blocktuw's comments

I thought we would get an infrastructure boom from Obama during the Great Recession. We went through 2 huge rounds of spending that mostly went to "shovel ready" projects. From my understanding, today's construction budgets are tied up in capital costs like heavy machinery and materials. There isn't much need for labor anymore with automation and specialized equipment.

There is also the issue of planning out infrastructure improvements. With environmental reviews that can take decades and lawsuits that occur after that, it is extremely difficult to pull the same type of "New Deal" programs that happened during the 1930s.

My guess is for all the spending, very few people would end up employed. Is the goal employment at any cost, or providing people without jobs welfare?

I don't think you're wrong. But this is the same situation that "millennials" have been facing. They have no cash to move from their family home to chase opportunity. I'm sure many would love to keep their standard of living as-is and have a good job, but most accept smaller and more expensive housing with problems like traffic, crime, pollution in urban areas in return for employment.

The big difference I see is most millennials want to move to a big city and work hard at creating a new and better future.

"Do this or you're fired" will typically get those below you to produce the change you desire. Not sure how you can put that much value on a skill inherit to a hierarchical organization.

If the organization was flat, then I would concede your point that affecting change without any seniority would be difficult and worth extra compensation. A true leader would need to be persuasive, knowledgeable and visionary.

What you describe as "leadership" is people doing their job.

I agree that there are people who will benefit from the use of prescription medications to treat different life issues. I too suffer from hours of staring at work, unable to start or finish. I don't think I have a learning disability or a disease that needs treatment. But I think there are many alternatives to help people who cannot start and finish work tasks.

I can usually find a quiet and productive work environment free from distractions. I can usually adjust my caffeine intake levels. I can usually adjust the amount of personally stress in my life. I can usually adjust the amount of sleep. I can usually break up my work into small enough chunks to get started. I can block certain computer activities which are distracting.

Yes everybody is different. No, we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Yes, we should be exploring alternative treatments besides powerful amphetamines which can cause addiction and health issues. I don't believe having a problem justifies all the cost that go along with treatment. Sometimes the solution is worse than the problem.

I don't want to have to do drugs at work to keep my career from those who want to take a pill and work for 12 hours a day.

I agree with you that long-haul freight is best served by rail. However, I would hardly call the railroads unsubsidized. They received free land, cheap loans and government guaranteed business to develop the rail system.

The eventual beneficiary of cheap transportation is the consumer. I suppose this should considered a regressive tax.

I fail to see how I as a consumer am personally benefitting. I have more expensive healthcare that covers less and it gets more expensive and covers less every year.

I'm sure there are a few very sick people out there who are benefitting. I'm glad that we as a society are able to help them out. But it's clear that I do not have choice in needing healthcare, whereas these providers do have a choice in providing healthcare.

I agree with you that the hybrid approach is not working.

I believe your examples of public services being worse than their private counterparts is a specious argument. Most private schools are paid for by rich people. The cost to attend is higher than public school so it would reason that the quality is better. Same for USPS vs FedEx. The shipping rates for USPS are much cheaper.

Some people are price sensitive. Cheaper is all they can manage to afford and are willing to accept less quality in return. As a healthy person I'd rather take a two percent annual increase in insurance premiums for lower quality of care since I do not have much need for services.

I also have police officers in my family and I have anecdotal evidence from them that there are bad cops and everybody in a department knows who they are and what the issues are with those officers.

The expectations of performance are different between a police officer and a sys admin. It may happen that a sys admin makes a mistake causing systems to go down. Coworkers might be involved in the cleanup and pull an all nighter to recover the systems. Immediately after the incident there will be changes to process and responsibilities to minimize the likelihood of a similar event from happening. Sometimes people are fired. Sometimes people are demoted. Sometimes management is held responsible. Sometimes there is retraining.

Policing does not take any such corrective actions. Individual officers have the protection of powerful unions which hold all officers equal regardless of their performance and efficacy. Sergeants and captains can't correct the actions of the officers under their responsibility without facing repercussions from union representatives. Management becomes damage control and officers regress to the lowest mean because that is what makes their job easiest.

