Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern • Hacker News Board

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#111

Post by mschuster91 » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 2:35 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #88

quacked wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was young, I assumed the 401k had been around forever. But it was introduced in 1978! We're nearing the end of the 50-year period that the guys who invented it would really need to get staggeringly rich off of the concept, and now that they're getting ready to die everyone's overreliance on the system they set up is causing total gridlock in American life. You can't do ANYTHING that threatens the stock market.…

Just the push back on financial advice by guys like Dave Ramsey is shocking. You tell people to save, avoid debt, don’t buy new cars, etc and people react with almost anger at the suggestion.

It's impossible today to have any sort of major asset without going into debt. Simply said, wages are so low you can't really save up for anything - like what, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck?

Back in the Ford era, it was at least commonly understood common sense that people need to be able to afford products. Today? The people are held poor so that they can't afford to strike, much less openly revolt, and nickeled-and-dimed by the credit industry.

The advice from Ramsey and friends makes sense and is objectively the best thing people can do, but at the same time its messaging is clear: miss out on the fun everyone else has achieved by debt.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#112

Post by flavius29663 » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

mattacular wrote: post #82

I see all the staunch supporters of deregulation across the board that normally come out of the woodwork on HN are strangely absent.

I am not one of those supporters, I think. But there is a disconnect here (and I was guilty of it for many years): when regular people think of regulations, they think about sensible rules that protect them, the workers, or the environment.

When lobbyists, industry, and politicians think of regulations, they tend to think mostly about how to protect the established industry from startups. By adding sufficient red tape in places where it's not really required, they can effectively create moats for existing oligopolies.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#113

Post by bombcar » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #52

h2odragon wrote: post #3

Recall when there was an imminent Rail Workers' strike in the news? Which Congress bravely stepped in and prevented? Weren't safety issues like this part of the workers' complaints? There were multiple sightings of axles on fire before the accident: https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2023/02/10/...

> There were multiple sightings of axles on fire before the accident In Germany, we have these hot-box detectors as well - and if they trigger, the train is automatically stopped by dispatch. Wonder what happened in this case.

When there are human links in the safety chain, those links can fail. Here's some possible things that could have gone wrong:

1. The hotbox detectors have been malfunctioning or are miscalibrated and giving false alarms, so dispatch has started ignoring them.

2. The same but conductors have begun ignoring dispatch.

3. Dispatch missed the signal from the hotbox.

4. Conductor missed the call from dispatch, or dispatch was handling another issue elsewhere.

You need things like positive train control [2673] designed to be fail-safe and without inappropriate overrides - the hotbox triggers, train doesn't stop, automatically the PTC trips and puts the train into emergency. You need to design it so that ignoring the problem results in total economic shutdown of whatever it is; many systems are setup so that ignoring the problem results in the numbers being met (until something catastrophic happens).

[2673] https://railroads.dot.gov/research-development/program-areas...

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#114

Post by blincoln » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 2:38 PM UTC

Chronoyes wrote: post #57

YPCrumble wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit (and now HN) is the only source that shows this on the front page - I wouldn't have heard about it otherwise. Corporate news outlets have kept it from the front page.

That's an extraordinary allegation. Any evidence of this conspiracy?

I'm skeptical that it's a deliberate conspiracy, and this is not a scientific test, but I just checked the following news sites, and not one of them had any related hits for "Ohio" listed on their main pages:

BBC America

Reuters

CNN

Fox News

The New York Times

The Seattle Times

MSNBC

CNBC

Seems a little weird for sure. All of those sources have coverage AFAIK, but one has to dig to see it. I imagine algorithmic content promotion is at least partly a factor. I.e. if people aren't clicking on news about that story as much, it probably falls off the main page. So perhaps it's more like paid corporate Wikipedia shills, except it's click farms to promote other content and get the embarrassing news off of the front page?

