2.1 Billion Doesn’t Getcha What It Used To

Green Line train derailed yesterday.

While rolling down a flat street with a midday-sized cargo of passengers.

How do you even do that?

Hey, good luck, Super Bowl fans! You’ll have this turkey on wheels all to yourself.

54 thoughts on “2.1 Billion Doesn’t Getcha What It Used To

  1. The Super Bowl preparations are, likewise, a boondoggle. We (taxpayers) foot the bill for big party for the uber-rich (seats at the game are going for $3k-$4k). We’re promised economic activity which, time after time, town after town, have failed to materialize. The guess is MN spent not less than $200m on this weeklong rave, there’s no chance at all that will be repaid.

    Just like this dumbass, budget-busting tax cut. Trickle-down fails, the CBO and the tax commission both have said it will never repay the debt it will create. Further making it bad, that the VAST majority of the benefit will go to the wealthy, and many in the middle-class and the poor will pay more in taxes over the long haul. Yet another example of a hand-out to the rich, shifting that burden on the rest of us. Unless you favor getting rid of Social Security and Meidicare (which I know you do, but then let’s have that debate), what’s going on here is the bankrupting of our government. Handout to the rich, the rest of us foot the bill.

    So, while I don’t like the fact that the light rail system isn’t perfect, who would? It pales to insignificance in terms of corruption, malfeasance and irresponsibility next to this “Tax Reform” which closed no loopholes, and is going to further bankrupt the government.

    Last, since I know you won’t cover this, this morning Michael Flynn was indicted. Please accept that I have said the following in the past. When Trump threatened Comey over Flynn, he did so because he knew Flynn had the goods on him, Trump doesn’t protect anyone (outside maybe Ivanka). The Repubs ONLY care about tax cuts and hand-outs for the rich. Once this tax bill is passed, and once Flynn flips, the Repubs are going to abandon Trump and let Mueller go after him, and frankly probably will even help, because they (rightly) detest Trump. He’s an odious jerk, stupid in a way Washington has rarely seen, offensive to both Washington elitism, but even more importantly, offensive to basic standards of decent conduct. They, the Repubs, are ready, willing and able to have Mike Pence take Trump’s job, and I think they’ll HELP Mueller and impeach Trump so that they can have Flynn. I think Pence is so far off the reservation on policy that he’ll struggle as a President, but he does at least, bring some sense of propriety, he’s not likely to needlessly sabre-rattle at North Korea, and he’s completely unlikely to engage in money laundering, kickbacks and payoffs with/from Russian Mafioso oligarch BFFs of Putin, and equally unlikely to engage in treasonous conduct to compromise our elections, like allegedly the man who may be impeached, and rightly so. If you love this country, this man, this stinking pile of Benedict Arnold excrement, must go. That your party allowed him to remain in office this long, until the tax bill was passed, is a far bigger indictment of the Party than was the election of Trump in the first place.

  2. I don’t believe you can find any evidence that I derailed the train solely by stacking pennies on the track.

  3. I would guess that a significant obstruction, like a rock or something, could bounce a wheel out of the tracks. Probably an inherent hazard of grade level trains not analyzed in their FMEAs, or deliberately downplayed. And given that the ground path of the power to the trains is in those rails, I’d guess the whole sector/system had to be shut down to fix the problem.

    Great design, guys.

  4. BTW, Mitch, how many maintenance related issues surface each day with US airlines or rail carriers? Just curious if you think their incidence of failure is greater or smaller than that of the light rail system in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

  5. Ugh… the tags are invisible. That was supposed to be a pre-emptive post before one of eTASS’ sock puppets derails the post.

  6. People want to pretend Minneapolis/St. Paul is some dense metro area like London or New York. There are not enough people within walking distance of stations. You have to drive to get to stations. For the same money, we could have more buses passing through neighborhoods during commuting hours. Which makes more sense for our area.

  7. It takes a while for libturds to jump on the train. Comprehension and logic are not their strong suit as resident trolls have demonstrated here time and time again.

  8. Man, I love Penigma comments. I almost expected to read a Howard Dean-like Yergh! at the end.

  9. Wrong comparison, Pen. The question at hand is how much an equally useful bus or automotive system would cost (answer: far less), and whether a disabled bus can snarl traffic for an entire area of the city (answer: no, you just tow it away). You also have the question of stopping distance for a bus/car when an obstacle is encountered (answer: far less).

    It’s worth noting as well that the train there is a lane or two off the track–given that the carriages are 50 tons and built, more or less, on a thick plate of steel, you could have had a LOT of fatalities if drivers/cyclists had been in the way. Not impossible in a bus, but far less likely.

    Regarding heavy freight rail and airplanes, let’s just say that there are a few reasons, some of which I’ve mentioned above, why they’re not generally found running along streets at grade level in big cities. Hence it’s a false/wrong comparison. Railroads and airlines are, it seems, smarter than the Met Council this way.

  10. To draw a picture about the stopping ability of light rail, the Siemens system used in Houston stops at about 1.34m/s^2. Going from 55mph to a full stop would require 20 seconds and 800 feet. Contrast that with the ~ 150′ stopping distance for a typical car, or 300′ for a bus.

