The real Bridge to Nowhere -- today's open thread
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The real Bridge to Nowhere -- today's open thread
The NYT's Bob Herbert does Philly:
Gov. Ed Rendell likes to tell a story that goes back to his days as mayor of Philadelphia.
As he recalled, the city had a long cold snap with about a month and a half of below-freezing temperatures. Then, abruptly, the mercury rose into the 60s, he said, “and 58 of our water mains broke, causing all sorts of havoc.”
The pipes were old. Some were ancient. “My water people told me that some had been laid in the 19th century,” said Mr. Rendell, “and they were laid shallow, without much protection. So with any radical changes in temperature, they were susceptible to breaking. We had a real emergency on our hands.”
Infrastructure, that least sexy of issues, is not just a significant interest of Ed Rendell’s; it’s more like a consuming passion.
Ed Rendell's "consuming passion" is for....bridges? Who knew? Seriously, the column is a hammer on the nail of the head of the problems we face in this country, and the solutions should be that simple. Our infrastructure needs fixing, and the repair work creates jobs in the short run and leads to a more efficient economy in the long run. It's a no-brainer, except that all debt-and-spending is now politically toxic, thanks to all the non-productive waste -- Iraq, tax cuts for the rich, and a general lack of fiscal discipline -- of the George W. Bush years. We complain, with some justification, about all the money we owe to the Chinese, but we really should worry more about how the Chinese are cleaning our clock by investing in things like high-speed rail. Our inaction is likely increasing our debt, by the way, because of the high cost to the federal treasury of chronic unemployment; if you are not working, you are not paying taxes.
This shouldn't be hard, people. And yet it is.
Discuss whatever's on your mind.
---}}} Yes, its very complicated to understand that after negative publicity, Mcdonalds decided to act on its own accord to improve the quality of its food. {{{--- ---}}} There are myriad examples where companies failed to make improvements to defective products without having been forced to do so by government regulations. Seriously, RG - that anyone could look at the meat industry, in particular, and doubt that government regulation plays a positive, albeit imperfect, role just boggles the mind.— Talking point sleuth- "Oh, so they are forcing you to buy it? Interesting." Well, come to that I guess there are three possible choices. 1) Starve. 2) Go off the grid and grow my own food. 3) Exchange the fruits of my non-agricultural labor for food, thus trusting the people whose business it is to sell food, as well as the people whose business it is to regulate those people.— Billy Ray Winthorpe
- Here's an awesome recap of the USDA's spectacular failures. Thank goodness they are out there protecting us. http://www.grist.org/article/2009-12-10-meat-wagon-cargill-salmonella/— RG
- Market competition regulates better than the government could **** That is FUNNY! How did that work out with banks or corporations?— sbdons1982
- Also, those 58 water main breaks back during the Rendell mayorship was GWB's fault as well. Aging infrastructure is an exclusively Republican-caused problem. Brilliant inference, Bunch.— Castle
- And how awesome were the regulators at the SEC to be tipped off about Madoff but still fail to put together the pieces?— RG
"And that Mao guy sure got things done, didn't he?" . . . . . LOL, Manny, you'd better help pj out with his calendar.- More USDA zaniness. Back in 2007, a company wanted to go above and beyond in testing for mad cow. The USDA said no. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4846051.html— RG
- Actually, TPS, one of the tenets of Austrian economics (which seems to be RG's preferred school of thought) is that, since hardly a single market anywhere in today's world is totally free of government regulation, we don't empirically know how such a market would function or how totally AWESOME its outcomes would be. (And when you're talking to an adherent of Austrian economics, his working assumption is that the outcomes would indeed be awesome.) As you've seen on this and other threads, the beauty of this argument is that, since it has no empirical content, it can't be conclusively confirmed or refuted.— Billy Ray Winthorpe
- "Also, those 58 water main breaks back during the Rendell mayorship was GWB's fault as well." . . . . . Ask Manny if he checked his calendar that day.
- "And when you're talking to an adherent of Austrian economics, his working assumption is that the outcomes would indeed be awesome." Hardly. Outcomes can always be suboptimal, but the associations would be voluntary instead of compulsory. Austrians also beleive in the decentralized knowledge of markets compared to the centralized plannign of governments. The idea that a handful of lawmakers have the knowledge to determine what is best for a diverse population of 300 mil is fairly silly.— RG
- "And how awesome were the regulators at the SEC to be tipped off about Madoff but still fail to put together the pieces?" Three hundred people got murdered in Philadelphia last year, but that's not exactly a good reason for abolishing the PPD. On the contrary, it's an argument for improving their access to crime-fighting resources. Same with the SEC -- and its access to resources for policing the securities markets during the Bush years was, how shall I say this, somewhat lessened.— Billy Ray Winthorpe
- "and its access to resources for policing the securities markets during the Bush years was, how shall I say this, somewhat lessened." Wrong, the budget went up almost every year. And why would they need more resources for a case where they were already tipped off to?— RG
- "Outcomes can always be suboptimal, but the associations would be voluntary instead of compulsory." You're right: I would feel so much better knowing that my associatons via the marketplace with food producers, health care providers, clothing manufacturers, landlords, sellers of electricity and natural gas, and other items essential to life were voluntary and not compulsory.— Billy Ray Winthorpe
Comment removed.
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