the engine case itself deforms, or that restore the gears to correct geometry after transient, possibly severe, distortion. 

Might bear (no pun intended, but it's pretty funny) comparison with the arrangement for the multiple-speed prop drive on the Tu-95 (which I think had comparable inertia loading but was not internal to the turboshaft engine).

 

The essence of the quill drive on the GG-1 as well as more recent electric locomotives, especially in European practice, is the means of transmitting torque between inline shafts (actually concentric shafts on the locomotive) while allowing small displacements between the shafts in response to shocks, vibrations, or other causes of such displacements. 

The GG-1 had that arrangement of springs and cups to transmit forces between the "quill", the hollow, concentric outer shaft, and the axle that is rigidly attached to the two wheels.  The more recent locomotives (Austrian?  Swiss?) had some arrangement of articulated links to do this.

The jet-engine patent describes (column 10, second full paragraph)

 

The input coupling 62 may include an interface spline 64

joined, by a gear spline 66, to a sun gear 68 of the FDGS 60.

The sun gear 68 is in meshed engagement with multiple

planet gears 70,

 

The patent claims that this shaft coupling needs to be compliant (that is, springy), but it is remarkably coy on the mechanical arrangement of that coupling.

A patent is supposed to disclose enough detail that "a person reasonably skilled in the art" can reproduce it, and as a matter of fact, I am reasonably skilled in the art of shaft couplings and I can't figure out what they are doing.

Interesting.

If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: US
  • 2,593 posts
Posted by PNWRMNM on Thursday, December 1, 2016 9:14 PM

schlimm

There is no place for ideologues here. 

Well, I am thrilled that our resident progressive professor ideologue has issued that decree. Consider yourselves chastised by THE superior being of this forum. Take that you plebes!

Mac

  • Member since
    February 2005
  • From: Vancouver Island, BC
  • 23,330 posts
Posted by selector on Thursday, December 1, 2016 9:33 PM

PNWRMNM

 

 
schlimm

There is no place for ideologues here. 

 

 

Well, I am thrilled that our resident progressive professor ideologue has issued that decree. Consider yourselves chastised by THE superior being of this forum. Take that you plebes!

Mac

 

This type of situation arises when people start using labels that are meant to force square pegs into round holes.  It isn't necessarily so that Schlimm is a socialist, and he may resent others trying to label him as such.  Even so, the labels, right or wrong, lend a taint to an otherwise civil discussion that curtails any evolution other than dissolution. 

I don't presume to speak for Schlimm, but I think his statement reflects that problem...he can't participate here if he's attacked and tarred, or vilified.  Maybe we could drop the name-calling or questionable attributions and just deal with the topic?

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • 9,610 posts
Posted by schlimm on Thursday, December 1, 2016 10:30 PM

selector

 

 
PNWRMNM

 

 
schlimm

There is no place for ideologues here. 

 

 

Well, I am thrilled that our resident progressive professor ideologue has issued that decree. Consider yourselves chastised by THE superior being of this forum. Take that you plebes!

Mac

 

 

 

This type of situation arises when people start using labels that are meant to force square pegs into round holes.  It isn't necessarily so that Schlimm is a socialist, and he may resent others trying to label him as such.  Even so, the labels, right or wrong, lend a taint to an otherwise civil discussion that curtails any evolution other than dissolution. 

I don't presume to speak for Schlimm, but I think his statement reflects that problem...he can't participate here if he's attacked and tarred, or vilified.  Maybe we could drop the name-calling or questionable attributions and just deal with the topic?

 

Mac PNWRR's remarks are typical of his nasty attacks on anyone who does not agree with his ultra-right ideology.  For the record, climate change mitigation has nothing to do with socialism or any other political philosophy.   The first insulting comment by Atlantic Central was directed at CandO, for reasons unknown.  I think he misread the post.

Actually my political views are not socialist but I suppose when one is as far to the right, as so many posters on here are, a philosophy akin to Ike's seems like socialism.

C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan

  • Member since
    January 2008
  • From: Big Blackfoot River
  • 2,788 posts
Posted by Geared Steam on Thursday, December 1, 2016 11:05 PM

schlimm

 

 
selector

 

 
PNWRMNM

 

 
schlimm

There is no place for ideologues here. 

