I don't give Fs --- they earn them and one student earned it last quarter.You can't give a kid an F in school
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Moderators: Coyote, nebugeater, Brad, Omaha Cowboy, BRoss
mrdwhsr, any comments or thoughts to share?StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Why would I hate that? That's ultimately my goal, too: a place in the city and a place in the country.joeglow wrote:As much as you will hate this, I would like to own a second property (a downtown condo) when the kids are gone, in addition to a property out in the country.
Joe and mrdwhsr, I'm not arguing against your choices. If you have lived in the city and in the suburbs and ultimately decided on the suburbs to raise kids, that's fine--but not everybody would choose to do so. Furthermore, to the extent that your choice makes the foregone choice less possible for those who would choose it, its price tag should be reflective of that.
mrdwhsr, good points about the history of cities. That's exactly what I studied, in high detail, during my first semester of grad school. But you have to ask, why were people leaving cities during that time? Urban areas today are vastly different than the industrial cities of the 19th Century: The streets aren't full of horse |expletive| and disease, there generally aren't factories spewing toxic chemicals in downtowns anymore, etc. etc. Not even bringing class and race into the equation, these are the "urban problems" from which people were fleeing.
There's not some inherent flaw to city living--if there were, other urban centers would not have continued to concentrate and centralize during the same periods of American city-desertion given the same technologies.
Ben, I'm looking forward to reading your comment, but it'll need to wait until I can dedicate just time to reading and analyzing it.
Ben, any comments or thoughts to share?StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Exactly. You've restated my point. People should be allowed to do whatever they want, with those conditions.OmahaBen wrote:The former is a resounding yes, so long as they can legally acquire it and it doesn't impose a substantial harm on others (you have the right to own a gun, but you don't have a right to shoot your neighbor).StreetsOfOmaha wrote:But why do they want what they want? And should they always be able to have what they want?
...
This is why we hear rhetoric attacking policies to levy appropriate user fees on people who choose to live a certain way--calling them an attack on the American way of life, because obviously, their way of life is the American way.
I'm not going to argue economics with you, and I think there is a fare amount that we agree upon.
Where am I taking this too far? See my last post and others. Nobody is saying that you shouldn't have the right to a suburban house with a yard. heck, I would be more happy in a house with a yard than living in Manhattan.
And in terms of suburbs being market-driven, I wholly disagree--with history and facts on my side. The suburbs WOULD NOT have happened, at least not as we have come to know them, without the policies put in place by the US government in the first half and middle of the 20th Century:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_Act_of_1949
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GI_Bill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid_v._Ambler_Realty
And anyway, yes. Really.OmahaBen wrote:Streets, really? So country living = sustainable. urban living = sustainable. mix the two (suburban) and all of a sudden it's not?StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Country living not efficient? Yeah, if you're commuting into a city everyday. What about growing your own food and doing your best to "live off the grid". What about living in walking or bicycling distance to a town with access to local food, goods, and services? Sure, you'd probably have to own a car, but that doesn't mean you have to use it every day, or even every week.
Have you had experience with country living? I'd be interested in a web-cam on the trials and tribulations.StreetsOfOmaha wrote:mrdwhsr, any comments or thoughts to share?StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Why would I hate that? That's ultimately my goal, too: a place in the city and a place in the country.joeglow wrote:As much as you will hate this, I would like to own a second property (a downtown condo) when the kids are gone, in addition to a property out in the country.
Joe and mrdwhsr, I'm not arguing against your choices. If you have lived in the city and in the suburbs and ultimately decided on the suburbs to raise kids, that's fine--but not everybody would choose to do so. Furthermore, to the extent that your choice makes the foregone choice less possible for those who would choose it, its price tag should be reflective of that.
mrdwhsr, good points about the history of cities. That's exactly what I studied, in high detail, during my first semester of grad school. But you have to ask, why were people leaving cities during that time? Urban areas today are vastly different than the industrial cities of the 19th Century: The streets aren't full of horse |expletive| and disease, there generally aren't factories spewing toxic chemicals in downtowns anymore, etc. etc. Not even bringing class and race into the equation, these are the "urban problems" from which people were fleeing.
There's not some inherent flaw to city living--if there were, other urban centers would not have continued to concentrate and centralize during the same periods of American city-desertion given the same technologies.
