Electrification, Why not tax incentives?

[oltmannd]

A guy drives a 3 ton SUV that gets 10 mpg.  Another guy drives a 1-1/2 ton sedan that gets 40 mpg.  They both use up nearly the same highway capacity and so approximately the same damage to the highway, so why does the SUV driver have to pay 4x more? 

Regarding this problem of high efficiency vehicles escaping gas tax, you probably have heard about the plan to put state GPS in our vehicles that would charge road tax by the mile rather than by the gallon of fuel.  The tax would still be collected at the gas pump, added onto the fuel purchase, but as a mileage fee rather than a gallon tax.  This turns every road into a toll road and every gas station into a tollbooth.  This is currently being talked about and tested, and I expect it to materialize as the law of the land.  Of course the beauty of this system is that once you get the state mileage tracker installed as mandatory equipment, there is so much more it can do.

Sounds like quite a "price" to pay to be offered up at the altar of "fairness".  

[Anonymous]

A guy drives a 3 ton SUV that gets 10 mpg.  Another guy drives a 1-1/2 ton sedan that gets 40 mpg.  They both use up nearly the same highway capacity and so approximately the same damage to the highway, so why does the SUV driver have to pay 4x more? 

Regarding this problem of high efficiency vehicles escaping gas tax, you probably have heard about the plan to put state GPS in our vehicles that would charge road tax by the mile rather than by the gallon of fuel.  The tax would still be collected at the gas pump, added onto the fuel purchase, but as a mileage fee rather than a gallon tax.  This turns every road into a toll road and every gas station into a tollbooth.  This is currently being talked about and tested, and I expect it to materialize as the law of the land.  Of course the beauty of this system is that once you get the state mileage tracker installed as mandatory equipment, there is so much more it can do.

 

[oltmannd]

Ohltmannd said,

"If ever there was a distorted user tax, it's the gasoline tax."

I took a tour bus out of San Diego a few years ago to get deeper into Mexico than I could do on foot.  The driver was a former Mexican national now a US citizen.  On the way south we seemed to stop every few miles to pay a toll for passage through the next section of highway.  The driver thought this was a grand idea since, "people who do not use the road do not have to pay taxes to build the road."  I told him is was sort of the same in the US where the gasoline taxes pay for the construction.  If you do not drive on the highway you do not have purchase fuel and pay the fuel taxes.  The difference is in the US we do not have to pay for all the toll collectors to collect the fuel taxes.

So you have to pay for the roads one way or another.  The fuel taxes seem to be a way to better equalize the costs of construction with the utilization of the highway.    

I'm OK with fuel taxes to pay for roads.  It's a pretty good compromise, but you gotta admit, it's not a perfect system.  I'll play devils advocate.

Why not EZ-pass?  A low cost way to collect tolls.  Collecting the gas tax is not cost free.

A little old lady drive to church and the grocery store strictly on county roads.  She pays for these road with her property tax.  She still has to pay the state and federal fuel taxes.

A guy drives a 3 ton SUV that gets 10 mpg.  Another guy drives a 1-1/2 ton sedan that gets 40 mpg.  They both use up nearly the same highway capacity and so approximately the same damage to the highway, so why does the SUV driver have to pay 4x more?  Similarly, an 40 ton semi does 9600x the damage to the highway that the sedan does, so why doesn't he pay 9600x more?

If you're guided by an ideology that tries to draw fine, bright lines around things and has decided that gas taxes should ONLY go for road construction and maintence, you could very well wind up with a transportation network where each mode is optimized but the whole transportation system is suboptimized.  RRs have been making the pitch that public investment in RRs can mitigate traffic congestion more efficiently than investment in addtional highway lanes.  An interesting idea as is the notion of giving RRs a bit of an economic boost to electrify in order to improve the national energy, transportation and environmental picture, but you have to erase some of those fine, bright lines, or at least smudge'm a bit.

 

[oltmannd]

Tax incentives always distort the legitimate investment decision making process. .....Government incentives distort investment markets. Distorted markets don't make rational decisions.

 WAAAAAY back on page one of this mess, you make this blanket statement and then when you have your feet held to the fire you start the tap dance, blame game and name game.

Not since Moses have there been any grand, sweeping statements or principles chiselled in stone that have settled anything for us humans. 