    You are the one being stopped for. Which one do you want the city to use? Pretty easy answer in my book.

  11. Penigma: Meet my new favorite video. Also look at the whole thread https://twitter.com/NARNfan/status/936531155964317697

    When any level of government does anything but ***genuine public goods*** it’s all graft, waste and rent seeking. When the bond market collapses we will all become libertarians the hard way.

    Mises.org is right about everything

  12. Penigma:

    Why do you believe in central planning? Why do you believe in government actuarial science? Why do you like government produced non-public goods?

    Why do we have so many wars?

    tia

  13. The ONLY thing Choo Choos are good at since WW2 are shoehorning people into or past areas that need this. Like getting past the g d Lowery Hill Tunnel. Or getting into the Airport. You can make a case for a small light rail in this town but not all of this hub and spoke Soviet treat-us-all like-lab-rats crap.

  14. Hey, Penigma!

    Can the Fed ***guess*** the right interest rate so they can cram it down our throats?

    Or what is that institution for?

    Tell me.

  15. Hey, Penigma!

    Why is there inequality?

    Why do we have a non-disbursed prosperity?

    Why do we have a Plutocracy?

    Why is the vast majority of the Ruling Class a bunch worthless backscratchers?

  16. Hey, Penigma!

    What do you think of the Education Cartel?

    What do you think of the Medicine and Insurance Cartel?

    Why is shelter so damn overprice for so many in this country?

    Should we organize? Do we need to vote better?

    LOL

  17. Does anyone or everyone remember the incident a couple of years ago when the power lines iced up and the choo choo trains couldn’t run? Meanwhile, busses and cars were zipping along the streets.

    And, remember last year when it was revealed that light rail revenues were over $1 million short on fares vs riders? It seems that a lot of libturds are hitching free rides. Of course, white privilege is probably their justification.

  18. “People want to pretend Minneapolis/St. Paul is some dense metro area like London or New York. There are not enough people within walking distance of stations. You have to drive to get to stations.”

    WTF??? Now Emery is plagarizing me?

    Well played, smegma boy, well played

  19. Pingback: In The Mailbox: 12.01.17 : The Other McCain

  20. Penigma: If we raise taxes, will that increase the GDP? Will it grow ****genuinely productive areas*** (not healthcare or education) of the economy?

  21. Just to be clear, we really ought to tax the crap out of ***everyone*** until we make some genuine fiscal improvements. Kevin Williamson says this all the time and he’s right.

    But we will….do something else, depending on who is Ruling Over Us.

  22. When the 10 year treasury hits 4%, the USA is broke. Human needs won’t be met.

    If you don’t get that much interest on fiat money, ***all*** actuarial systems breakdown. All fiat savings gets more and more worthless, too. If you aren’t a good speculator, you are screwed. #VoteSocialist

    This will resolve the hard way.

    Behold central planning.

  23. TFS we are blessed in the current year. We are presented with a prime case study of what happens when a free spending, leftist government is left to run amok too long.

    Puerto Rico has a problem. They are burning through the federal disaster assistance like shit through a goose, but little is actually being accomplished. Now the prime contractor that is repairing the electric grid has stopped work due to non payment. Of course the territory was already bankrupt, so they have at last run out of other people’s money. The the leftist junta in power is at a loss…What to Do?

    Trump suggested we “have to” bail out their $57 billion debt, and the stock market went ballistic…so he’s walking his crazy talk back.

    https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/04/trump-puerto-rico-debt-white-house-response-243452

    We need to make use of this opportunity. It’s not often we get to watch a US territory crumble under the weight of leftist rule.

    Pay attention and take notes.

  24. Puerto Rico. No wealth due to bad policy and likely a bad culture. No planning for a category 5 hurricane. You’re damn right there is a ton of lessons there.

  25. Leave it to Penigma to thread jack light rail conversation to his own TDS bile.

    Q: What do Penigma and light rail have in common? A: They both are off the rails!

  26. I love the irony that the LR derailed in service between Target Field and US Bank Stadium, all 3 public financed boondoggles.

    As is always the case busses were put in service to transport the stranded passengers. I hear they’re making plans for backup bus service should LR go down during the Super Bowl. Probably would be a good idea to have the backup busses shadow the LR hereafter.

  27. Penigma babbles like Myron Orenstien: “Lets work together to blah, blah, blah, (something not constitutional) (central planning) (government force) (taxes help the poor) (experts) (politicized actuarial science) blah, blah, blah.

    The levers and dials quit working 20 years ago, at least.

  28. Interest on the debt will consume all revenue and the economy will collapse? Ha! You are stuck in the past, Fed Sucks. Paying interest on your debts is old thinking, it comes from days when private entities held the debt and failure to pay was a default.

    The new thinking is the government simply adds more zeros to the electronic ledger, then transfers those electrons to the EBT card and Social Security Direct Deposits and . . . nobody cares. As long as Wal-Mart will give stuff in exchange for electrons, it’s all good.

