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EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

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Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#181

Post by BurningFrog »

new299 wrote: post #137
vertex-four wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the adversarial system - people vs Government. In pretty much every country that's doing well, the Government is considered a representative of the people, and is expected to act as one or suffer political consequences - but in the case of the US, it's expected that the Government as a whole is not a functional part of society, so it has no reason to behave as one.

Can you give some examples of those countries? Which countries are doing well and have governments that their people are generally happy with and consider representative of the people?

Yeah, I've only lived in two countries, but in both a lot of people are upset about how uniquely bad theirs is, and think things are much better in the "sane" world.

Sighs of "Only in X-Country..." abound.

This kinda mirrors the common misunderstanding that I or my family are the only ones with problems. Everyone else seem so happy and problem free.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#182

Post by rosser »

pdpi wrote: post #136
beachy wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds very credible. On a bus in Cambodia, I watched a man fixing potholes in the road. He had nothing but a spade, and each time a vehicle came past he leapt out if it's way, clinging to a dirt bank. When I got home after that holiday, I saw someone repairing the motorway near my home. The whole lane was shut down just for him, and there was a large truck with a crew of two and huge flashing arrows on it in fr…

I'm pretty sure the GP was taking about common law as opposed to roman-style civil law (or other ways of building a legal system)

Yes, that's correct. Thanks for clarifying.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#183

Post by BurningFrog »

stephen_g wrote: post #112
BurningFrog wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Controversial opinion: Governments are inherently bad at managing anything that stretches beyond the next election.

that's a common idea, but really there's no inherent quality of Governments that make that the case - I think it's more to do with how various Governments are set up. Interestingly enough, I think that regulatory frameworks set up by people who have the idea that Governments are inherently inefficient can actually make it a self-fullfilling prophesy. It's what I've seen, for example, in the Australian telecommunicati…

I think the "inherent quality of [democratic] Governments" is this:

If a government does something that causes short term pain with much bigger long term gains, it will tend to get voted out of office long before it gets to the "gains" part. The incentives for elected officials is to focus on winning the next election, or perish.

Private organizations also have short term pressures, but they're not nearly as short term and drastic. Board members and stock analysts will actually do serious in depth analysis of the long term prospects. The median voter does not.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#184

Post by blurbleblurble »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #132
blurbleblurble wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that Flint's local government was usurped by an emergency economic manager, right?

Defund or mismanage (due to incompetence, malice, or a mix) government until you cause a disaster, point at the disaster, and blame it on the government...classic Red Team strategy in action.

Red team is going very hard right now

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#185

Post by blurbleblurble »

LoonyBalloony wrote: post #178
blurbleblurble wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relocated like cattle to another pasture? I can't for the life of me understand this philosophy that financial economy under-girds life.

Its simple really. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX0fIi3H-es

Haha that pretty much sums up the mentality

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#186

Post by gloverkcn »

sumedh wrote: post #146
svsjc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he had done this in last two years when the problem came out, the election result may have been different.

How about first admitting that you were wrong in crediting Trump for this?

I've now seen this devolution in argument a number of times. Here, Facebook, and Reddit

Trump Supporter: Look what Trump Did!

Answer: Obama Pressured Congress, the bill was passed in December

-Obama waited till he was on his way out so what's the point. He was ineffective.

Answer: Actually the legislation was drafted much earlier, but republicans didn't want to pass it. Obama used his office to raise the profile of the crisis to help convince Republicans to get on board.. Congress hands out Money, not the President

-So Obama fixed his own mistake in poisoning Flints water. A lot of good the EPA does.

Answer: Actually it was a Republican governor who assigned "emergency managers" to take over Flint. He superceded the democratically elected Mayor. The new managers shifted the water source from Detroit to the Flint Michigan. The EPA told them they needed corrosion controls, but the response was by the managers was there was no law requiring the controls. Flint was a financial disaster before, but the emergency managers came in and started doing whatever they wanted regardless of the outcome.

- So the EPA just let it happen.

Answer: The EPA escalated up the chain of command. The argument went on for six months, but they didn't hold press conferences with news organizations, which was probably their last option.

-Because the EPA is ineffective, and that's why it's funding should be cut! Totally Useless!

