State of the national socialist goverment labor union

[stray kitten]

Watched it, had to open a bottle of Jack to get through it.

[Bridget]

Things that annoyed me:

• Too much 'we can work together. right?" bullshit. No, we can't.
• More semantic sugarcoating, just speak straight
• Felt like a sports game with all the jumping and cheering, etc

[Innoc]

I stopped watching these years ago. Anything from propoganda to outright lies. The "State of the Nation" is generally already known to those paying attention....and those who aren't wont get it from watching this kind of BS.

[GenghisTron]

A politician on TV, doing what politicians always do.

My life was virtually unaffected by this.

[stray kitten]

Originally Posted by GenghisTron

A politician on TV, doing what politicians always do.

My life was virtually unaffected by this.

Except for the part where he does the shit he wants to do. Trains? Fuck yeah I am for it... before you already fucking spend like a cheap whore with a credit card at IHOP.

[GenghisTron]

Originally Posted by stray kitten

Except for the part where he does the shit he wants to do. Trains? Fuck yeah I am for it... before you already fucking spend like a cheap whore with a credit card at IHOP.

Originally Posted by GenghisTron

A politician on TV, doing what politicians always do.

My life was virtually unaffected by this.

[stray kitten]

By "doing the shit he wants to do" I mean actually passing bills he says he's going to pass. Which definitely affects my life. Other than that, yeah just a carefully planned out speech that they think will make people want to vote for them. And he really did mention a new train system that..... "will create jobs". He hasn't learned a key component yet. The government can literally spend trillions and not create jobs capable of sustaining an economy. Maybe in Obama fairy land but not here.

[Scuzzy]

Let's take the one travel industry that's currently only running because it's government subsidized, which should die (passenger train travel), and dump a ton of money into it that will be worthless.

What an idiot.

Scuzzy

[uBeR]

Uh, someone's apparently already forgotten about all the auto bailouts, not to mention the incredible amount of subsidies air travel gets. In fact, road travel is only possible because of roads--which, as some bright people may have guessed, is entirely publicly funded. That leaves boating, walking, biking, etc. I don't know much about the boating industry, but it's not very large, so it's not even worth mentioning. Walking and biking is made easier and safer through government support, but that's not always the most efficient mode of transportation. When you actually care to look at it honestly, traveling by road is by far the most subsidized mode of transportation. Is it efficient? Not really. Is it any more efficient than rail travel? That's doubtful. It's even more dubious when we begin to take in account the concerns of others in our efficiency equations, like the environment, congestion, and so on.

By the way, that's all very purposeful. If we go back to what's perhaps the largest engineering and logistics project in human history--the interstate highway system, undertaken by one of the Republicans' favorite heroes, President Eisenhower--it was a very deliberate government-financed displacement of the rail system. Rail used to be the dominant mode of transportation in the U.S. at one time, but that was put to end by automobile interests, which were attended to by the government. So, if you want to look at the history of it even closer, if you want to actually be honest about things, you'll see a history of conspiracy--by General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil, Phillips Petroleum, Mack Trucks, and the Federal Engineering Corporation--which was meant to subvert the rail system for the conspirators' interests (namely road transportation), for which they were convicted. Government took over, and now that's why suburbanization and road transportation have completely transformed the American landscape. All very purposeful and completely reliant upon the government. That's one reason why if you compare the United States to Europe, transportation is completely different, and the reason why European transport is so much more efficient. That's if you want to be honest about it.

[FrenchToast]

Originally Posted by Scuzzy

What an idiot.

[Scuzzy]

Driving from Chicago to Virginia on "publicly" funded roads doesn't cost me $350 a trip. It's cheaper to fly, it's cheaper to drive, then it is to use the current publicly subsidized train travel. A bigger, faster, in need of more maintenance publicly subsidised train isn't going to change that, it'll make it worse. Hell, his "solution" of building a super fast train solves what problem exactly? Nada. There isn't a 'transportation" crisis in America.

This must be one of those "conservative fiscal policies" you like to embrace.

Scuzzy

[Iggy]

Some people like trains.

[uBeR]

And have you ever considered why? I mean, I sort of just old you, but it's hard to get a blind man to see. Let's just imagine there was one, two-way road that went from Chicago to Virginia. How do you think your costs would change? How do you think congestion would change? How much longer do you think it would take? Now imagine you had a railway system comparable to Europe's, which I'm not saying is perfect or anything. (If you ever go to Europe, something surely only a socialist would do, you can check it out for yourself.) Well, this is a question of supply and demand, just as it always has been. If you have even just an elementary understanding of economics, it shouldn't be very hard to figure out. When the government artificially destroys one mode of transportation and inflates another, that has an effect. You see it everyday.

[Scuzzy]

Originally Posted by uBeR

And have you ever considered why? I mean, I sort of just old you, but it's hard to get a blind man to see. Let's just imagine there was one, two-way road that went from Chicago to Virginia. How do you think your costs would change? How do you think congestion would change? How much longer do you think it would take? Now imagine you had a railway system comparable to Europe's, which I'm not saying is perfect or anything. (If you ever go to Europe, something surely only a socialist would do, you can check it out for yourself.) Well, this is a question of supply and demand, just as it always has been. If you have even just an elementary understanding of economics, it shouldn't be very hard to figure out. When the government artificially destroys one mode of transportation and inflates another, that has an effect. You see it everyday.

Why do you think only socialists go to Europe? There is no demand for long distance passenger railway here. It's just another case of him not having a clue what people want and going off half-cocked, like on the healthcare system changes he wants. He's not listening to the people, cause I'm not hearing that "high speed railway transportation" is on anyone's radar, much less then list of "high priority things that the country needs right now".

[Innoc]

Perhaps my recollection is off but I believe that rail enjoys Critical National Infrastructure status which is why an industry that should be gone for purely economic reasons enjoys subsidization and life long after it's economic viability passed into history.

[Iggy]

I've been to Europe.... I've ridden on a train in Germany. My personal experience was that it was awesome.

A point to consider about the US Railway system:

If the railways were done away with, all of the goods that are shipped that way would then have to be shipped via roadway. This would add an immense amount of "big rigs" to the road. That's simply not economically feasable, since many (independant) truckers are barely(if even that) covering their expenses. Those who are paid by a company make money, but that raises the prices of the shipping, and as a result, there is an increase in the end cost of the product. Inflation.

Also, you end up with higher congestion, and this also wastes money/fuel.

And then there is the safety issue(s) of that much more traffic.

[stray kitten]

Obama:

Hey we gots to stop spending money yo. We can't sustains it. It's the previous administrations fault that I gots to be spending all dis bling bling! It's not me writin' checks i can't cash! But we gots to stop it!

But first I gots to spend mo.

[Credge]

I used to live in Germany for a long while. I remember taking a train to and from some place to another rather frequently. I hated it, mainly because it was stinky.

With that said, we already have trains in major cities. What Obama is talking about is something a good deal different. Something that isn't as economically sound as it is in some place with a high concentration of people who need to move to another relatively close are in a short period of time.

Because I can't find the specifics, here's an idea of what he's talking about from The New York Times.

The government has identified 10 corridors, each from 100 to 600 miles long, with greatest promise for high-speed development.

They are: a northern New England line; an Empire line running east to west in New York State; a Keystone corridor running laterally through Pennsylvania; a major Chicago hub network; a southeast network connecting the District of Columbia to Florida and the Gulf Coast; a Gulf Coast line extending from eastern Texas to western Alabama; a corridor in central and southern Florida; a Texas-to-Oklahoma line; a California corridor where voters have already approved a line that will allow travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two and a half hours; and a corridor in the Pacific Northwest.

Here's a comparison between Germany and the Texas-to-Oklahoma line.

In Germany, you have a lot of medium sized places that rely on close cities for entertainment and the like. Cities like Frankfurt, Berlin, Baumholder, and Leipzig act as hubs.

In Texas, you already have these hubs. Dallas, Austin, El-Paso, San Antonio, etc. Oklahoma has them as well (on opposite sides of the state) with Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

What purpose would these high-speed trains serve? In other words, what need is supported that our highway system does not already have? The only thing I can see are the Texas-Oklahoma rivalry football games that occur.

In Germany, they serve a great purpose. They also serve a great purpose in Japan. In the U.S., our highway system works just fine.

While it's a pretty cool thing that would be a convenience if we could afford it... we can't.

[Credge]

Oh yeah, I also thought the STOTU was filled with a bunch of bullshit. Nuclear energy? Oh... you mean cap and trade...

[stray kitten]

Is Obama going to stop all this spending before or after the choo choo train thing?