What I don't understand about politicians is that few support a positive view of whats possible.
Consider California. It's a one-party state. One party has the governor, lieutenant governor, 30 out of 40 state senators, 60 out of 80 state assemblymen, both senators and 43 of 52 congressmen.
They're all more or less aligned on their vision. And their vision sounds great. High speed rail or low cost housing for instance. Nothing prevents them from capturing their vision, and yet they fail.
Markets exist within politics as much as they do for physical goods. Single-party governments tend to function poorly, regardless of the party, because there's no competition to try and capture the most swing voters, so bad ideas prevail.
California's state government is basically the Comcast of governments. There's no consequences to any of their actions, so their spending goes up and the quality goes down, and will continue to do so, as long as the monopoly is in place.
People in the same party are not always aligned. Representatives want to get pork for their district, so to get their vote you need to do something for them, e.g. route the high speed train through their district even if that is not the most optimal route.
Agreeing on low-cost housing or high speed rail in the abstract is not enough to form a coalition to implement them.
Since its a one party state, there is barely reason to bother to care about being actually effective.
The train to nowhere will always be a train to nowhere because every single second it continues to not run, billions of dollars are being spent on consultants, construction workers waiting around, armies of lawyers, NGOS who barely have any reason to be paid, etc.
They are curiously also fans of the politicians shoveling this money at them to not actually build the thing they are also being paid to build simultaneously
Local government NIMBYism has been a major factor. The state has been slowly removing their teeth via CEQA reform and removing authority from local housing regulations. These reforms have very vocal opposition in local governments run by all parties.
One party doesn't mean like China, where the national party leadership can boss around the locals to get things done.
Up until 2016, cost estimates were reported as nominal prices, only subject to overall inflation. Since 2018, these estimates have been reported in terms of years-of-expenditure.
Anyone (video producer included) who doesn't account for this when talking about cost changes has an agenda.
It's unclear how to map "nominal prices" and "years of expenditure" onto "here's the money spent each year to get us to the point that trains run regularly", the latter being somewhat related (modulo interest) to the amount that must be paid by fares and subsidies going forward.
Neither did I, but the first minute of the video was so sloppy that I stopped to look him up. He's apparently a darling of the right-wing tin-foil-hat-wearing crowd.
What I don't understand about politicians is that few support a positive view of whats possible.
Consider California. It's a one-party state. One party has the governor, lieutenant governor, 30 out of 40 state senators, 60 out of 80 state assemblymen, both senators and 43 of 52 congressmen.
They're all more or less aligned on their vision. And their vision sounds great. High speed rail or low cost housing for instance. Nothing prevents them from capturing their vision, and yet they fail.
Markets exist within politics as much as they do for physical goods. Single-party governments tend to function poorly, regardless of the party, because there's no competition to try and capture the most swing voters, so bad ideas prevail.
California's state government is basically the Comcast of governments. There's no consequences to any of their actions, so their spending goes up and the quality goes down, and will continue to do so, as long as the monopoly is in place.
That one-party is a party of idealists that hardly ever bring any realistic solutions to the table, so I'm not surprised by that outcome.
People in the same party are not always aligned. Representatives want to get pork for their district, so to get their vote you need to do something for them, e.g. route the high speed train through their district even if that is not the most optimal route.
Agreeing on low-cost housing or high speed rail in the abstract is not enough to form a coalition to implement them.
Since its a one party state, there is barely reason to bother to care about being actually effective.
The train to nowhere will always be a train to nowhere because every single second it continues to not run, billions of dollars are being spent on consultants, construction workers waiting around, armies of lawyers, NGOS who barely have any reason to be paid, etc.
They are curiously also fans of the politicians shoveling this money at them to not actually build the thing they are also being paid to build simultaneously
Local government NIMBYism has been a major factor. The state has been slowly removing their teeth via CEQA reform and removing authority from local housing regulations. These reforms have very vocal opposition in local governments run by all parties.
One party doesn't mean like China, where the national party leadership can boss around the locals to get things done.
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Fresno to Bakersfield and back? Who wouldn't want that?
Give me a handcar!
This video isn't informative at all.
Better video explaining the delays: https://youtu.be/2NK0wBBZZ24
Up until 2016, cost estimates were reported as nominal prices, only subject to overall inflation. Since 2018, these estimates have been reported in terms of years-of-expenditure.
Anyone (video producer included) who doesn't account for this when talking about cost changes has an agenda.
It's unclear how to map "nominal prices" and "years of expenditure" onto "here's the money spent each year to get us to the point that trains run regularly", the latter being somewhat related (modulo interest) to the amount that must be paid by fares and subsidies going forward.
It's nick shirley, there is quite the agenda.
I don't know who that is. I was just talking about the content of the video.
Neither did I, but the first minute of the video was so sloppy that I stopped to look him up. He's apparently a darling of the right-wing tin-foil-hat-wearing crowd.
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/31/nx-s1-5662600/nick-shirley-mi...