 

 

Well, I am thrilled that our resident progressive professor ideologue has issued that decree. Consider yourselves chastised by THE superior being of this forum. Take that you plebes!

Mac

 

 

 

This type of situation arises when people start using labels that are meant to force square pegs into round holes.  It isn't necessarily so that Schlimm is a socialist, and he may resent others trying to label him as such.  Even so, the labels, right or wrong, lend a taint to an otherwise civil discussion that curtails any evolution other than dissolution. 

I don't presume to speak for Schlimm, but I think his statement reflects that problem...he can't participate here if he's attacked and tarred, or vilified.  Maybe we could drop the name-calling or questionable attributions and just deal with the topic?

 

 

 

Mac PNWRR's remarks are typical of his nasty attacks on anyone who does not agree with his ultra-right ideology.  For the record, climate change mitigation has nothing to do with socialism or any other political philosophy.   The first insulting comment by Atlantic Central was directed at CandO, for reasons unknown.  I think he misread the post.

Actually my political views are not socialist but I suppose when one is as far to the right, as so many posters on here are, a philosophy akin to Ike's seems like socialism.

 

When people make statements about where we should live and how we should commute, then yea, they do seem kinda twisted in a socialist kind of way.

It seems that when one leans so far to the left, and an opposing opinion is seen as a threat against them, they start using derogatory names towards the opposing opinion in hopes of branding a group as (fill in the blank) 

 

 

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein

http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/

RME
  • Member since
    March 2016
  • 2,073 posts
Posted by RME on Thursday, December 1, 2016 11:43 PM

Paul Milenkovic
The patent claims that this shaft coupling needs to be compliant (that is, springy), but it is remarkably coy on the mechanical arrangement of that coupling. A patent is supposed to disclose enough detail that "a person reasonably skilled in the art" can reproduce it, and as a matter of fact, I am reasonably skilled in the art of shaft couplings and I can't figure out what they are doing.

You're being too modest; part of what I find so interesting is that you're one of the experts in kinematics. 

I have to think that there is indeed some sort of either self-locating or self-restoring guiding to the gears, and the compliance is between the external part of the planetary gearing and the driven spool of the fan.  What immediately came to mind is those 'metamaterial' systems which are compliant but maintain constant dimensions when compressed or loaded along certain axes.  This might be the ideal thing to accomplish the disparate design desiderata called for in the patent discussion - I had thought, reading the PM and Bloomberg accounts, that there were long S-shaped vanes doing the actual connection (so the gearcase could float relative to whatever axis the fan rotates relative to, but still transmit very high torque) but that did not (at least to me) satisfy the condition where the barrel of the engine deflects or distorts.

  • Member since
    December 2007
  • From: Southeast Michigan
  • 2,983 posts
Posted by Norm48327 on Friday, December 2, 2016 4:55 AM

PNWRMNM

 

 
schlimm

There is no place for ideologues here. 

 

 

Well, I am thrilled that our resident progressive professor ideologue has issued that decree. Consider yourselves chastised by THE superior being of this forum. Take that you plebes!

Mac

 

Thumbs Up Thumbs Up

Norm


  • Member since
    July 2006
  • 9,610 posts
Posted by schlimm on Friday, December 2, 2016 9:28 AM

For the record:  Climate change mitigation has nothing to do with socialism or any other "ism."  It has to do with empirical science.   But some people Atlantic Central, PNWRR) like to smear others with labels at every opportunity.

C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan

  • Member since
    January 2014
  • 8,215 posts
Posted by Euclid on Friday, December 2, 2016 10:17 AM

Some people believe that climate change mitigation is socialism masquerading as empirical science.  At least it appears that way because manmade climate change theory just so happens to give the political left everything they have always wanted. 

Perhaps some of the world’s most strident labelers are those who like to smear their opponents of the climate change science with the label of “climate change denier” and all of the intolerant baggage that goes with that label.  The proponents’ inability to accept the questioning of their science strongly discredits that science.  

