Comments libertyvini has made

Necessity Of A Single Standard?

If a single unitary body needs to be empowered to enforce a single, unitary standard on everybody, then why are we all being sold on AGW theory as a scientific "consensus"?

More to the point, I work in the occupational health field, and OSHA hasn't ever set the most protective standards for industrial chemical exposure. independent groups like ACGIH are way ahead of them.

It's a weak argument that ignores the wants and desires of each individual in favor of what 50%+1 voters can be defrauded into accepting, at BEST, and  what a gaggle of clueless regulators can be captured into doing, usually.

I wish he had made a more considered remark on nuclear power, for although the technology for safe, environmentally-friendly nuclear power exists, its deployment is hampered by the closed, monopolistic, nuclear power industry and its captured regulatory agencies.

Again, though, it isn't hard to understand Dr. Paul's prescription - stop subsidizing pollution, and stop repressing the right of individuals to a redress of pollution grievances. If we can get that done, and AGW is determined to be a real threat, we will ALREADY BE MOVING ON IT.On An interview with Ron Paul about his presidential platform on energy and the environment posted 2 years, 1 month ago 55 Responses

Jeff Goodell Hates Ethanol And You Should Too

The
libertyguys
have been saying this for a couple of years, here and elsewhere;"Why Ethanol Will Never Economically Replace Gasoline"

Now if we could just get people to apply the same skepticism to corporate pledges to curb global warming! People, Big Business and Big Government LOVE to stampede the herd into policies that sound appealing but are really just boodoggles designed to enrichen them and screw you and me.

Vince Daliessio www.libertyguys.org

Carbon Offsets As A Fiat Currency

The lack of a fair and objective way to assign carbon allowances and account for offsets is one major problem.

The biggest problem is that like any regulatory program the concept has already been captured by some of the biggest polluters, who will manipulate the playing field to disadvantage competitors.

The fundamental reason we "need" a multinational government "solution" is that our Coasean method of abrogating individual and property rights and handing them over to big companies is so ingrained there is barely a chance of ever going back. There is no way such a system can be fair, or in the long run, workable.

Only re-establishing a 100% property-rights solution with full enforcement against trespassing by pollution can restore the environment without harming developing countries.

Vince Daliessio www.libertyguys.org

Jewish Ladies, Red States, Mass Waste

Canis;

Cute, keep beating on my "offensive" remark, I suppose it suits you to argue such trivia, rather than address the substance of my arguments. For the record, two of my heroes are Murray Rothbard and Walter Block, both Brooklyn / East-Side Jews, so please spare me the harrumphing about my cutesy remark.

The facts contradict your assertions. The Second Avenue line and East Side Access are two completely different wasteful, inefficient, largely federally funded projects. The last article I read showed $20 billion and change for the first 3 phases of the 2nd Avenue line, 70% federally funded. I have not found a total estimate for East Side Access, I HAVE seen a figure of $17 Billion ALL FEDERAL for the first phase.

Show me some better figures if you want to argue, that's still $30 BILLION and change stolen from 292 million on behalf of 8 million, more or less, however in reality it is a contribution from all 300 million of us more or less into the pockets of interests like Peter Kallikow and Rudy Giuliani.

But wait, I shouldn't even go there, since, as you point out, "blue" states are net IRS payers, while "red" states are net consumers (I don't buy this politically-motivated dreck for one second, since the version I am familiar with excludes "entitlement" spending, which the last time I checked still comes out of the pockets of taxpayers).

My retort to this - New Yorkers, and everyone else should be paying little to no federal taxes, which obviates the need to even do this little purple calculation.

And if Peter Kallikow wants to increase the value of his buildings with convenient transit, let him spend his OWN money to do it.

Vince Daliessio www.libertyguys.org

Some Activity (and thinking) On This Topic!

I'm glad the inefficiencies and pollution of the NYC  bus system were pointed out. The average crosstown bus in NYC (e.g. M96)moves at a brisk 4.3 miles per hour; http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/sensible/BRT_for_NYC.pd ...
...which is barely a walking pace. Not much incentive to use it for commuting.

And I'm glad people are aware of the political and financial origins of the interstate system. Prior to its construction, the only intercity expressways were private or quasi-public tollways. The federal creation of the interstate system put an end to self-financed highways, just as they put an end to self-financed railroads 100 years earlier.

But come on - Halliburton? $50 tollbooths every 2 miles? Ridiculous. As bad as they are, the PA and NJTPKs do a decent job with far less federal money than the interstates get, and an end-to-end trip in a car (NJ) is still less than $10, a bargain.

Face facts, people, The cost of mass transit and highways is increasing, not decreasing (the cost of cars is too, but a lot of that due to non-technical costs), but come on, think bigger. Forget "infrastructure" - it's a sink for cash, and enriches construction companies and administrators, and empoorens everyone else. When you have a real-estate jillionaire like Peter Kallikow running a transit system, you know it's his own interests, easy money, and power that are the real motivator. We can't keep this up.

As for political agendas, here's a thought - in whose best interest is it to have subsidized transit within high-density urban areas - giant megalopolies, or small, lean, entrepreneurial businesses? Show your work!

Mass transit has to be completely re-thought, along a decentralized, entirely private model, all costs paid by private owners, who also own 100% responsibility for upkeep, safety, and environmental impacts, and bear the burden of making transit serve the customer, lest they lose business to a competitor.

But what form will this take? Hovercars? Skycars? Pneumatic tubes? Will devolving the true costs of building, operating, and maintaining the "infrastructure" to the owners result in efficiently-running 150-year-old rail technology? Will it result in more rationally-dispersed development, without "planning" and "anti-sprawl" ordinances?

Will most of us work from our homes? (look how the price of telecommuting is decreasing in almost direct proportion to how the cost of actual commuting is increasing). Will the very nature of life and work and the relationship between the two change?

I don't have all the answers, people, I never claimed to. Centralism is a recipie for bigger, crappier, breathtakingly expensive systems that benefit the user least of everybody. Government mass transit, in the long run, cannot and will not work, because it suffers from the same fundamental problem that all socialist systems suffer from - the inability to calculate rationally. Currently it simply doesn't work well, anywhere. Without massive subsidies, and freedom-robbing mandates, it doesn't work at all. But the free market does.

Vince Daliessio www.libertyguys.org

The Reason That Public Transit Gets No Respect

...is because it sucks. Unless you live in NYC, or live and work conveniently near a major corridor, you are not served at all, period. Not that government-run transit has any prayer of ever serving you anyway.

Public transit's biggest problem isn't lack of funding, or lack of taxes. Rather, it's that first word, public, not as in the public can use it, but that the public is forced at the point of a gun to fund it. Therefore, it has absolutely no incentive to respond to the demands of its actual or potential customers, and every incentive to respond to the demands of the connected. This builds gigantic inefficiencies in, making subsequent efforts to appeal to a wider ridership doomed from the start. The same is true for public highways, exacerbating the problem.

Public transit's second biggest problem is institutional. Those who run and benefit from the running of it have edifice complexes, they buy and build the biggest, most complicated, and most expensive conveyances possible, without any thought of flexibility, changes in demographics, economic conditions, or any other factor, micro or macro. All of these investments become stranded, sooner or later. The New York City subways are popular and useable due solely to happy accident of the unique location they inhabit, nothing more. The MTA's surface transportation systems are middling to poor in the way customers are served.

But the main problem is the coercive nature of government-run transit. The second problem is a result of the first. Government should get out of transit altogether, including highways. Truly private, competitive systems, free from government interference will serve customers best, because to be successful, or even to survive, they will have to do so.

Vince Daliessio www.libertyguys.org