Blanket statements that are, at their root, an opinion, do not help develop facts, improve a discussion or often lead to anything of much use.  Americans have always, and continue to discuss, argue and disagree on the proper role of government in the economic affairs of the nation.  That is at the root of this thread.

Guys who throw out blanket statement opinions and try to pass them off as wisdom really get under my skin.  If your goal was to get under my skin, then you win.

I'm done now ('till the next time! )

 

[arbfbe]

Ohltmannd said,

"If ever there was a distorted user tax, it's the gasoline tax."

I took a tour bus out of San Diego a few years ago to get deeper into Mexico than I could do on foot.  The driver was a former Mexican national now a US citizen.  On the way south we seemed to stop every few miles to pay a toll for passage through the next section of highway.  The driver thought this was a grand idea since, "people who do not use the road do not have to pay taxes to build the road."  I told him is was sort of the same in the US where the gasoline taxes pay for the construction.  If you do not drive on the highway you do not have purchase fuel and pay the fuel taxes.  The difference is in the US we do not have to pay for all the toll collectors to collect the fuel taxes.

So you have to pay for the roads one way or another.  The fuel taxes seem to be a way to better equalize the costs of construction with the utilization of the highway.    

 

[selector]

Somebody just got spanked.

Dude, are you watching the Paris Hilton Jail-Cam too?

Yeah, that, too.

[MichaelSol]

You draw mighty fine lines like they really have meaning.  In the end, work is accomplished.  The only only choices we have is who does what, when and how. 

This offers "fine lines" between market economies, Marxism, National Socialism, or for that matter, slavery. "In the end" they all accomplish "work".

This is economic gibberish.

[oltmannd]

 

I think government is capable of making good investment decisions.  Erie Canal, Hoover Dam, Sugarloaf Parkway.

Well, you don't know what an "investment" is. You have named three public works projects. These weren't judged for rate of return. There was no "tax incentive" to any private entity -- these were owned by the public. Look at the thread topic: "Electrification, why not tax incentives?" How do you provide a tax incentive for Hoover Dam -- to the government? A tax incentive for the entity that levies the taxes? Pray tell: how does that work?

You reach to public works projects which have about as nothing much to do with this as can be. This underscores my point that your thinking on this is ad hoc: you haven't thought much of this through to any coherent position -- just arguing.

 

You draw mighty fine lines like they really have meaning.  In the end, work is accomplished.  The only only choices we have is who does what, when and how. 

[Anonymous]

Somebody just got spanked.

Dude, are you watching the Paris Hilton Jail-Cam too?

[Anonymous]

 

I understand and have sympathy for your point of view.  But unfortunately for some problems, by the time it's obvious and convincing it is too late or excessively expensive to correct.  The evidence of Global warming is pretty overwhelming.

What is your evidence of anthropogenic global warming? 

Evidence of Global warming:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/science/earth/16gree.html?ex=1326603600&en=b018c85a1b03d90f&ei=5090

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4857832.stm

Not exactly extremist outfits either.  Anthropogenic is your word not mine

"Anthropogenic" is my word?!

"Anthropogenic" literally means "man-caused", which of course is what you are espousing with your anthropogenic solutions to a *problem* that is only a *problem* due to the supposed anthropogenic causal factors.  If this whole climate change debate wasn't predicated on an anthropogenic cause, the current observed climate change would not be hyperbolized as a *problem*.

As for whether the New York Times and those others are extremist or not, you can use this simple test:  Do these outfits include all comprehensive and critical variables in deriving their conclusions, or do they purposefully omit crucial variables in deriving their conclusions? 

I'll ask you this - Can we agree that for the sake of this discussion, those who omit such variables should fall into the extremist category, while those who are inclusive of comprehensive variables are the mainstream advocates?

Assuming you agree.......

 

What the effects are and what we can to do to successfully affect it are not clear.  But waiting is also a choice with consequences not well understood.  I favor trying to reduce or prevent our impact on climate change.  I think the risk on this is too great to do otherwise - I just hope we're not late.

CO2 from smokestacks and tailpipes as a percentage of the entire greenhouse effect potential:  < 1/10 of 1 %.

What does that tell you?

