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

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#181

Post by goalieca » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #179

goalieca wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think the soviets or Chinese also don’t cut corners under their economic systems.

You're kidding yourself if you think the op was suggesting we abandon capitalism. This absolutist mindset has to stop. We can acknowledge our current system is flawed without suggested we abandon it entirely for something else. The reality is that our regulation of our system could be better. Your binary thinking is lazy and closes you off to the possibility that we could improve our system.

I gave two counter-examples of different economic systems. It’s clear capitalism isn’t the problem if you think about why those other systems failed.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#182

Post by Steltek » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #176

treeman79 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the past 30 Years Berlin had housing go up in value 10x but population went up 1%. Look it up The current financial system created the housing criss.

In my town, population went down but children-per-family decreased even more, effectively raising the number of households/family-units that needed separate homes. A raw population count is not always what it seems.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#183

Post by bko » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #33

bko wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's state controlled and an accident happens and there is a govt investigation, do you think it'll be more stern than one on a private company? Do you think enforcement of rules is stricter when enforced in house? I don't see the reasoning as to why state run services would be somehow safer. The state should set out the rules and enforce strictly

Do you feel like the investigation into Boeing Max disaster was stern and everyone responsible was punished?

I guess it depends what you're comparing it to. Boeing paid 2.5 bn and shareholders were likely unhappy

compare that to an amtrak train derailment where someone literally falls asleep killing people and he wasn't even fired.

Don't get me started on police union investigations...

https://nypost.com/2014/10/28/engineer-fell-asleep-before-de...

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#184

Post by Ekaros » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

quacked wrote: post #76

mschuster91 wrote: post #43

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. Actions have consequences. When the entire retirement plan of everyone in the country able to set money aside in a 401k (which isn't applicable for a lot of low-wage employees) is tied to the stock markets, politics is effectively held hostage by the companies in the S&P 500 - politicians si…

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.…

I'm single, probably not being able to change that. So I guess I will just end up dead at or before retirement... Not really so horrid thought yet.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#185

Post by paulmd » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

quacked wrote: post #76

mschuster91 wrote: post #43

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. Actions have consequences. When the entire retirement plan of everyone in the country able to set money aside in a 401k (which isn't applicable for a lot of low-wage employees) is tied to the stock markets, politics is effectively held hostage by the companies in the S&P 500 - politicians si…

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.…

Houses are another fun one. There are a lot of boomers who will be looking to cash in on their houses at the same time as everyone else. Plus the increases to interest rate will have the effect of pushing down the amount people are willing to bid on future houses.

Boomers who bought in the 80s-90s are in no danger of being underwater, but, there's going to be a lot of people whose houses are worth a lot less than they were in 2021. People who bought in the last 5-10 years are going to find that their assets at best are not going to appreciate very much, and sometimes investments do go down, that's the risk. It's not going to be an automatic escalator to the upper-middle class like it was a few decades ago.

And that's a good thing for younger generations (if landlord corps don't buy everything up) but the political power of boomers and of heartland states are really the elephant in the room with american politics.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#186

Post by paulmd » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 5:40 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)

Instead of having a thousand tiny pension corps we could just... have one big one. Some kind of Social Security system, perhaps.

And yeah social security is running a deficit and will have to reduce payments by a whole 25% or 30% in another 20 years... unless we just remove the payment caps. Wow.

Like at the end of the day the resources are present in american society to take care of the elderly in retirement. We are not physically running out of green bean casserole. It's just a question of allocation. At the end of the day the money needs to be allocated and just like day 1 of the social security program, there's going to be a lot of people who don't have time to pay into a system before drawing out. The resources will need to be allocated to pay for the wageslavery of the last 30 years.

Boomers are going to get theirs regardless, they will make sure of that, but, they're intent on pulling the ladder up behind them like they've done on every other major social issue.