Ben, I'm looking forward to reading your comment, but it'll need to wait until I can dedicate just time to reading and analyzing it.
I don't think anyone tries to paint you in that way, I think you do a pretty good job of doing that yourself. When you ask a somewhat loaded question like "should they be able to [have a suburban lifestyle]?', you shouldn't then be surprised when people infer your own answer might be "no," especially given your past statements on such matters. It's a "whole body of work" kind of thing.StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Again, there's this tendency to try to paint me as an extremist or a hypocrite, and it's just not the case.
I disagree. The policies reflected changes in culture. The car was already well established as a means of transportation well before any of those happened. In so much as those policies furthered an already present movement, it probably sped things up and aided in the excesses. But I have a really strong inclination that even in the absence of federal money, we'd still have limited access highways of one sort or another to aid the movement of people and goods, and such highways would still lead to suburbia in a fashion that would be recognizable to us. That proverbial cat was out of the bag already. I don't see people saying "well, we have this great invention in the automobile which lets me get from point a to point b and back again faster than anything else out there and with minimal exertion on my part, but I'm not going to use it."StreetsOfOmaha wrote:And in terms of suburbs being market-driven, I wholly disagree--with history and facts on my side. The suburbs WOULD NOT have happened, at least not as we have come to know them, without the policies put in place by the US government in the first half and middle of the 20th Century:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_Act_of_1949
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GI_Bill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid_v._Ambler_Realty
I don't mean to digress and cherry-pick, or maybe I do, but what government are you referring to?StreetsOfOmaha wrote: But one of government's roles in a market economy is to help provide perfect information.
In the absence of federal money, I'm guessing the state gasoline taxes would have been higher to compensate.StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Historically, the Federal Government paid for 90% of highway construction for the states. You think suburbia would have happened anyway without government involvement? Absolutely not. Would we have sacrificed education funding? Clean water? Garbage pickup? Sewers? Libraries?
I'm well aware that you didn't make it up, and that is why I suggested that maybe the term (which I also did not make up) "complete information", would have been more "appropriate economic language" in this instance.StreetsOfOmaha wrote:S33, I "chose" the term "perfect information" because that is the appropriate economic language. I didn't just make it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_in ... guation%29
No, I fully understood where you were going with that.StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Yeah, whatever. :roll:
The way you framed your comment sounded like you were insinuating that I made up the term. That's what I was responding to.
You're right. I am homophobic. My phobias include spiders, mean people with guns, heights, plane wrecks, and guys who like other guys. Got me.StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Anyway, just like you to call me a dickmouth and then duck out of the room. And is calling people "dickmouths" supposed to be helping or hurting your claim to not be homophobic?
Cars haven't been solely the toys of the rich since Henry Ford perfected the assembly line to produce the Model T. The Model T predates the interstate highway system by a good 50 years.StreetsOfOmaha wrote:S33, I "chose" the term "perfect information" because that is the appropriate economic language. I didn't just make it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_in ... guation%29
Ben, I totally agree with you! But this is where we run into the situation where, if faced with a price that more accurately reflects the true costs of automobile travel, we would see a sharp decline in the demand for said mode! Not to mention, had this been the case from the get-go, we would not have seen the overbuilt mono-infrastructure that we have today and cars would have remained a toy of the rich (again, we probably would have seen the privatization of highways, just like railroads and airlines).
But you are helping me make the point that it is policy, and the strength or weakness of that policy, that affects the physical space around us and how we travel about it; It's not just the happenstance of the market.
Most transportation costs are not fuel, though, at least when talking car. And of the fuel costs, most of that is not gas taxes. I spend ~$300/month on a car payment, and even when I was commuting from Ames to Des Moines 5 days a week I was only spending $100-$120/month on gas at the high end. And that doesn't count maintenance or parking, either.StreetsOfOmaha wrote:and transportation costs are already the biggest portion of household expenses in the US.
Actually Streets, the airport is a very good example. All the private airlines pay fees for use of the airport facilities. Much like private trucking companies pay road-use taxes and fees. The question being, do the user fees cover the cost of building and maintaining the facilities? (And I would say do they replace the property taxes lost when private property is taken for a new airport or a wider interstate highway?)StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Also, kudos to you if you don't think a doubled gas tax is that big of a deal; A lot of people out there are already hurting and transportation costs are already the biggest portion of household expenses in the US.