Significant surface warming has now been observed on the other planets and moons in our solar system.

What does that tell you?

Back to you for your evidence and relevance.

CO2 as a percentage of all greenhouse gases and the total greenhouse effect:

http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

Observed warming of other planetary bodies in our solar system:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/05/global-warming-on-jupiter.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece

Now, if you can discern which side is omitting information that is relevent to the discussion, perhaps you will finally realize that you are on the wrong side, unless of course if comprehensive factualization means nothing to you......

 

Please, for the sake of the survival of our representative democracy and our Western way of life......will you people in the global warming cult who ostensibly love the country at least try and put two and two together?

We're talking survival of the world here, democracy and the Western world  included.  Can you at least try  to understand the magnitude of the problem.

I do understand what the problem is, you do not.  The problem is one of a quasi-religious faction that has hijacked legitimate science for the sake of a political end game.  It is not one of a *man-made* disaster waiting to kill us all.

2 + 2 =_______________

[selector]

Somebody just got spanked.

[MichaelSol]

 

I think government is capable of making good investment decisions.  Erie Canal, Hoover Dam, Sugarloaf Parkway.

Well, you don't know what an "investment" is. You have named three public works projects. These weren't judged for rate of return. There was no "tax incentive" to any private entity -- these were owned by the public. Look at the thread topic: "Electrification, why not tax incentives?" How do you provide a tax incentive for Hoover Dam -- to the government? A tax incentive for the entity that levies the taxes? Pray tell: how does that work?

You reach to public works projects which have about as nothing much to do with this as can be. This underscores my point that your thinking on this is ad hoc: you haven't thought much of this through to any coherent position -- just arguing.

 

[oltmannd]

If ever there was a distorted user tax, it's the gasoline tax. 

Well, these are the same folks that you hope, think or wish, I can't tell, are making your decisions for you "in the best possible manner." Are you suggesting they don't do a very good job of it? You don't like the gas tax, which appears to be quite a burden on truckers compared to the costs of operating a rail system, but as an admirer of Paul Samuelson, you would like to see very high property taxes on property owners such as railroads.

Whew. I am gathering you haven't thought all this out yet.

I didn't say I didn't like it.  I just said it was a distorted user tax.  I'm not the anti-distortion guy, you are!  I just think you are naive in thinking there is a distortion-free macro environment out there to be had. 

Baloney. What I see is a muddled series of propositions that somehow suggest that tax incentives are "good" in some fashion because you think their creators somehow have good intentions or do a better job deciding what investment decisions should be made.

I hardly think there is a distortion free environment, and your perception of anyone's naivete I do think is colored by your ideas that tax incentives have no effect on taxes you pay, that Paul Samuelson is someone you will "stick with" notwithstanding his regard for heavy taxation -- "heavy" -- of real property, and a series of other odd and contradictory assertions. Ultimately, you seem to suggest that distortions are a good idea -- because Congress makes the "best" decisions. Your word.  On that point we disagree, and I do think that is naive on your part.

I don't think Congress makes good investment decisions, and the weight of experience and economic opinion I think overwhelmingly supports that view.

I don't happen to think tax incentives for electrification are a good idea. When its time comes, its time comes. You have arranged a cascading series of posts that seem to argue something -- it is hard exactly to tell what. I amgathering from the nature of the thread topic that your incessantly contrarian posts indicate you favor electrification tax subsidies. This likely would reduce the incentive for new investment in diesel engine designs or other mobile power source modes. Why should Congress make that determination? Campaign contributions?

Bologna?

Man, you keep putting words in my mouth!  Electrification is an interesting idea, for a lot of reasons.  Whether I think a federal distortion is a good idea depends entirely on the details. 

I think government is capable of making good investment decisions.  Erie Canal, Hoover Dam, Sugarloaf Parkway.

[ericboone]

I mis-read a timeline of the days events and made a mistake.  For that I humbly apoligize.  My bad.  I feel so ashamed.

[n012944]

1435mm,

Why is your location listed as a specific seat on a specific plane type?  That seat happens to be the seat occupied by one of the mass murdering terrorists who hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 757-222, and crashed it into the south tower of the WTC on September 11, 2001.  Is this your idea of a sick joke, a bad coincedence, or do you idolize mass murderers?