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • 9,610 posts
Posted by schlimm on Friday, December 2, 2016 10:41 AM

You can believe whatever you wish, but there is no evidence to back up a causal relationship between climate scientists engaging in an international conspiracy and socialism or any other economic system. What you suggest is a conspiracy on a scale that is absurd.  Since it resembles the thoughts of "flat earthers" in its view of science, the term deniers, though harsh, is accurate.

The overwhelming opinion of research scientists who examine climate is that warming is happening well beyond the normal range for thousands of years.  Exactly what portion is anthropogenic is the only question, but the prevailing opinion is that it is the largest component.  Most mitigation has been a function of the free market, such as the shift to natural gas and groth of solar and wond farms.  It is ironic that the US invented most of the alternatives (solar and wind turbine) yet we trail China and Germany badly in their manufacture.  I'm not going to speculate as to the reasons.

C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: US
  • 2,593 posts
Posted by PNWRMNM on Friday, December 2, 2016 11:13 AM

schlimm

You can believe whatever you wish, but there is no evidence to back up a causal relationship between climate scientists engaging in an international conspiracy and socialism or any other economic system. What you suggest is a conspiracy on a scale that is absurd.  

Of course the "Scientists" at East Anglia University were so committed to their fraud that they had to cook the data. Sounds like a conspiracy to me!

The "ism" the theory is being used to push is "statism", the ever expanding power of the state to control its own people. The American left is, and has been for decades, totaly committed to this whether they call it socialism, progressivism, or liberalism. Unfortunately even some on the right are drinking the global warming cool aid.

How is it that since the earth's climate has been growing more warm and dry for at least the last 20,000 years (the last round of continental glaciers peaked about 15,000 years ago, see any geology text book about Washington, Minnesota, or Wisconsin) anyone can claim that human beings are causing global warming?

Chicken little and the need to please the master is alive and well in acedemia. Power hungry bureaucrats pay for studies to "prove" global warming so the bureaucrats can convince the legislatures to impose ever more controls in the name of the new God of glabal warming. Of course the socialist/progressive/liberal politicians do not need the encouragement since they all know it is their bounden duty to control the despicable bitter clingers, to use their own words.

Mac

  • Member since
    July 2010
  • From: Louisiana
  • 2,310 posts
Posted by Paul of Covington on Friday, December 2, 2016 11:21 AM

   Amazing how many "realities" there are out there.

_____________ 

  "A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner

  • Member since
    December 2007
  • From: Southeast Michigan
  • 2,983 posts
Posted by Norm48327 on Friday, December 2, 2016 12:52 PM

If I may warp Paul's signature line somewhat:

"My mind's made up.   Don't confuse me with the facts."

The "facts" are made up. Don't confuse people with mind games.

Norm


  • Member since
    February 2003
  • From: Guelph, Ontario
  • 4,818 posts
Posted by Ulrich on Friday, December 2, 2016 1:03 PM

On climate change, it would be hard to believe that all of the pollution we've dumped into the atmosphere over the last 150 years has had no effect on the climate. How many billions of tons of coal alone have been consumed in that time frame? Not to mention trillions of tons of other stuff. The atmosphere is roughly 300 miles thick, with about 90 % of it below 10 miles. 

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • 9,610 posts
Posted by schlimm on Friday, December 2, 2016 1:57 PM

PNWRMNM
Chicken little and the need to please the master is alive and well in acedemia. Power hungry bureaucrats pay for studies to "prove" global warming so the bureaucrats can convince the legislatures to impose ever more controls in the name of the new God of glabal warming.

More conspiracies on a nearly intergalactic scale!!  Impressive.  Star

 

C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: US
  • 2,593 posts
Posted by PNWRMNM on Friday, December 2, 2016 2:42 PM

Thank you, but hardly intergalactic scale.

Mac

  • Member since
    July 2004
  • 2,741 posts
Posted by Paul Milenkovic on Friday, December 2, 2016 2:45 PM

schlimm
 
ATLANTIC CENTRAL

 

 
CandOforprogress2

Well...I just took Amtrak from Buffalo NY to Syracuse  NYfor 30.00 I dont think I could drive for less. and I got a nap. This is about behavoir modfication or social engineering. At what point do we make people move in closer to downtown and walk/bike/take the bus or train. Cheaper Oil makes that harder. Europe with its socialist model saw driving as a luxury to be taxed and Americans saw driving and the freedom of travel as there birthright.