I think there is a lot of blame to go around. I blame our society for allowing this to continue for so long without demanding change from public representatives. I blame our elected officials for not changing laws to reflect our current reality. I blame police unions for protecting bad officers. I blame police department management for not attempting to deal with bad officers and enabling poor policing. Lastly I blame individual officers who should know better but most likely are not incentivized to change their behavior.

Your comment is directly contradicting itself. The value of the Olympics and their fundraisers is because of the athletes. Would Nike pay hundreds of millions to put their logos on TV with no athletes? Take away the athletes and you're left with a bunch of old white men who have connections to marketers at large multinationals. Not very valuable.

I use the command WIN + q which launches the Windows "Search the web and Windows" menu/dialog which I can type a local file name or installed application and quickly open items.

I disagree with your assertion that suicide can be designed away whereas sleep cannot because it is a necessity.

Anybody who wants to commit suicide will do it if they are motivated enough. Putting bars outside a window, or preventing a window from opening are only preventing a specific type of suicide.

Similarly, preventing somebody from sleeping on a bench won't prevent them from sleeping. It will only prevent them from sleeping on the bench. They can sleep in front of or next to the bench, having the same "blocking" effect which prevents others from enjoying the use of the bench.

The problem with roads is induced demand. The increasing trend towards urban density requires moving more people around increasingly denser urban areas. Freeways were great in the 50s and 60s but have proven their limitations in sprawled, urbanized areas like Atlanta, DC, and Southern California.

Rail moves more people over time than freeways in urban areas, but with less flexibility for destinations. Urban planning should prioritize building transit-oriented development around these rail corridors allowing for more people to live within a reasonable commute time to jobs.

Freeways should not continue to be built and expanded in urban areas. Wrong tool for the job.

The trope that minimizing your taxes is good and should be encouraged is tired and political. The reasoning that one isn't breaking any rules is like saying it's ok to take the entire bowl of Halloween candy because there aren't any rules against it. It is against the spirit of taxes which pool resources for the greater good of everyone.

Everybody has to pay taxes. Some people have the means to avoid paying a fair amount and retain even a higher percentage of their income. The poor pay many direct and indirect taxes which equals a higher percentage of their income than rich.[1]

Not saying that the world needs to be fair for everybody, but it's disingenuous to take advantage of public services and resources and say it isn't your responsibility to pay for them in an equitable way. Warrent Buffet understands this and wants it changed. [2]

And no meaningful tax reform law has any chance of passing due to gridlock in Congress. People like Zuckerberg are flaunting this fact and daring somebody to close loopholes.

[1] http://www.itep.org/whopays/full_report.php [2] http://fee.org/freeman/5-warren-buffetts-federal-tax-rate-is...

I would think the light reflecting back into your face in fog and smoke would be a bigger detriment than benefit. Utilizing high beams in snow and fog while driving is discouraged for this reason.

Hopefully you wash your hands after using the bathroom, regardless of if you use your hand to physically remove matter from your body. But a quick google gave me 37 gallons, 1.3 kWh, 1.5 lbs of wood per roll of toilet paper. That is a hefty amount of consumption that is flushed down the toilet. http://www.treehugger.com/bathroom-design/stop-using-toilet-...

"Wealth" is what enables those putting in "effort" to trade for others' "effort" in order to sustain oneself. Although nobody can eat "wealth" or his employer's bank credits, one can absolutely trade "wealth" for "efforts". This is the point of currency. Your strawman that "wealth" cannot be eaten is completely false.

How do you square this self-defeating mindset against the described millennial sensitivity where everybody expects a trophy and considers themselves special? Seems like you might be referring to older works who are already jaded by the system and not the new class of workers who will be taking over their jobs.

I don't understand why Altman doesn't address the underlying arguments against "hard work". The modern workers movement was about receiving more of the profit from business. He seems to want workers to take the pay cut while still providing the same incentives to capital investment.

This reminds me of the unhelpful SO answers where they state the answer to a question is already stated as part of a spec and won't be answered with a link to the spec. My preferred answer to these questions will quote applicable parts of the spec along with reference numbers and a link.

I don't understand why I have to click another link to go to another site that doesn't have the same context and awareness of where I just came from.

> Lack of heat at the facility likely contributed to the death of a detainee.

Causing the death of a detainee is not a threat. Perhaps negligence which should have consequences for those who were responsible for this person while in their custody.