Might want to get your facts straight there buddy.  United flight 175 was a 767-222, tail number N612UA. 

 

Bert

[MichaelSol]

If ever there was a distorted user tax, it's the gasoline tax. 

Well, these are the same folks that you hope, think or wish, I can't tell, are making your decisions for you "in the best possible manner." Are you suggesting they don't do a very good job of it? You don't like the gas tax, which appears to be quite a burden on truckers compared to the costs of operating a rail system, but as an admirer of Paul Samuelson, you would like to see very high property taxes on property owners such as railroads.

Whew. I am gathering you haven't thought all this out yet.

I didn't say I didn't like it.  I just said it was a distorted user tax.  I'm not the anti-distortion guy, you are!  I just think you are naive in thinking there is a distortion-free macro environment out there to be had. 

Baloney. What I see is a muddled series of propositions that somehow suggest that tax incentives are "good" in some fashion because you think their creators somehow have good intentions or do a better job deciding what investment decisions should be made.

I hardly think there is a distortion free environment, and your perception of anyone's naivete I do think is colored by your ideas that tax incentives have no effect on taxes you pay, that Paul Samuelson is someone you will "stick with" notwithstanding his regard for heavy taxation -- "heavy" -- of real property, and a series of other odd and contradictory assertions. Ultimately, you seem to suggest that distortions are a good idea -- because Congress makes the "best" decisions. Your word.  On that point we disagree, and I do think that is naive on your part.

I don't think Congress makes good investment decisions, and the weight of experience and economic opinion I think overwhelmingly supports that view.

I don't happen to think tax incentives for electrification are a good idea. When its time comes, its time comes. You have arranged a cascading series of posts that seem to argue something -- it is hard exactly to tell what. I amgathering from the nature of the thread topic that your incessantly contrarian posts indicate you favor electrification tax subsidies. This likely would reduce the incentive for new investment in diesel engine designs or other mobile power source modes. Why should Congress make that determination? Campaign contributions?

 

 

 

[oltmannd]

If ever there was a distorted user tax, it's the gasoline tax. 

Well, these are the same folks that you hope, think or wish, I can't tell, are making your decisions for you "in the best possible manner." Are you suggesting they don't do a very good job of it? You don't like the gas tax, which appears to be quite a burden on truckers compared to the costs of operating a rail system, but as an admirer of Paul Samuelson, you would like to see very high property taxes on property owners such as railroads.

Whew. I am gathering you haven't thought all this out yet.

I didn't say I didn't like it.  I just said it was a distorted user tax.  I'm not the anti-distortion guy, you are!  I just think you are naive in thinking there is a distortion-free macro environment out there to be had. 

We, in the US have decided to fund and build transportation by mode, using a completely different set of rules for each.  That, right there, is a distortion.  In fact, we even divide roads up into different kinds and fund each kind differently. 

Is it bad?  Is it good?  Most Americans seem to be reasonalbly content with the status-quo, so maybe it ain't all bad.  Could it be better?  Sure.  Worse?  No doubt.  Doubtful, though, that we'd ever get 100% consensus on "better" or "worse".  Personally, I'd like to see a higher fuel tax with the proceeds aimed toward R&D funding, improving the investment climate and increasing the use of alternative fuel/energy. (most definitely a distortion!)

Very high property national tax as compared to existing taxation structure and possible alternates such as the "Fair Tax"?   Per acre?  Per appraised value?  With improvments?  Local and state gov't land excluded?  The devil is always in the detail.  I don't have any ideology that drives my opinion w.r.t which kind of tax is better for what purpose.

[oltmannd]

    

I don't care which pocket of mine Uncle Sam reaches into to grab a dollar, it's still a dollar out of my pocket.  Once they have it, I just want them to use in it the best possible manner.

I don't care which pocket they reach into either, but I do care about how many dollars they grab.  And we do have a say about that.  I think it pays to be wary, no matter how much they promise to use it wisely.

No, duh!

[MichaelSol]

If ever there was a distorted user tax, it's the gasoline tax. 

Well, these are the same folks that you hope, think or wish, I can't tell, are making your decisions for you "in the best possible manner." Are you suggesting they don't do a very good job of it? You don't like the gas tax, which appears to be quite a burden on truckers compared to the costs of operating a rail system, but as an admirer of Paul Samuelson, you would like to see very high property taxes on property owners such as railroads.

