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Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

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Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#151

Post by lotsofpulp »

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 .

I assume, in the long term, SP500 returns are equal to inflation.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#152

Post by pokey00 »

kibwen wrote: post #131

My brother lives less than 15 miles downwind from the site of the disaster. He's young, just graduated from trade school, found a welding job in the area and brought his wife and one year-old daughter. In 50 years I'm sure we'll consider this whole region a superfund site and hand out pennies to the people whose lives were completely upended as a result. It's a travesty how this has been handled. Massively rich corpo…

> It's a travesty how this has been handled. Massively rich corporations deflecting blame, lying to the public, and trying to cover up their own malfeasance in the pursuit of relentless greed. Profits over people, as usual.

Do you have any evidence of this being mishandled, or is this just parroting the reddit narrative?

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#153

Post by bombcar »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #151
bombcar wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

I assume, in the long term, SP500 returns are equal to inflation.

I think in general the accepted wisdom is that long-term returns of the entire market are "somehow" roughly equal to the actual value created - which ends up being roughly equal to GDP growth (after inflation is factored out).

Which means it has been astronomical during the last 100 years as the last century was the "rise of America".

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#154

Post by greenie_beans »

pancrufty wrote: post #79
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these thoughts were not recorded, I'm sure some executive would say the town simply isn't concerned, therefore, all is well. Therefore, these ARE facts.

I found these useless facts to be recorded in such detail. “People are concerned about future livability” is plenty details.

show don't tell

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#155

Post by pixl97 »

mri_mind wrote: post #144
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.

If a car ran off a cliff you’d say “I see the advocates for using the brakes are strangely absent” and if a car got hit by a train sitting on the tracks you’d say “I see the advocates for using the accelerator are strangely absent.” Nobody is against regulation and nobody is for it. It’s like saying people are pro water or anti water.

I really would like to know what you're talking about in your analogy because it has about nothing to do with the reality we're facing.

Remember the hyper liberal president Joe Biden, you know the one the more right media claims to be completely communist. Yea, that one that stopped the railroad workers from striking due to bad work conditions.

And do you remember the railroad workers that want to strike because every factor around safety is being cut putting them in a dangerous work environment? Single engineers running trains? Inspection times being cut? The ones not allowed to take sick days?

Saying nobody is against regulation is a lie. The owners of these companies seeking as much profit as possible are a testament to that.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#156

Post by neogodless »

petodo wrote: post #137
neogodless wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a relevant article on APNews, and ~~it's~~ it was on their front page. https://apnews.com/ https://imgur.com/a/Li9oDSO An earlier article from APNews was submitted, but was likely missed due to timing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34770772 Front Page Link (2023-02-13): https://apnews.com/article/evacuations-west-virginia-pennsyl... Reddit Link (2023-02-08): https://apnews.com/article/rail-accidents-e…

No it's not on AP frontpage, posting merely 30 minutes after your post. https://imgur.com/a/BeQuARZ

Same here.

It was on the AP front page. But is no longer.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#157

Post by marcusverus »

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.

The immediate aftermath of a catastrophic failure of the regulatory state seems like an odd moment to take smug shots at opponents of the regulatory state.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#158

Post by rescripting »

kneebonian wrote: post #140
sschueller wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you know how they always say "the market will regulate itself"? The issue they like to forget is that you or a family member may be part of the first 346 dead from the Boeing Max disaster or you live in Palestine, Ohio before the market regulates itself.

I mean you could argue that part of this was exactly the result of government intervention is one of the strikes that railway workers were working for was better safety rules and more time off and then Congress forced the strike to end.

Government intervention and government regulation are not the same thing.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#159

Post by mschuster91 »

goodoldneon wrote: post #147
mschuster91 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What’s the alternative? Pensions? In Germany, we have a "rollover system" - you pay a government-mandated fixed percentage of your income into pensions system in exchange for pension credits. The contributions from all current payers (plus a sizable chunk of tax money) are then distributed to current pension receivers, and the worth of a pension credit point ("Rentenpunkte") is regularly-ish adjusted for inflation.

Is that similar to Social Security in the US? Maybe Social Security is at a smaller scale

I'm no expert in US pension schemes to be honest, but I quickly looked up - y'all pay 6.2% each (employer and employee) of your wage, here in Germany it's 9.3% each - and our wages tend to be lower than in the US as well.

And yet, we here don't really need private pension savings. It'd be interesting if someone with a better understanding of USSS could chime in for the reasons.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#160

Post by neogodless »

blincoln wrote: post #114
Chronoyes wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conte…

For what it's worth, I thought ABC was an obvious omission from the above

https://abcnews.go.com/

It is actually the first on the list at the top left as of my comment, linking to:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/train-derailment-prompts...

The headline is rather tame, though: "Train derailment prompts water utility to take precautions"

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