Subsidy Nonsense Yet Again
in [Frugal Living]
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From: aemeijers on 7 Nov 2009 22:07 Jym Dyer wrote: >>> = Scott in SoCal >> = Rod Speed > >>> Transit only *seems* more expensive because it is subsidized >>> LESS than automobiles are. >> Wrong. There are plenty of situations where the cheapest >> cars are cheaper than the worst mass transit available and >> the cheapest cars arent subsidized by anyone. > > =v= I understand that the vast and Rube Goldbergesque array > of funding serves to keep most of us from thinking about the > true cost of driving. > > =v= The laws of physics are less complicated. Dragging one > or more tons of steel and plastic and toxics per person is > going to involve more resources, no matter how accountants > distribute the numbers. When point A and point B are so much > further apart because so much land area is devoted to cars > (whether they're driving, speeding, or parking), that, too, > is going to involve more resources. Paving all that land > area? Yep, more resources all over again, plus the const of > maintaining it all. > > =v= You can shuffle the finances around as if you're playing > 3-Card Monte, but eventually there's a bottom line involved, > and guess what? You lose. > <_Jym_> > Add it up again with door-to-door service, and 'anytime' availability. Not everyone lives in the imaginary 1920s-1960s urban utopia of 40 foot wide lot row houses with a bus stop on every other corner. Nor does everyone go to work or come home the same time, or work the hours the bus system is running. To provide anything near the level of service a private vehicle offers, you would need a whole lot more buses and drivers. And most of them would still be running near-empty most of the time, at a higher cost per passenger mile than a private car. Buses are only efficient if they are at least partially full. Hey, I <like> public transit. In college, I used it almost every day. But in a college town, most of the users live in a concentrated area, and the places they need to go are in a concentrated area. Out in the real world, the only areas that get near that user/destination density are the old urban centers. Which happen to be the only areas where mass transit works. That is why the city here collapsed their bus routes and schedules- they realized that the buses to the outer regions were running nearly empty most of the time. Same for the off-hour buses, even in town. It would be cheaper to give cab fare coupons to the folks that can't drive for whatever reason. They didn't do that, of course, so there were some people truly between a rock and a hard place. One guy wanted to take up the slack with a jitney bus service that regular-use non-drivers could subscribe to, but the cab companies leaned on the city, and it never happened. -- aem sends...
From: Les Cargill on 8 Nov 2009 01:54 Jym Dyer wrote: >>> = Scott in SoCal >> = Rod Speed > >>> Transit only *seems* more expensive because it is subsidized >>> LESS than automobiles are. >> Wrong. There are plenty of situations where the cheapest >> cars are cheaper than the worst mass transit available and >> the cheapest cars arent subsidized by anyone. > > =v= I understand that the vast and Rube Goldbergesque array > of funding serves to keep most of us from thinking about the > true cost of driving. > ??? The roads are financed by fuel taxes. It hardly looks very opaque, and people have done multiple studies. The only thing we really don't know is the true cost of a barrel of oil. We do know the market price of it. > =v= The laws of physics are less complicated. Dragging one > or more tons of steel and plastic and toxics per person is > going to involve more resources, no matter how accountants > distribute the numbers. When point A and point B are so much > further apart because so much land area is devoted to cars > (whether they're driving, speeding, or parking), that, too, > is going to involve more resources. Paving all that land > area? Yep, more resources all over again, plus the const of > maintaining it all. > But cars enable people to use land they wouldn't otherwise be able to. What we see with public transport is that it never makes money. > =v= You can shuffle the finances around as if you're playing > 3-Card Monte, but eventually there's a bottom line involved, > and guess what? You lose. > <_Jym_> > -- Les Cargill
From: krw on 8 Nov 2009 11:10 On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:54:14 -0500, Les Cargill <lcargill99(a)comcast.net> wrote: >Jym Dyer wrote: >>>> = Scott in SoCal >>> = Rod Speed >> >>>> Transit only *seems* more expensive because it is subsidized >>>> LESS than automobiles are. >>> Wrong. There are plenty of situations where the cheapest >>> cars are cheaper than the worst mass transit available and >>> the cheapest cars arent subsidized by anyone. >> >> =v= I understand that the vast and Rube Goldbergesque array >> of funding serves to keep most of us from thinking about the >> true cost of driving. >> > >??? The roads are financed by fuel taxes. It hardly looks >very opaque, and people have done multiple studies. ....and those fuel taxes are often tapped as a convenient source of income for all sorts of social engineering, like "public" transit. >The only thing we really don't know is the true cost >of a barrel of oil. We do know the market price of it. Often the kitchen sink is thrown at the "true cost" by lunatics pushing their collectivist propaganda. >> =v= The laws of physics are less complicated. Dragging one >> or more tons of steel and plastic and toxics per person is >> going to involve more resources, no matter how accountants >> distribute the numbers. When point A and point B are so much >> further apart because so much land area is devoted to cars >> (whether they're driving, speeding, or parking), that, too, >> is going to involve more resources. Paving all that land >> area? Yep, more resources all over again, plus the const of >> maintaining it all. >> > >But cars enable people to use land they wouldn't otherwise >be able to. What we see with public transport is that it never >makes money. Right. Now imagine a society where land barons or evil corporations own the tenements were *everyone* is forced to live. I rather like the idea of owning my own home. >> =v= You can shuffle the finances around as if you're playing >> 3-Card Monte, but eventually there's a bottom line involved, >> and guess what? You lose. >> <_Jym_> More collectivist tripe.