 

 

 

My work is not "downtown", where do you propose to "make" me live?

Such a statement is either intended to bait responses, or shows the depth of the divide in this culture today.

To even consider the idea that the government, or anyone, could tell people where to live goes against every principle this nation was founded on.

Can I buy you a ticket to the Socialist country of your choice?

"The universal misery of capitalism is the unequal distribution of the blessings..the universal blessing of socialism is the equal distribution of the misery" - Winston Churchill

Sheldon

 

 

 

So now, whenever someone says something you do not like or understand, you attack his character with your McCarthyite smear tactics. There is no place for ideologues here.  Take it to one of the alt.right or Ayn Randian websites.  CandO was not telling you where to live.  You misread.

 

CandO can be directly quoted from the above as saying, "At what point do we make people move in closer to downtown and walk/bike/take the bus or train. Cheaper Oil makes that harder."  What part of "make people" do all of those virtuous things suggests that CandO is against compulsion?

CandO also goes on to say "Europe with its socialist model saw driving as a luxury to be taxed."  What part of "socialist model" is not calling our Western European trading partners with their better trains Socialist as in many of them have political parties called "Social Democratic" that advocated such taxes?

When Sheldon retorted "Can I buy you a ticket to the Socialist country of your choice?", how is that a McCarthyite smear, because by the definition offered by CandO in the original post, Socialist countries includes our Western European trading partners who tax cars and fund trains according to the program advocated by their Social Democratic political parties?

So Sheldon is asking CandO, "OK, if you think it is so great 'over there', can I help you move to England, France, or Germany where they have great trains while I can live here in the U.S. and drive my light-duty truck to run my non-downtown-located business?"  Maybe it is uncalled for to ask someone to leave our country for one of our first-world trading partners, but Sheldon wasn't asking anyone to move to Cuba?

But let's talk about Cuba.  A family member worked with someone at the U whose research encompasses making health care available to more people in our state, and that someone has made trips to Cuba.  For all the shade thrown at Mr. Castro since his recent passing from this life, it is said that Socialist Cuba has a pretty good health care system, at least one where on average, long life expectancy and low infant mortality puts the U.S. healthcare system to shame.  I hear that claim around the Web, and I also heard that claim through that someone at the U.

It is said that Cuba does a better job allocating resources within its health care system, and their system is much more affordable because doctors are paid a tenth of what they make here.  And how do they accomplish all of that, and how do they get away paying doctors that much?  Maybe they are not afraid of using the tools of compulsion to get everyone to go along?  That they jail people or in many cases execute people who don't "go along"?  Is it a McCarthyite smear to say that Casto's Cuba has not hesitated to bring the full punitive power of the state to compel people who have, for whatever personal or philosophical reasons, resisted?

What price compulsion?  That someone at the U who has said that Cuba's healthcare system is really pretty good, and there are other people saying the same thing, that someone who has visited Cuba admitted, "But the people there are seriously calorie restricted."  Calorie restricted, is that a polite way to say that people in Cuba don't get enough to eat?  Maybe that is why they are so healthy because they can't eat whatever they want and get Type 2 Diabetes and heart disease and everything else?  Their health care is great, but they don't get enough to eat?  How does that work in a tropical country where fruit trees grow out of sidewalk cracks that they don't get enough to eat?  A political system has to work hard to accomplish that outcome.

What price compulsion?  I guess if we stifle dissent around here against the program of advocating for passenger trains "There is no place for ideologues here", we can get better passenger trains, sooner.  They tell me "There is no place for ideologues here" had been enforced pretty vigorously in Cuba under Mr. Castro's leadership, and before you accuse me of McCarthyite "smearing", you reason to disagree that they do have a pretty good healthcare system in Cuba?

"CandO was not telling you were to live.  You misread."  I suppose I misread too, when I read, "At what point do we make people move in closer to downtown and walk/bike/take the bus or train. Cheaper Oil makes that harder." 

What price compelling people to do things for the betterment of society (i.e., Socialism).  How many fingers am I holding up, Winston? 

If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?

Join our Community!

Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.

Search the Community

Newsletter Sign-Up

By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy