My bad, it was the very last thing the OP said. But either way we’re in agreement profits aren’t the way to measure success of a public service.
Anyway, I’ve learned it’s pretty impossible to have a reasonable discussion with someone suffering from “China bad”-ism
The federal government pays Californian companies to make bombs. They also enlist and pay Californian residents to use those bombs, or otherwise get them in the hands of someone that will.
Instead, the federal government should pay Californian residents to do peaceful things. Like build trains.
The biggest cost of the big dig was the opportunity cost. The state let the mbta (the metro and commuter rail) fall into a state of comical disrepair. Trains aren’t supposed to catch fire or derail as often as the T does
The Acela is a pathetic excuse for HSR. If you’re going from Boston to DC, it only really saves a couple hours compared to the normal train, and it’s still like 6 jours more than flying (or something like that). According to Wikipedia, the fastest scheduled time between Boston and NY is 3hr30m, which averages to 66mph. That’s not really high speed. The problem is theres only a few places the track actually allows for high speed
Why not just spend less on killing Muslims?
Well, we’re about to commit trillions of dollars for war against Iran to help out our apartheid client state. So if we can avoid that, we can use the savings to build rail! :)
It is disingenuous to argue that High Speed Rail is profitable in China
Good thing that’s not what OP or anyone else in here was arguing. Like you said, it’s a public good. It doesn’t need to be profitable to serve the public interest. In fact, profits run counter to the public interest. So why bring it up?
HSR is much more difficult in the US as the rights of private property are respected and projects need to pass a much higher threshold of review
We have eminent domain, and HSR has been built in Europe despite stricter envirobmental regulations.
There are many major infrastructure projects in China that turn out to be poorly planned and executed years after they have been completed.
Wow. Couldn’t happen in the US. Never.
I wonder if engineers protested getting rid of the buttons. Who’s responsible for that terrible design trend?
I have a Toyota from around then, and yeah it’s the best. The great thing about that era is the milage is decent, and also I think it’s when abs and traction control became standard on all cars. So I have a manual transmission and aux cord, but it’s not ancient, it’s still very safe and efficient
triggered
the polls showed Hillary was going to trounce Trump pretty handedly.
Not true. She was within the margin of error in the swing states.
I think Fivethityeight’s explanation went something like…
Don’t confuse 538’s model with polls. 538 takes polling data as an input, and then runs simulations that output the odds which side will win.
Polls don’t measure the odds a candidate will win, they measure how many people would vote a certain way if the election were held today. Predictive models take that data and do a lot more than simply average the results.
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Not full bones, though. Just shards of bone that can seriously injure you
It’s also so fucking funny when Trump turns on someone. Can’t wait to see it happen with Vance
That Germany, of all countries, could fail to prevent a surge in reactionary antidemocratic politics suggests **there’s something eternal and enduring about the reactionary spirit. **
LMAO. Reactionary antidemocratic politics in Germany?!🧐 I’m shocked
Yes. I’m a leftist, not someone that blindly follows charismatic politicians. And Im not gonna oppose something just because a politician I dislike advocates for it. Policy>personality
I also disagree with Pelosi’s reasoning for wanting Biden to drop out. She just thinks he can’t win. I think Joe should step aside since he enacts genocidal policies.
Probably Kamala or a Dem governor. The delegates at the DNC would likely vote based off who is polling the best
60% of Dems want Biden to step aside. But he’s not. So that’s a problem.
Yes! The whole “lawyers are evil money grabbers” is a corporate psy-op. They want you to think it’s unreasonable for a person to sue a corporation when the corporation’s actions are harmful. They also want you to think defense attorneys are people who just look for technicalities to free guilty people.
They created armies of lawyers for themselves, while making americans distrustful of the ones fighting for normal people. We used to think of lawyers like Atticus Finch or Perry Mason. But now we just think of Saul Goodman and Lionel Hutz.