From: Les Cargill on 8 Nov 2009 13:13 krw wrote: > On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:54:14 -0500, Les Cargill > <lcargill99(a)comcast.net> wrote: > >> Jym Dyer wrote: >>>>> = Scott in SoCal >>>> = Rod Speed >>>>> Transit only *seems* more expensive because it is subsidized >>>>> LESS than automobiles are. >>>> Wrong. There are plenty of situations where the cheapest >>>> cars are cheaper than the worst mass transit available and >>>> the cheapest cars arent subsidized by anyone. >>> =v= I understand that the vast and Rube Goldbergesque array >>> of funding serves to keep most of us from thinking about the >>> true cost of driving. >>> >> ??? The roads are financed by fuel taxes. It hardly looks >> very opaque, and people have done multiple studies. > > ...and those fuel taxes are often tapped as a convenient source of > income for all sorts of social engineering, like "public" transit. > Well, I don't particularly have a serious problem with that. If you can conform to bus schedules and it saves you scarce cash, I'm willing to subsidize that some. >> The only thing we really don't know is the true cost >> of a barrel of oil. We do know the market price of it. > > Often the kitchen sink is thrown at the "true cost" by lunatics > pushing their collectivist propaganda. > Heh. That certainly doesn't help. Pigovian taxes are well-understood by The Right People, but look at how looney the debates over carbon offsets are. >>> =v= The laws of physics are less complicated. Dragging one >>> or more tons of steel and plastic and toxics per person is >>> going to involve more resources, no matter how accountants >>> distribute the numbers. When point A and point B are so much >>> further apart because so much land area is devoted to cars >>> (whether they're driving, speeding, or parking), that, too, >>> is going to involve more resources. Paving all that land >>> area? Yep, more resources all over again, plus the const of >>> maintaining it all. >>> >> But cars enable people to use land they wouldn't otherwise >> be able to. What we see with public transport is that it never >> makes money. > > Right. Now imagine a society where land barons or evil corporations > own the tenements were *everyone* is forced to live. I rather like > the idea of owning my own home. > Exactly. Although it's probably more frugal to rent, unless you can really sock in a good down payment. If real estate regresses to its utility value rather than its speculative value, that's different. You just don't wanna be the greater sucker. >>> =v= You can shuffle the finances around as if you're playing >>> 3-Card Monte, but eventually there's a bottom line involved, >>> and guess what? You lose. >>> <_Jym_> > > More collectivist tripe. -- Les Cargill
From: krw on 8 Nov 2009 13:28
On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:13:13 -0500, Les Cargill <lcargill99(a)comcast.net> wrote: >krw wrote: >> On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:54:14 -0500, Les Cargill >> <lcargill99(a)comcast.net> wrote: >> >>> Jym Dyer wrote: >>>>>> = Scott in SoCal >>>>> = Rod Speed >>>>>> Transit only *seems* more expensive because it is subsidized >>>>>> LESS than automobiles are. >>>>> Wrong. There are plenty of situations where the cheapest >>>>> cars are cheaper than the worst mass transit available and >>>>> the cheapest cars arent subsidized by anyone. >>>> =v= I understand that the vast and Rube Goldbergesque array >>>> of funding serves to keep most of us from thinking about the >>>> true cost of driving. >>>> >>> ??? The roads are financed by fuel taxes. It hardly looks >>> very opaque, and people have done multiple studies. >> >> ...and those fuel taxes are often tapped as a convenient source of >> income for all sorts of social engineering, like "public" transit. >> > >Well, I don't particularly have a serious problem with that. If >you can conform to bus schedules and it saves you scarce cash, >I'm willing to subsidize that some. Why? Shouldn't public transportation's pay its costs? If it's better, shouldn't this be easy? If it's not, why have it at all. >>> The only thing we really don't know is the true cost >>> of a barrel of oil. We do know the market price of it. >> >> Often the kitchen sink is thrown at the "true cost" by lunatics >> pushing their collectivist propaganda. >> > >Heh. That certainly doesn't help. Pigovian taxes are well-understood >by The Right People, but look at how looney the debates over >carbon offsets are. Sure. Like the "health care" debate, the real issue is taxes. A higher income tax isn't going to work. The states have maxed out sales and property taxes. The direct taxes are all maxed out. The only thing left are "hidden" taxes, which is exactly what "health care" and "cap and tax" are all about. The loony left loves to tax the productive into the unproductive so they can be controlled. >>>> =v= The laws of physics are less complicated. Dragging one >>>> or more tons of steel and plastic and toxics per person is >>>> going to involve more resources, no matter how accountants >>>> distribute the numbers. When point A and point B are so much >>>> further apart because so much land area is devoted to cars >>>> (whether they're driving, speeding, or parking), that, too, >>>> is going to involve more resources. Paving all that land >>>> area? Yep, more resources all over again, plus the const of >>>> maintaining it all. >>>> >>> But cars enable people to use land they wouldn't otherwise >>> be able to. What we see with public transport is that it never >>> makes money. >> >> Right. Now imagine a society where land barons or evil corporations >> own the tenements were *everyone* is forced to live. I rather like >> the idea of owning my own home. >> > >Exactly. Although it's probably more frugal to rent, unless you can >really sock in a good down payment. Not the point. Do you think everyone can afford rent if *everyone* is forced to live within the bounds of public transportation. How many can afford to live in Manhattan? Now double that. Back to your point. You will never save a "decent" down payment renting from the only game in town. Even with this recession, a home is still the way to long-term financial security. >If real estate regresses to its utility value rather than its >speculative value, that's different. You just don't wanna be the greater >sucker. Sure. That's why I don't speculate with housing. I live in it. The equity in my house isn't income either. >>>> =v= You can shuffle the finances around as if you're playing >>>> 3-Card Monte, but eventually there's a bottom line involved, >>>> and guess what? You lose. >>>> <_Jym_> >> >> More collectivist tripe. |