The final answer from Trump supporters is either a) you can't stop another Flint Water issue so just get rid of the EPA, or b)getting rid of all regulations will allow the free market to naturally fix the issues.

It's no longer possible to have rational discussions. Anything positive is directly attributed to Trump, and anything negative is the fault of Obama.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#187

Post by blurbleblurble »

bmelton wrote: post #162
Applejinx wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A related question is: should every single place to live be subject to the same conditions that produced Flint? I see a fundamental viewpoint conflict between the concept 'what created Flint was a persistent course of governance action stretching way back to the 60s and only exacerbated by municipal choices to destroy the infrastructure, and this is basically criminal behavior' and 'Flint is what it is because when s…

Places don't have to compete other places to be worth living in. Places where water extraction and delivery is relatively cheap, for example, need not produce very much in the way of value to be justified. Moreover, economic value can be created, and is not zero sum, meaning that two people, or two places may create value without being parasites on each other. The important thing though is just that somebody has to c…

That's the thing here, Michigan has some of the most clean, abundant sources of water in the country, and $100,000,000 is not very much money for a long term investment of this much importance.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#188

Post by bmelton »

chii wrote: post #168
jahaja wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Economics are true whether or not your ideology agrees This is not true. Hence the old name Political economy. There's no such thing as objective economics - much to the annoyance of usually libertarians. And to add to this discussion there's no way that this would happen and not be fixed where I live no matter the profitability of the municipality itself. If the municipality couldn't pay for it, the state would. A…

people are just arguing over each other because the other's point of view is unimaginable. on the one hand, providing basic necessities which is deemed a basic human right, like clean water, is a no brainer. it should be done regardless, and if the city cannot afford it, it ought to be subsidized by an out of city entity like the state. on the other hand, what's the worth of these human lives? if it cost more money t…

For me, it's less a question of ideology and more of a question of where the money comes from. If the money is there, and will be there again in the future, then it doesn't really matter where it comes from, and I'm not suggesting that people should be denied access to water.

However, if (in what I suspect is an extreme hypothetical) this $100 million dollars only guarantees water access for a few years, and they'll be asking for handouts when this money is spent, then the question of whether or not its sustainable should probably be asked.

My only objection to the OP's assertion is that you can just build infrastructure out of tax dollars and call that sustainable. You can't, and it's been shown time and time again that it isn't tenable without some very special circumstances or conditions. There are circumstances applicable to Keynesian economics, but just paying one group of people to shovel holes in the day, and another group of people to fill them back up in the night time just doesn't work unless somebody, somewhere is producing something of value enough that it can subsidize this behavior.

Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, or perhaps he's not stating his case clearly, but that seems to be basically what he's suggesting.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#189

Post by x0x0 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #163
x0x0 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've misdiagnosed the cost problem. We have suburbs who have never, and continue not to be, amortizing -- they don't pay their costs in taxes. That can be papered over by fees from growth when they are growing, but when they stop expanding, wait 50 years for infrastructure to wear out, and you have a disaster. Lots of suburbs and rural America are built far too sparsely to be affordable (to the denizens; Woodside w…

If infrastructure cost the same as it costs in Spain, Korea, China or India, thos suburbs would be paying their costs. Delhi built a metro system for the cost of 2 miles of 2nd Ave Subway track in NYC. We spend too much. That's the problem.

The price/cost overruns of building the 2nd ave subway (and the large stations, which is were most of the costs went) is unrelated to the price of building roads and sewer in suburban America.

Also, doing stuff in America costs more than in China or India. News at 10.

Re: EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

#190

Post by someguydave »

x0x0 wrote: post #189
yummyfajitas wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If infrastructure cost the same as it costs in Spain, Korea, China or India, thos suburbs would be paying their costs. Delhi built a metro system for the cost of 2 miles of 2nd Ave Subway track in NYC. We spend too much. That's the problem.

The price/cost overruns of building the 2nd ave subway (and the large stations, which is were most of the costs went) is unrelated to the price of building roads and sewer in suburban America. Also, doing stuff in America costs more than in China or India. News at 10.

>Also, doing stuff in America costs more than in China or India. News at 10.

Which is his whole point. Also, the suburb cashflow you are super concerned about would be fixed with cheaper building/maintenance costs.

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