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To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (65744)	6/16/2009 8:50:15 PM
From: loantech	1 Recommendation Respond to of 78408

Spotted and zincman, I think this outlines some of the differences in outlook and my sunny or not disposition about things. if it was not so sad it would be sunny! <G> In fact I have to ask how fast are we going backward in this great society on some things? Kunstler says it much better than I ever could: <By James Howard Kunstler on June 15, 2009 6:16 AM Coming home from the annual meet-up of the New Urbanists, I was already agitated from the shenanigans of United Airlines -- two-hour delay, blown connection -- when I waded into this week's New York Times Sunday Magazine for further evidence that our ruling elites are too stupid to survive (and perhaps the US with them). Exhibit A was the magazine's lead article about California's proposed high-speed rail project by Jon Gertner. The article began with a description of California's current rail service between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. A commission of nine-year-olds in a place like Germany could run a better system, of course. It's never on schedule. The equipment breaks down incessantly. A substantial leg of the trip requires a transfer to a bus (along with everybody's luggage) with no working toilet. You get the picture: Kazakhstan without the basic competence. The proposed solution to this is the most expensive public works program in the history of the world, at a time when both the state of California and the US federal government are effectively bankrupt. By the way, I wouldn't argue that California shouldn't have high-speed rail. It might have been nice if, say, in the late 20th century, some far-seeing governor had noticed what was going on in France, Germany, and Spain but, alas.... It would have been nice, too, if the doltish George W. Bush, when addressing extreme airport congestion in 2003, had considered serious upgrades in normal train service between the many US cities 500 miles or so apart. The idea never entered his walnut brain. The sad truth is it's too late now. But the additional sad truth, at this point, is that Californians (and US public in general) would benefit tremendously from normal rail service on a par with the standards of 1927, when speeds of 100 miles-per-hour were common and the trains ran absolutely on time (and frequently, too) without computers (imagine that !). The tracks are still there, waiting to be fixed. In our current condition of psychotic techno-grandiosity, this is all too hopelessly quaint, not cutting edge enough, pathetically un-"hot." The fact that it is not even considered by the editors of The New York Times, not to mention the governor of California, the President of the United States, and all the agency heads and departmental chiefs and think tank gurus and university engineering professors, is something that will have historians of the future rolling their eyes. But for the moment all it shows is that we are collectively too stupid to survive as an advanced society.>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Now I am not as gloomy as big Jim but he does have a point. Even I as a lowly bank employee for 23 years spewed venom at the kitchen table every night for several years at the stupidity of managers and management and assigning risk to home loans and buyers and my mutterings to management were met by the idea of shut up or get fired which is what happened along the way only they called it an economic layoff and provided severance. Even a dolt such as myself could have done a much better job running FNMA and FDMAC and I would have done it for a few hundred million dollars less per year and my bet says I would not have lost $$$. So sure let's have great hope for the USA but also let's be real and see what is in front of our very eyes. Include GM and Chrysler etc. We may have a shortage of jobs or credit or buyers but there sure as HECK there is no shortage of incompetence now days. Tom