Whew. I am gathering you haven't thought all this out yet.

[Anonymous]

    

I don't care which pocket of mine Uncle Sam reaches into to grab a dollar, it's still a dollar out of my pocket.  Once they have it, I just want them to use in it the best possible manner.

I don't care which pocket they reach into either, but I do care about how many dollars they grab.  And we do have a say about that.  I think it pays to be wary, no matter how much they promise to use it wisely.

[ericboone]

For those of you that read this, I mis-read a web page and was wrong.  I humbly apoligize for my error.  I have deleted the original text to prevent anyone from taking my mistake further.

[MichaelSol]

I don't care which pocket of mine Uncle Sam reaches into to grab a dollar, it's still a dollar out of my pocket.  Once they have it, I just want them to use in it the best possible manner.

A faith-based initiative, judging by the faith expressed in politicians here. I can almost believe you are in favor of full rate regulation, too. Your faith in the regulatory and discretionary power of government is impressive.

I think this gets to the heart of a misunderstanding. A tax incentive lowers taxes paid. Doesn't lower the budget. Just gives a tax break to some special, no doubt deserving person or company who or which has pledged to use his tax break "in the best possible manner."

OK, so that leaves the budget. Who makes up the tax share formerly paid by that special deserving person or company?

That dollar out of your pocket just became $1.10.

Unlike the market, you won't get a return on your new "investment" because the privilege for that was handed over the stockholders of the company that got the tax break. And if you're not a stockholder in that company, you might wonder why the government just handed a bunch of stockholders some of your money.

Rest assured, as your $1.10 vanishes. They all have the "best" intentions. Now, hand it over or go to jail. That's something your stockbroker probably doesn't say to you every day when you go and make real investment decisions with your own money, as opposed to the ten cents you just invested, ultimately, at gunpoint, because someone else "had the best intentions."

Perhaps you do, in fact, believe that Chuck Schumer or someone like him can use your money in the "best possible manner" -- your words -- and that by your use of the word "best" imply that your ability to use it productively, for investment purposes, is inherently inferior to the judgment of the Congress of the United States.

Your judgment of yourself notwithstanding, a market economy works best when investors have the courage to trust in their own judgment skills. Tax incentives interfere with that. Period.

 

[oltmannd]

   

I'll stick with Samuelson.....

.....who apparently is a disciple of Karl Marx.

Samuelson is a mainsteam economist, unlike the radical, but brilliant, Friedman. 

Samuelson believed that high property taxes, presumably including railroad property, was a positive good, whereas Friedman did not.

"Our ideal society finds it essential to put a rent on land as a way of maximizing the total consumption available to the society. ...Pure land rent is in the nature of a 'surplus' which can be taxed heavily without distorting production incentives or efficiency. A land value tax can be called 'the useful tax on measured land surplus'." -Mainstream Paul Samuelson, Nobel laureate in Economics (1970).

"Yes, there are taxes I like. For example, the gasoline tax, which pays for highways. You have a user tax" - The Radical Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate in Economics (1976).

If ever there was a distorted user tax, it's the gasoline tax. 

I don't care which pocket of mine Uncle Sam reaches into to grab a dollar, it's still a dollar out of my pocket.  Once they have it, I just want them to use in it the best possible manner.

Is the European distortion any better or worse than the US distortion?  Different strokes for different folks!

[MichaelSol]

There is no such thing as a market that doesn't have a politcal distortion!!!  As soon as there were 3 people on the planet, all markets became distorted.

Distorting them as much as possible is a cure for ... what?

Are you proposing a solution?

Or a problem?

 

[MichaelSol]

Four fouls and you're out in schoolyard kickball......

You have what appears to be a real need to always put this junk in here ...

[oltmannd]

Does it really matter which method gov't uses to distort a market?

Whew. If you believe that governments should distort markets, apparently not. Tax away; or tax credit away. We have had such good results from both.

  Is it possible to judge the distortion as "bad" if the result is the on the citizenry desires? 

Yes, it is. Distortions are just that: distortions. They're not real. They are polticized judgments that presuppose that the people making the decisions actually understand what they are doing in economic terms -- as opposed to thousands of incremental investment decisions made by buyers and sellers daily which account for market conditions.