  29. SPEAK OF THE DEVIL AGAIN!

    Dr. Lucas Engelhardt on Why the Fed Should Scare Us

    https://tinyurl.com/ydfd4agx

    Central planning, borrowing from the future, STEALING FROM EACH OTHER, ***voting*** *** “democracy” **** inflationism, “worked” only as long as geopolitics and computers and robots remained in amber in 1991.

    Freedom is a bitch. Which is why some people vote RINO and Democrat. Which is why it’s easier to steal from others via K Street and voting. Get into a cartel because you will be paying them anyway.

    Trump is a symptom.

    If only Penigma was dictator.

  30. SPEAK OF THE DEVIL AGAIN!

    Dr. Lucas Engelhardt on Why the Fed Should Scare Us

    https://tinyurl.com/ydfd4agx

    Central planning, borrowing from the future, STEALING FROM EACH OTHER, ***voting*** *** “democracy” **** inflationism, “worked” only as long as geopolitics and computers and robots remained in amber in 1991.

    Freedom is a bitch. Which is why some people vote RINO and Democrat. Which is why it’s easier to steal from others via K Street and voting. Get into a cartel because you will be paying them anyway.

    Trump is a symptom.

    If only Penigma was dictator.

  31. ” Probably would be a good idea to have the backup busses shadow the LR hereafter.”

    I never thought about this.

    I wonder what they have to do (i.e. SPEND MONEY AND TAKE AWAY RIGHTS lol) to secure the light rail for the super bowl? A couple of well placed pennies….

    The changes in sports is another symptom of this crap. Who the f*** wants to see a bowl game in Minnesota? All this is, Zyggy getting his cartel cut. That is literally all this is about.

    P.S. Who owns the NCAA and the BCS? Who are they accountable to?

  32. Look at what Wilf does: property. Rentier “capitalism.” A cartel. Which is a very good idea because, as long as you don’t get screwed by a bubble in the beginning THE SYSTEM PAYS YOU FOREVER!

    So then he buys another cartel right here in Niceville. When the Fed eases like crazy since he bought it his net worth goes up like crazy. That is at least 60% of it.

    This is very smart. He’s done nothing wrong. His family has it made for, forever.

    But now Penigma babbles about stupid stuff and is actually entertaining WEALTH TAXATION as a “solution”.

    O.K. he never said that, but you know he is.

    This is going to end badly.

  33. Joe Doakes’s post I think reflects the dynamics of Keynesianism, and why it’s going to end the hard way.

    One thing about land and property cartels. The Larry Summers types think we ***NOW*** (imagine that) need to tax the crap out of property and land beyond what we normally think of as property taxation. This is just a bunch of Rube Goldberg bolt-on nonsense to try to make their dumb theories work. There are better ways to fix this.

  34. “As long as Wal-Mart will give stuff in exchange for electrons, it’s all good.”

    Think of all of that garbage you hear about Walmart employees being on food stamps and getting the EITC. So we have to Fight For $15.

    Walmart is killing Democrat Ruling Class inflationist Keynesianism with… wait for it…EVERYDAY LOW PRICES otherwise known as PROGRESS!

    So we have to ***force*** them to welfare-ize their compensation system. Idiocy.

    Why is the Rent Too Damn High? Why is education a bad value? Why is it better for most of the procreators to be married to The State? Why is the Minneapolis City Council populated with micro-communists?

    Tell me.

  35. I was living in Cali when they were building their choo-choo (Bay Area Rapid Transit).

    I was too young to notice what is was costing to buy up houses for right-of-way and to prepare the rail beds.

    But I knew, instinctively, that it was going to turn into a shit show when the operation became a union joint…This was right after GM pulled up the stakes on what was then the largest car plant in the West to escape the UAW junta.

    When I bought my first house, I couldn’t help but notice the BART tax. By the time I ran screaming from that leftist sewer 5 years later, the BART tax alone was = to what my original prop taxes had been at the start.

    Ah yes, the good times they had…

    The stories of station sweepers making mid $200k in OT. Train operators retiring at 45, then getting another union gig with the bus company in time for a double pension.

    And then I started reading about the strikes. Always carefully timed to make the biggest mess, the union thugs ALWAYS got the loot.

    I just laffed and laffed. Until the same shit started happening in MN…then I packed it up again and got thee haell out of there.

    Now I’ll laff at y’all. Minnesota is too far gone to save. The Twin cities population of reprobate leftists, moochers and Wards of the State has reached critical mass; just exactly like it did in the SF Bay area, 25 years ago.

    Used to be, you get what you pay for. When a union/reprobate leftist government team is involved, you’ll pay for what you get…You’ll pay, and you’ll like it.

    Teh Peevee and his greasy ilk have already won. Sorry boys, but there it is.

  36. FOR THE RECORD: this is the THIRD time Penigma won’t respond to me responding to his Myron Ornstien-inspired pablum.

    The SF BART system is indeed a fiasco. All you have to do is go out there and watch the news and talk to people. Plenty of riders and not one fiscal metric is even close to OK. it did them no net good. It’s just an expensive amenity. The union can hold the Bay Area hostage any time they want.

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