That having been said, I know of at least two topics the American press is likely to deliberately downplay or avoid reporting on - solo suicides and certain types of civil unrest - so while I strongly dislike conspiracy theories in general and think it's unlikely in this case, I can't rule out the possibility that this is another one of those topics.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#115

Post by jakelazaroff » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

88913527 wrote: post #35

Frost1x wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect we're seeing more and more of these issues due to corner cutting in various industries. Air travel has already been a tight margin industry and take at look at all the air related issues we've seen recently, from FAA systems down to mass cancelations due to infrastructure to the recent runway conflicts and accidents we've seen. Speaking from anecdotal experience, over the years this constant push for more c…

Not that I disagree with you, but me and many others are planning our retirements accounts around assumptions of 8-9% growth. Stock market returns and real economic productivity aren't the same thing, but I think it would be deeply challenging for us to change course. Low growth creates a lot of new issues which are debatably worse than the axles-on-fire problem, but this is a conterfactual argument.

You’re setting up a pretty direct moral quandary here. How many human beings should we be willing to poison to keep the stock market going up?

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#116

Post by brightball » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

goodoldneon wrote: post #101

quacked wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was young, I assumed the 401k had been around forever. But it was introduced in 1978! We're nearing the end of the 50-year period that the guys who invented it would really need to get staggeringly rich off of the concept, and now that they're getting ready to die everyone's overreliance on the system they set up is causing total gridlock in American life. You can't do ANYTHING that threatens the stock market.…

What’s the alternative? Pensions? If your retirement is dependent on a pension, and the pension goes belly up, then you’re left with a fraction of what you planned for (since PGBC doesn’t cover it all)

The realistic alternative is multigenerational family units sticking together.

Grandparents help raise the grand kids instead of day care and baby sitters. Kids take care of their aging parents. Communities pull together to help each other.

There are complexities to it, but without a lot of the artificial financial structures that we have in place (loans, insurance, stocks, government programs) that’s probably what society has to revert to and in many ways it’s the most efficient long term way for society to function.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#117

Post by conductr » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

Frost1x wrote: post #7

h2odragon wrote: post #3

Recall when there was an imminent Rail Workers' strike in the news? Which Congress bravely stepped in and prevented? Weren't safety issues like this part of the workers' complaints? There were multiple sightings of axles on fire before the accident: https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2023/02/10/...

I suspect we're seeing more and more of these issues due to corner cutting in various industries. Air travel has already been a tight margin industry and take at look at all the air related issues we've seen recently, from FAA systems down to mass cancelations due to infrastructure to the recent runway conflicts and accidents we've seen. Speaking from anecdotal experience, over the years this constant push for more c…

While I don’t disagree, The assumption you’re making is that high margins would increase spending/investment versus being cash flow for shareholders (or some similar non infrastructure investment). I don’t necessarily believe this is the best or most likely assumption given modern management priorities.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#118

Post by jordigh » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #17

Here's something for your daily dose of "that's strange:" In 2021 residents of East Palestine, Ohio were extras in filming a train derailment scene for the movie "White Noise"(2022). "Ratner, 37, is in a traffic jam scene, sitting in a line of cars trying to evacuate after a freight train collided with a tanker truck, triggering an explosion that fills the air with dangerous toxins." https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/11/he…

White Noise is way older than 2021. I read the book last century. I guess it's a coincidence that this was filmed a bit before an actual airborne toxic event, but I wouldn't think too much about it.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#119

Post by treeman79 » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #98

phkahler wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> many others are planning our retirements accounts around assumptions of 8-9% growth. Another aspect of retirement should be figuring out how to lower the cost of living. Unfortunately the notion that housing should be a sort of investment goes directly against that. It can't be affordable and also be a good investment.

There is one way to be both without causing disaster - defeat the devil of depreciation. If you "invest" in your home/property by making it more durable and better you can have it go up in value and down in costs without needing infinite appreciation of land and structure. For example, if you can spend $20k (random amount) and forever cut your heating bill in half, that's an investment that will continue to pay divid…

If housing is being constructed at the rate of X per month. And population is increasing at X*2 per month. Nothing else matters. House prices will go up overall. Basic supply and demand.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#120

Post by conductr » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #95

88913527 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I disagree with you, but me and many others are planning our retirements accounts around assumptions of 8-9% growth. Stock market returns and real economic productivity aren't the same thing, but I think it would be deeply challenging for us to change course. Low growth creates a lot of new issues which are debatably worse than the axles-on-fire problem, but this is a conterfactual argument.

Is that 8-9% growth before or after inflation? Because if it's before, that's going to end up being only 3-4% at best. More and more I think people need to plan for retirement around expense reduction versus capital growth .

Depends but stocks are generally inflationary