Liberals often live in a fantasy world that ignores the real world right in front of them. They continue to pour trillions of dollars into poverty programs despite the fact that poverty persists and grows. Their go to solution for failing and failed government schools is always spend more money rather than embrace solutions that actually work such as charter schools or voucher programs. It’s no surprise then that their tired solutions rarely ever solve the problems they are ostensibly focused on.
Strangely, that dynamic exists even when the problem itself is fiction. The perfect example of this is the state of California. In an effort to address congestion on California roads (which is a real problem) and to fight man-made global warming (which is a fiction) California is planning on spending anywhere from an estimated $68 to $98 billion taxpayer dollars to build a high speed rail link from Los Angeles and San Francisco. This, despite the fact that most traffic in California is from people traveling within metro areas, not between them. Think about it, LA’s worst traffic is usually 10-15 miles on the 405 or I-10 during rush hour, not on I-5 north of the city. A high speed rail ticket between LA and San Francisco that was originally projected to cost $50 is now expected to cost more than $81. That’s a round trip cost of either $100 or $162. Today you can get a round trip plane ticket between the same two cities for $135. What’s more, the line will likely require additional hundreds of millions of taxpayer subsidies annually just to maintain operations… and it will increase carbon emissions!
So there we have it, California plans to spend what will likely be in excess of $100 billion to build a rail system to solve a problem that doesn’t exist and another that can’t be solved by such a system. This, while the state is facing a real problem that it actually can solve: a shortage of water. The state has been gripped in a drought for years, but even in non-drought years water is a problem in California. In addition to families with no water, in the San Joaquin Valley, dubbed “America’s salad bowl” vegetable farms are left idle as there is no water for irrigation. (The drought is not the only cause there…) The $100 billion that the state is wasting building the rail boondoggle could be spent instead on desalinization plants up and down the Pacific coast. Recently the nation’s largest desalinization plant opened in San Diego… but it almost didn’t as years were wasted fighting litigation by environmental groups. That $1 billion facility will produce enough drinking water for approximately 250,000 people annually. Using that metric, for the amount of money California is wasting on the rail system it could desalinate enough water for 26 million people, more than 65% of its population.
The reality is however that the state doesn’t need to build desalinization plants to support 65% of its population. It’s likely that building the capacity necessary to provide water to 20% would be more than sufficient to address most water issues, and that could be done for approximately $30 billion. But that’s not on the books. Given that California is the epicenter of liberalism in the US, that’s not a surprise.
If there is a second center of liberalism in the US, it’s undoubtedly New York, and not surprisingly, it suffers from the same problem as California. Only in New York the tool of choice for seeking to slay the faux dragon of man-made global warming is not absurdly expensive transportation subsidies, but rather absurdly expensive green energy subsidies. New York has recently agreed to spend close to $1 billion subsidizing multi billionaire Elon Musk’s money losing solar panel installation company, SolarCity. This, while the governor of a state with a 6.6% unemployment rate continues to ban the fracking for natural gas, a cleaning burning fuel that has pumped billions of dollars in to the economies of states from North Dakota to Pennsylvania while creating tens of thousands of good paying jobs. So once again, a liberal state is spending boatloads of taxpayer dollars to solve a problem that doesn’t even exist while at the same time it refuses to look at a viable solution to real problems – in this case unemployment and energy prices.
And so it goes with liberalism, using rational solutions to attack real problems takes a back seat to solving fake problems that dovetail with the left’s worldview, regardless of the consequences. California is in the midst of a water shortage that is having devastating consequences on millions of its citizens on a daily basis. New York is seeing jobs and citizens flee the state for lower taxes and better job prospects. In both states the governors have decided those very real problems are not as important as pandering to their political base by tilting at the windmill of global warming. The result is actually worse than if the state did nothing at all. If they were doing nothing the taxpayers would at least be no worse off than they are now. Unfortunately however, the taxpayers in the 4th and 1st highest tax states (respectively) are on the hook millions or billions of dollars and will be much worse off in the long run. Such is liberalism: obscure failure in the real world by selling grand designs of some future success that never quite works out as promised… then simply count on voters to forget about that failure as you dazzle them with your next quixotic mirage.
See author page
You wrote about the fight for even one desalinization plant in CA.
It’s true.
Most of the policies of CA have led to cancellations of additional water projects over the last thirty years.
There have also been vast diversions of diminished reservoir water from contracted agricultural use to fish replenishment.
Can you imagine?
But CA is run, not just be Dems, but by Elitist Dems.