Also, the airport example isn't the best, because all the airlines are private companies.
Smart move. That way millions of Americans, many in cities without much public transportation like Omaha, will be priced out of their mobility for as many years as it takes to build an alternative.StreetsOfOmaha wrote:That said, while we still are completely and hopelessly reliant upon gasoline at the moment, I say tax the |expletive| out of it at the pump!
An extra $30 billion a year wouldn't make a dent? Really? That'd up the federal gas tax collections to ~$60 billion total, or about 1.2 billion per state, on average.StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Whoa, whoa. I think you're really missing what I'm getting at here, because you're right; all that stuff you just said is pretty much true.
I was mainly commenting on Ben's nonchalance at the idea of a doubled gas tax, and I was also showing my general skepticism that such a doubling of the gas tax would make much of a dent in the "needed" improvements.
I did get the second point, but you are correct I really did miss the first point. I thought maybe you were concerned about the impact of a doubled gas tax on family budgets.StreetsOfOmaha wrote:Whoa, whoa. I think you're really missing what I'm getting at here, because you're right; all that stuff you just said is pretty much true.
I was mainly commenting on Ben's nonchalance at the idea of a doubled gas tax, and I was also showing my general skepticism that such a doubling of the gas tax would make much of a dent in the "needed" improvements. The other point was simply that gas is a dying fuel-source in today's economy and sociopolitical milieu--therefore why invest a ton of time and effort into crafting new taxation policies pertaining to it.
That said, while we still are completely and hopelessly reliant upon gasoline at the moment, I say tax the |expletive| out of it at the pump!
A doubled gas tax just expresses nonchalance --StreetsOfOmaha wrote:A lot of people out there are already hurting and transportation costs are already the biggest portion of household expenses in the US.
Make it real - a $5.00 per gallon gas tax - now we're getting serious!StreetsOfOmaha wrote:I say tax the |expletive| out of it at the pump!
Raising the federal gas tax to pay for roads is not taxing people out of their cars. Besides, what good is a car without a road on which to drive it?S33 wrote:Again, I have no clue why anyone hear is advocating making our only real mode of transportation unaffordable for those with the least to spare. Sure, structure roadway tolls to encourage people to live/work/shop closer to home, change policy to encourage smarter development, but taxing people out of their cars?
How stupid are we? You change a person's transportation habits by offering affordable and convenient alternatives, not by limiting the purchasing power of their money.
And how is one supposed to add alternative modes of transport when we refuse to pay for what we currently have?S33 wrote:You want to reduce the burden of roadway funding, you create sensible ways to reduce the demand on the roads by adding alternative modes of transit; you do not tax "the |expletive|" out of your people. Throughout all this turmoil with government spending and waste, I find it absurd that we are again looking to ourselves as the primary source for funding shortfalls.
Discretionary Spending.OmahaBen wrote: And how is one supposed to add alternative modes of transport when we refuse to pay for what we currently have?
It would, and every other family who earns just enough to make ends meet.OmahaBen wrote: We can't raise the gas tax, ostensibly because it hurts the dirt poor.
We should "tax the |expletive|" out of large offshore money transfers, corporate investments and acquisitions.OmahaBen wrote: We can't raise the income tax, because then rich people will...do something. (move to Rwanda, that libertarian tax haven that it is?)
Correct.OmahaBen wrote:We can't touch capital gains taxes because it would discourage investment.
We already have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world at over 39 percent. I can't imagine how that would be an economic growth hurdle or force the US to pay out tens of billions of dollars a year for people to sit at home and do nothing.OmahaBen wrote: We not only can't raise corporate taxes, but have to lower them to pad Chevron's bottom line even more.
There are a lot of reasons why we shouldn't raise real estate taxes, and those aren't them.OmahaBen wrote: We can't raise estate taxes because of family farms and Paris Hilton.
Maybe all those expensive suits occupying the seats in the House and Senate could exercise some discretionary spending instead of allowing the waste to occupy any source of additional funding we may have had for important items such as transportation.OmahaBen wrote: So, pray tell, what can we do to A) fund these alternative modes of transportation and B) fund our highways, preferably at the same time.
Yeah, I would have a big problem with that.OmahaBen wrote: I'm not saying the gas tax is ideal, but it seems like the least unacceptable alternative. I'd prefer simply raising income taxes myself, but somehow I'm guessing you'd have an even bigger issue with that.