Were air bags a distortion? You bet. The politicians were going to "save lives." So they did -- adult lives, while dramatically increasing the death rate of children.

High cigarette taxes? Raises money off people's weaknesses? Hard to argue with, right?

Except the high tax rate differential is being used to fund terrorism:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23384-2004Jun7?language=printer

Nice.

The problem with politically imposed market distortions is the law of unintended consequences -- imposed by politicians on other people's money.

If Chuck Schumer wants to support railway electrification, he can buy some stock and invest his own money in it. I happen to think it's a good idea. I just don't want to be told by Congress that I will be forced to contribute to it.

Schumer = , but that's irrelevant.

There is no such thing as a market that doesn't have a politcal distortion!!!  As soon as there were 3 people on the planet, all markets became distorted.

Four fouls and you're out in schoolyard kickball......

 

[MichaelSol]

   

I'll stick with Samuelson.....

.....who apparently is a disciple of Karl Marx.

Samuelson is a mainsteam economist, unlike the radical, but brilliant, Friedman. 

Samuelson believed that high property taxes, in particular, were a positive good.

"Our ideal society finds it essential to put a rent on land as a way of maximizing the total consumption available to the society. ...Pure land rent is in the nature of a 'surplus' which can be taxed heavily without distorting production incentives or efficiency. A land value tax can be called 'the useful tax on measured land surplus'." -Mainstream Paul Samuelson, Nobel laureate in Economics (1970).

"Yes, there are taxes I like. For example, the gasoline tax, which pays for highways. You have a user tax" - The Radical Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate in Economics (1976).

I'll stick with Friedman.

 

[MichaelSol]

Does it really matter which method gov't uses to distort a market?

Whew. If you believe that governments should distort markets, apparently not. Tax away; or tax credit away. We have had such good results from both.

  Is it possible to judge the distortion as "bad" if the result is the on the citizenry desires? 

Yes, it is. Distortions are just that: distortions. They're not based on a market reality -- they are designed to distort it. They are built upon someone's perception of what it ought to be, when it isn't. They are polticized judgments that presuppose that the people making the decisions actually understand what they are doing in economic terms -- as opposed to thousands of incremental investment decisions made by buyers and sellers daily which account for market conditions.

Were air bags a distortion? You bet. The politicians were going to "save lives." So they did -- adult lives, while dramatically increasing the death rate of children.

High cigarette taxes? Raises money off people's weaknesses? Hard to argue with, right?

Except the high tax rate differential is being used to fund terrorism:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23384-2004Jun7?language=printer

Nice.

The problem with politically imposed market distortions is the law of unintended consequences -- imposed by politicians on other people's money.

If Chuck Schumer wants to support railway electrification, he can buy some stock and invest his own money in it. I happen to think it's a good idea. I just don't want to be told by Congress that I will be forced to contribute to it, because that allocates my resources to suit someone else's idea of a current "good," and I may not agree. Yes, it distorts everything that makes markets a positive economic force because it destroys the market evaluation in favor of political judgments.

 

[MichaelSol]

If you want to find the truth don't listen to JB Hunt, watch what he does. 

That would be a tedious and unrewarding exercise.

He's dead.

No, duh!

Lots of good, intelligent, incisive schoolyard stuff from you these days. What's up ...

Irrelevant sarcasm vs. schoolyard stuff.  Anybody giving odds?

Well, you managed to do both. Congratulations. Why are you trying to change this into another purely personal insult thread? You've been doing this a lot lately. Lot's of personal asides; cute little clown faces. Do adults really do that stuff? Even on the internet? Weird anger at JB Hunt that seems personal. Can't stay on topic. What's the problem?

 

[Anonymous]

Irrelevant sarcasm vs. schoolyard stuff.  Anybody giving odds?

I looked around and we seem to have plenty of company out here on the 4' 8-1/2" schoolyard.  But who cares anyway what happens on this forum?  This is just for entertainment in between arguing about undocumented change orders, 72-day invoices, survey screwups, bad meets, why 6" base rail really is important, why we can't have a Y/G for aggregate braking, and all the other agony that goes into generating my paycheck.

S. Hadid