Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
This big…at latest report…
Big Dig’s red ink engulfs state
Cost spirals to $22b; crushing debt sidetracks other work, pushes agency toward insolvencyMassachusetts residents got a shock when state officials, at the peak of construction on the Big Dig project, disclosed that the price tag had ballooned to nearly $15 billion. But that, it turns out, was just the beginning.
Now, three years after the official dedication of the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel, the state is reeling under a legacy of debt left by the massive project. In all, the project will cost an additional $7 billion in interest, bringing the total to a staggering $22 billion, according to a Globe review of hundreds of pages of state documents. It will not be paid off until 2038.
Contrary to the popular belief that this was a project heavily subsidized by the federal government, 73 percent of construction costs were paid by Massachusetts drivers and taxpayers. To meet that obligation, the state’s annual payments will be nearly as much over the next several years, $600 million or more, as they were in the heaviest construction period.
Big Dig payments have already sucked maintenance and repair money away from deteriorating roads and bridges across the state, forcing the state to float more highway bonds and to go even deeper into the hole.
Among other signs of financial trouble: The state is paying almost 80 percent of its highway workers with borrowed money; the crushing costs of debt have pushed the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which manages the Big Dig, to the brink of insolvency; and Massachusetts spends a higher percentage of its highway budget on debt than any other state.
You realize, don’t you, that this is everyone’s fault — even the fault of people who don’t live in Massachusetts. Whenever we’re given an option to evaluate the desirability of some massive government undertaking that has been previously handled in the private sector, we tend to make the decision by meme. There are popular memes and unpopular memes.
Example: A man handing the television remote to his wife, is a popular meme. Her handing it back to him, and maybe making him a sammich, would be an unpopular meme. Her and the kids calling him a clueless dork would be a popular one.
Like that.
Well, this is turning into an apt description of how government boondoggles come to exist. They aren’t really sold to us in the first place under a thesis that they will stay within stated budget parameters. Yes that is what the wording of the sales pitch says — but we don’t check it out.
We shouldn’t be buying into these things by meme. We should be buying into them based on history. It’s easy to demonstrate that we don’t do that. Quick: Where is the master atlas of government efforts, nationalized away from private enterprise, with ratings on how much they cost versus how much they were supposed to cost, how successful they were, whether they did what they were supposed to do. In a sane universe, not only would such a list exist, but we’d be adding to it constantly, and cracking it open every time we were asked to support a new such undertaking.
That’s pretty much what the bank does when you apply for a loan.
If we did that, we would all be practically the dictionary definition of the word “conservative.”
But we don’t do that. We decide by popularity of the meme. Therefore, even with the Big Dig in the rear view mirror (as it will be, throughout at least the next thirty years) — we’ll be doing this again.
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