Again, when 60 cents on the dollar is debt spending in this country, it has EVERYTHING to do with overseas wars.OmahaBen wrote: The overseas wars have nothing to do with suburban transportation options.
That's not a revenue source, that's a spending account. Saying I should pay for food out of my grocery budget tells me nothing about how I earn the money to have a grocery budget to begin with.S33 wrote:Discretionary Spending.OmahaBen wrote: And how is one supposed to add alternative modes of transport when we refuse to pay for what we currently have?
...
Maybe all those expensive suits occupying the seats in the House and Senate could exercise some discretionary spending instead of allowing the waste to occupy any source of additional funding we may have had for important items such as transportation.
Damnit, I said I wouldn't turn this into the budget thread, but I can't help myself.Correct.OmahaBen wrote:We can't touch capital gains taxes because it would discourage investment.We already have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world at over 39 percent. I can't imagine how that would be an economic growth hurdle or force the US to pay out tens of billions of dollars a year for people to sit at home and do nothing.OmahaBen wrote: We not only can't raise corporate taxes, but have to lower them to pad Chevron's bottom line even more.
I'll give you the same trade off with the estate taxes as I do with corporate taxes. I'll drop the estate tax to 0, but then you have to give up all "stepped up" bases for unrealized gains associated with the estate. If Uncle Ed bought the farm for $1/acre 70 years ago and it's now worth $1,000 acre when you inherit it, congrats, you don't have to pay taxes on the estate, but if and when you go to sell it, your capital gains on that land is now $999/acre, not $0 as it is under the current code. And those realized gains get taxed as normal income now, as well.There are a lot of reasons why we shouldn't raise real estate taxes, and those aren't them.OmahaBen wrote: We can't raise estate taxes because of family farms and Paris Hilton.
We can't cut our way out this completely. Nor would it be responsible to even try. We could cut all discretionary spending, including the military, and still run a deficit.S33 wrote:After reading through this again, it's funny to me that NEVER is the solution to a healthier budget and additional transit options to rest on the shoulders of smarter government spending. it is only about increasing the government's budget via taxation, corporate or otherwise.
God forbid we, as a mass, encourage the government to stop spending money like an addict on a coke-fueled binge. Silly me for even suggesting it.
5280 wrote:Urbanite vs. Suburbanite
Twenty miles is...
Urbanite: A day trip.
Suburbanite: A one-way trip to work.
You secretly think...
Urbanite: Your suburban friends are bad with money; they paid way too much for that five-bedroom cookie-cutter monstrosity.
Suburbanite: Your city friends are bad with money; they pay rent.
You can’t live without...
Urbanite: Fresh sushi.
Suburbanite: Freshly cut grass.
A bicycle is...
Urbanite: An eco-friendly form of transportation.
Suburbanite: A child’s plaything.
You think you’re cool...
Urbanite: Because you have three plots in your community’s urban garden.
Suburbanite: Because you have a three-car garage—and a garden.
Your bumper sticker says...
Urbanite: “Coexist.”
Suburbanite: “My child is an honor student at (insert school name).”
Your most annoying conversational habit is...
Urbanite: Telling your suburban friends about the great Moroccan joint that just opened down the street that serves the most amazing harira soup—and gosh you haven’t had that since your last visit to North Africa.
Suburbanite: Telling your city friends that they could have a place the size of Morocco if they bought the house next door to you.
A neighbor’s dog just “number two’d” on someone else’s lawn. You...
Urbanite: Burst out of your town house and scold the dog owner about the need to preserve green spaces.
Suburbanite: Call your homeowners association and log an anonymous complaint.
Giving directions to Little Raven Street...
Urbanite: Is easy. Obviously, it’s the street downtown where Zengo is located.
Suburbanite: Is easy. Obviously, it’s the street after Little Raven Road that forks off of Little Raven Boulevard right before it turns into Little Raven Circle and loops around Little Raven Park.
You’re cutting it close for dinner downtown and can’t find parking. You...
Urbanite: Skip the appetizers and drive around the block 14 times until a spot opens up.
Suburbanite: Skip dinner altogether and drive 14 miles home.
You’ve just visited friends who live a half hour away. Your first thought as the door closes on your way out is...
Urbanite: How can they live like this?
Suburbanite: How can they live like this?