Howard_T

Winter's Coming for the Boomers: Part 2

The only thing that the people in the Congress fear is not being re-elected. Thus, they will support anything that they feel their constituents want. Unless enough of us get the message to them that their days in DC are numbered unless they make decisions based on what is necessary and practical and effective, not on what is popular, we are doomed.

On July 13, at 1:23PM, spartacuss wrote:

>We can postulate all kinds of things, but one thing for sure is that >the people in congress are scared to death and are taking on >draconian measures to deal with this crisis.

The Price of Oil: Parasite Economics Explained

Jimbo, I spent most of yesterday in Kennebunkport, ME, at the Seashore Trolley Museum. It's an amazing place and worth a visit by anyone with an interest in the transportation industry or with a sense of nostalgia for things past. One of the docents made a similar statement to your post, below, but on a slightly smaller basis. It was possible less than 80 years ago to ride from Portland to Boston via trolley. The problem was that the trip would take nearly 11 hours. There was also a line that ran from Nashua, NH, (my current home) to Manchester, NH. The 20-mile trip took about 55 minutes, compared to the 25 or so that it takes via automobile today.

Most of the privately owned interurban trolley lines disappeared in the 30s, when they were bought up by parties working for General Motors. At this time many of the lines were weakened by the depression and were easy prey. As soon as GM gained control, they tore up the tracks and replaced the clean, non-polluting trolleys with fossil fueled buses made, of course, by GM. The argument was the "flexibility" of the bus over the fixed route of the trolley. The story has been well documented, although I cannot immediately recall the titles of any of the histories that deal with it. I do remember that GM was taken to court for their actions, found guilty, and fined an outrageously small amount (the sum of $5,000 sticks in my mind). The unintended consequences of GM's action was to increase road congestion so that more and wider roads were needed, thus encouraging commuters to buy their own transportation, thus leading to settlement in the suburbs, and so on. Cities and regions are now forced to maintain their own transportation systems, usually at great expense to the taxpayers. Somehow it seems ironic that the very party that is responsible for many of our economic ills has fallen prey to them.

On 01 June 2009, at 1212PM, Jimbo wrote:

>I have read some time ago that as late as 1930 it was possible to
>get on a streetcar in Portland,Maine and ride it to the end of the line.
>At that point, you could get on another streetcar from another
>system and ride it to the end of the line.