Boomers don't care if Xers or Millenials don't have anything saved up, they got theirs and they got social security on top. But if things don't change, there's gonna be an awful lot of starving grandparents again when X and Millenials hit retirement, cause we don't and they're making sure we won't have social security either.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#187

Post by YPCrumble » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #129

nickjj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know nothing about this field but I remember when California had really bad wildfires, when it was happening (in 2020 or 2021? It all blends together) there were charts showing air quality levels across the US. I'm in NY and I visibly saw different colored clouds when the "smoke clouds" made their way over here. I have no idea if the same thing applies to this train's chemicals but that is a case where there was a…

It's a cube law thing - you can work out how much "air" there is for everything to spread into, and how much "stuff" there is but basically, the further away you get the rapidly it goes down in hazard. The western wildfires were absolutely mind-glowingly immense in ways we don't really deal with normally. Five tank cars is 30,000 gallons * 5 = 150,000 gallons, roughly 600 cubic meters. Safe exposure is 0.1 part per m…

This is a great answer, thank you. However this assumed the atmosphere is 45 km high and it seems very unlikely that these gases are light enough to go that high. If you assume the gases only go 1km in the air wouldn’t that assume a radius roughly 40x your initial estimate, or at least 1800 km to be within the 1 ppm threshold.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#188

Post by Aunche » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 5:49 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #179

goalieca wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think the soviets or Chinese also don’t cut corners under their economic systems.

You're kidding yourself if you think the op was suggesting we abandon capitalism. This absolutist mindset has to stop. We can acknowledge our current system is flawed without suggested we abandon it entirely for something else. The reality is that our regulation of our system could be better. Your binary thinking is lazy and closes you off to the possibility that we could improve our system.

[flagged]

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#189

Post by 88913527 » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #186

goodoldneon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Instead of having a thousand tiny pension corps we could just... have one big one. Some kind of Social Security system, perhaps. And yeah social security is running a deficit and will have to reduce payments by a whole 25% or 30% in another 20 years... unless we just remove the payment caps. Wow. Like at the end of the day the resources are present in american society to take care of the elderly in retirement. We are…

Social Security was introduced as a solution to the problem of economic security for the elderly. If we fail to meet this goal, and people see the consequences of the failure, it would likely be a bad look for politicians; public support for the program will rise, and the program will be reformed.

Re: Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern

#190

Post by paulmd » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 5:53 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.

I think there's pushback because it's kind of a "just buy more money" solution.

On the whole, the problem isn't that people are buying $70k trucks and escalades that's keeping them poor. It's not having enough income.

The difference personally between $70k and $90k is massive and the difference between $90k and $120k is massive. That's the difference between underfunding my retirement and no savings and still being fairly tight on fun money, and having all of those things and still being able to pay that surprise $2k vet bill and just not save as much that month.

And I pay less to own than I did to rent, in a nicer house, and I'm building equity when I do it.

Was there an attitude change towards savings/etc there too? Sure. But like, the biggest difference was just having more money. You can't save when you don't have money coming in.

And at $70k I was making more than the median family with kids. People have to make do with a lot less than that. And that becomes "can't fix the car" or "can't afford to go to the hospital" or "kids don't eat breakfast" at the bottom end. $40k with kids is poverty, and that's an awful lot of people. When your shitty insurance drops you a $40k bill for a weekend in the hospital you're not paying that and it will take the rest of your finances with it.

At an individual level yes, acting wisely with money is all any one person can do. But it comes off as entitled when you tell people that they personally are doing it wrong, when the overwhelming majority of people in the economy are losing. The middle-class lifestyle as we have come to know it basically requires you be in the top 10% of income earners in your local economy. At some point it's a society-wide problem, people respond to the incentives you give them as best they can with the resources they have. But a talk-show host saying "just buy more money" isn't going to fix those social-level problems. The problem isn't people, and if your system requires magical rational-actors who will wageslave for 50 years without the occasional vacation or other nicety and die penniless in retirement after cutting social security, then your system is going to fail.

At a societal level, there is no "one weird trick from a talk-show host" to bypass the incentives we've set up or vastly increase the amount of resources any one person is allocated. Well, crime I guess.