"...the Next-Gen High Speed Rail line would reduce the travel time between Washington, D.C., and New York City from 162 minutes to 96 minutes. The travel time between New York and Boston would go from 215 minutes to 84 minutes."
So if you do the math, Washington, D.C. to Boston currently takes 6 hours and 17 minutes, not counting delays due to MARC, SEPTA, NJ Transit, Metro-North, and the MBTA Commuter Rail clogging up the tracks. The vision is to reduce this travel time to 3 hours to cover the same 440 miles by the year 2040. So instead of covering a maximum 70 miles per hour, we'll have trains that can go a maximum of 147 miles per hour 30 years from now. A nice improvement but, the Chinese already have a line in existence today that covers the 75 miles from Beijing to Tianjin in 25 minutes (or, 180 miles per hour. TODAY!)
So, in other words, is our vision to become today's China in the next 30 years? Not really, but why should it take us 30 years to do what's best for commuters (faster trips), the environment (fewer cars on the road), and national security (reduced usage of petrodictator's oil and you can't fly a train into a building unless there are tracks that lead to one)?
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Be very careful what you wish for...
I'm adding Steven Pearlstein to my list of essential weekly reading, which currently includes Matt Miller, also of The Washington Post. My favorite line in today's column:
"Here is the hard political reality: You can't expect to support and finance political candidates who preach that government is menacing and wasteful, that public employees are incompetent and corrupt, that taxes are always too high and destroy jobs, and then turn around and expect that the government will respond to your demands to hold down the cost of health care, or fund basic research, or provide good schools, efficient courts and reliable transportation systems."
Again, be very careful what you wish for...
"Here is the hard political reality: You can't expect to support and finance political candidates who preach that government is menacing and wasteful, that public employees are incompetent and corrupt, that taxes are always too high and destroy jobs, and then turn around and expect that the government will respond to your demands to hold down the cost of health care, or fund basic research, or provide good schools, efficient courts and reliable transportation systems."
Again, be very careful what you wish for...
The efficient Germans: Less Talk, More Action
I came across this post earlier today on American Express Open Forum that I thought was very interesting.
"...Americans view time as a currency in the workplace, as opposed to output. Meanwhile, Germans view results as the biggest indicator of results."
The redundancy of that second line aside, there are too many employers in the United States (*cough* Goldman Sachs *cough*) that are highly focused on face-time and think they are making up for it by assuming money is a better motivator than actually allowing their employees to see their families once in a while.
Columns like this one validate what I've always felt about people that routinely put in 10-, 12-, or 14-hour workdays, five-to-six days a week in the office: it's not a badge of honor as much as it's a mark of inefficiency. Get over yourself.
"...Americans view time as a currency in the workplace, as opposed to output. Meanwhile, Germans view results as the biggest indicator of results."
The redundancy of that second line aside, there are too many employers in the United States (*cough* Goldman Sachs *cough*) that are highly focused on face-time and think they are making up for it by assuming money is a better motivator than actually allowing their employees to see their families once in a while.
Columns like this one validate what I've always felt about people that routinely put in 10-, 12-, or 14-hour workdays, five-to-six days a week in the office: it's not a badge of honor as much as it's a mark of inefficiency. Get over yourself.
Friday, September 24, 2010
"Ben Stein, the guy who got rich because when he talks it sounds so boring it's actually funny."
Bill Maher gives a sneak preview of one of his new rules that will be on tonight's episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher". I'd be curious to see the next Christine O'Donnell clip but unfortunately the HBO/Cinemax free preview was last weekend and someone manages to post it on YouTube anyway (before HBO makes them take it down.)
Einstein's Relativity Affects Aging on Earth (Slightly)
I have to admit, even though it has nothing to do with politics or sports I am posting this just for the awesome geekiness of this article. ENJOY!!!
Volcker puts the smack-down on, well, pretty much everyone that makes money from money
Check out the WSJ link while you can because it gets locked down for paid subscribers only after a few days. This was my personal favorite:
“We had all our best business schools in the United States pouring out financial engineers, every smart young mathematician and physicist said ‘I don’t want to be a civil engineer, a mechanical engineer. I’m a smart guy, I want to go to Wall Street.’ And then you know all the risks were going to be sliced and diced and [people thought] the market would be resilient and not face any crises. We took care of all that stuff, and I think that was the general philosophy that markets are efficient and self correcting and we don’t have to worry about them too much."
“We had all our best business schools in the United States pouring out financial engineers, every smart young mathematician and physicist said ‘I don’t want to be a civil engineer, a mechanical engineer. I’m a smart guy, I want to go to Wall Street.’ And then you know all the risks were going to be sliced and diced and [people thought] the market would be resilient and not face any crises. We took care of all that stuff, and I think that was the general philosophy that markets are efficient and self correcting and we don’t have to worry about them too much."
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The Economist: "There's rich, and then there's rich"
This is totally mind-boggling:
"...the top twenty-five hedge fund managers combined appear to have earned more than all five hundred S&P 500 CEOs combined (both realized and ex ante)."
"...the top twenty-five hedge fund managers combined appear to have earned more than all five hundred S&P 500 CEOs combined (both realized and ex ante)."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)