Those Dem farmers just don’t count!
Those Dems in the toolies don’t count.
When water rationing finally hit the rich liberals in Silicon Valley they solved their problem by thinking outside the box:
They buy a water tank full of water daily per home at a 100% markup from water from the tap, just to water their lawns. ($600 per tankful VS $6 out of tap)
They send their laundry out of their home to be washed at someone else’s water-expense.
Not all Californians can do this.
Liberal elites in Sacramento don’t care as long as THEY can have theirs.
There’s a new trend in politics away from the elites.
We saw UKIP (a populist party) win in UK.
We also saw populists win in other European battles.
Now, look at Kansas.
A populist, anti-elitist, independent Greg Orman leads incumbent Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) by 10 points.
77% of Democrats said they supported Orman.
57% of Independents backed Orman.
16% of Republicans support Orman.
Will we see this in CA?
Time will tell.
The High Speed Rail will be flying between the farming communities of the Central Valley; unfortunately, it takes time to load and unload the locals. Yes, the plan requires the trains to stop in every little farming community, so how fast will the high speed rail trains actually travel? Not all that fast, high speed rails require special tracks, and these trains will be required to travel on conventional tracks around LA and San Francisco. Oh, that’s what happens when you have partisan hacks designing railroads. The trains will be slow with many stops, but the crony capitalists and the unions stand to make hundreds of millions. Of course, to an imbecilic ideologue like Jerry Brown, the plan should be rushed forward, full speed ahead. He wants in on the crumbs before he is voted out of office and gets nothing.
Even if the country gets a fiscally responsible manager in the White House, he better be ready to bail out CA or watch it default because of the lunacy of its politicians. Come on America, you know you want to support California’s loony Liberals, their unions, and their crony capitalists. This is the only sanctuary state and Jerry Brown wants all the illegals he can get to come to CA. What’s not to love about California?
One thing about California is that 80% of the water goes to agriculture which makes up 1% of California’s gross state income. Such products include oranges, rice, strawberries, wine grapes, various nuts, cattle, food for the cattle and avocados.
There are are also over 1,100 golf courses in California with nicely watered greens.
Skokie I saws posting on CA Agbest that CA now is projecting a budget surplus
Is this because the Dems are back in control ?
How is that drought affecting you personally?
@Nanny+G: Nanny, I live in the city that is doing this plant and you can NOT believe how the regulators and tree huggers have fought this thing!! Moonbeam and his hoards of liberal wackos here constantly hit the guilt button when it comes to water conservation!! I keep saying where is the second chapter to this book?? Our entire west coast is next to available water with a technology easily over 10 years old and known to work. Fortunately I am proud to say that Issa is my representative and he ain’t going to be voted our here in North San Diego County anytime soon,
@Gregory_Dittman: There are over 125 golf courses in the Coachella Valley, each one uses over a million gallons a day to irrigate.
Agriculture may be a minor part of the aggregate economy of California, but food prices are about to go up all across America, because the Central Valley (250 miles on either side of Interstate 5) is blowing away into nothingness. When it had water, it was some of the most productive agricultural farm land in the world. However, when your grocery bills go up, you can reassure yourself with the knowledge that a non-native baitfish is flourishing in the Sierras.
The giant feedlots are mere shadows of what they once were, but the truckers got work hauling the cattle east and South of the border. The fruits, nuts, and vegetables will need to be grown in Asia or South America, good luck on getting healthy food without chemicals! We should all celebrate the self-imposed lunacy known as Liberalism. Now, how many times a week do you plan on eating canned beans and soup.
Yes, the economy is booming here in California, but like the Obama recovery, it is subliminal. Just close your eyes, click your heels together and think of Kansas if you want to be part of the California boom.
We have the same problem here in Michigan – not so much with water of course 😉 They want to build “light rail” down Woodward avenue… but who’s going to use it? It’s a road to nowhere. It would make more sense to spend the money on more buses and drivers. They also need to figure out some way to haul more bikes on the buses… the existing ones only carry two, and I’ve seen people have to wait a half hour for the next bus to put their bike on board. These are folks taking the bus to near there job then biking the rest of the way.
It’s people with “causes” that are more important to them than reality that are a problem. I used to live in Flint, where the downtown was decaying like most downtowns as people gravitated to suburbia. But the powers that be wanted to revive downtown. So the idea was hatched to build a downtown amusement park which would draw business to a new Hyatt hotel and a festival marketplace. Several viable businesses and venues were torn down to make room. But the powers backing the amusement park were basically an educational foundation. So the park was “educational” i.e. boring 😉 and it died once all the locals had seen it once. So, the hotel folded for lack of business and after setting empty a while was sold to a religious group as a “retreat”. The festival marketplace eventually closed and was given to the UM-Flint for office space- and the food joints that had been serving downtown workers all along. The amusement park was torn down and the land given to the university.
And after all that, the place is still dead… never trust do-gooders 😉
@Skookum: #6
Two relatively new developments –
1. Chinese here are shying away from purchasing Foodstuffs and consumables made in China. Some have decided that they will purchase None.
2. Chinese in China’s new vast half-billion middle class are looking for Foodstuffs and consumables grown and produced in North America.
There is a growing mistrust of their own food sources.
Nothing quite like socialist loons in charge of economies . . .
Would the last person leaving blue Maryland please turn out the lights?
Eventually, mismanaged societies just break down and disintegrate.
@James+Raider: Nothing quite like socialist loons in charge of
economiesanything . . .We are putting socialist loons in charge of ”fighting ebola,” too.
But they have no record of success.
The folks at Firestone, do, however.
Private enterprise.
Private enterprise is used to setting goals, achieving results and being rewarded based on actual accomplishments. In addition, they’re innovative, and know that one must often improvise and create rapid prototypes.
Read all about Firestone’s success in Liberia with ebola.
Talk about adjusting to changing circumstances on the fly!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/06/354054915/firestone-did-what-governments-have-not-stopped-ebola-in-its-tracks
Also here:
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/10/06/greedy-corporation-stops-ebola-spread-in-liberia/
Vince,
As you point out, the California not-so-rapid train plan is a boondoggle that has zero chance of NOT costing taxpayers billions into the forever — nevertheless one thing to pay attention to on this very instructive decision by Gov. Moonbeam is the fact that this is why “Bankers” back those whom they can buy and control, just as they bought Obama. This is a very rich, very corrupt Banking deal.
There is not a single intelligent reason for this excessive squander to proceed, plus as Skook points out, how does a train get to useful speed when it will be Politically-Correctly forced to stop every 5 minutes — not possible.
@James+Raider: I sold Cardiac Products for Baxter Healthcare into the China Market in the early 90’s. They wanted American Made where willing to pay for it even with China alternatives. Eventually though the technology will certainly transfer and quality will catch up.
@John: They can project all they want. Projections do not equate to reality. Projections are just a scam to get the incumbent reelected.
@Nanny+G: #10
Like so many others, I cannot find common sense in sending 10,000 troops into the eye of the Ebola shitstorm. Does Obama feel that American soldiers are expendable and able to protect a small and abusive country, but soldiers cannot be sent to take-on ISIS?
Nothing that this Administration does, is aimed at strengthening America. It is only satisfied when it implements something destructive — Constitution be damned! . . . And this destructive force got elected twice. How the hell does this happen in such an advanced Nation?
@James+Raider: As to those American soldiers ”fighting ebola.”
They are arriving after the horse is out of the barn, so to speak.
For one thing, mobs are attacking cleaners who come into villages to decontaminate (burn up) ebola victims’ possessions.
For another thing, medical doctors and nurses are abandoning their jobs rather than continue to risk contacting ebola while there is no effective treatment.
There were only 1-to-3 doctors per 100,000 in each of the ebola ravaged countries to begin with.
Now there are fewer than 1 per 100,000.
Our military could have been protecting cleaners and medical workers from angry and stupid villagers.
Instead they are testing (screening) blood of suspected ebola victims.
@Nanny+G: Just a small detail, 100% of $6 is $6.
I REFUSE to buy any food stuffs from China or any Asian country. Least of all shell fish or fish.
@UpChuck.Liberals: It may not be as easy as you might think. I have a mind that is designed to remember prices and growing seasons. I am always watching the agricultural plantings and harvesting on my travels. Now I like fruits and vegetables, and I keep up on grapes, especially. I was in the midwest and saw California grapes for $1.35/pound. I bought a couple of pounds for dinner and got to thinking.
I had just finished working in the Coachella Valley, during the winter, and there were no table grapes available in the hottest place in California, how could that be? I called an old customer, who was the former manager of one of the biggest commercial farms in the valley, and asked him about these California grapes.
He didn’t want to tell me, at first, but that made me relentless. It turned out the grapes I had bought were from South America, they were boxed in California and became California grapes. So we eat grapes, grown with no rules, and assume they are from California. Surprise!
Liberals
oftenlive in a fantasy world that ignores the real world right in front of them.FIFY.