Is government intervention in poor areas worth it?

originally posted by: tinner07
you gave a trillion dollar tax cut to the rich... what has that produced?

City buses? Not sure on that. Some cities probably great... other cities, I have ridden them....

Look they needed that money, they would have literally joined the homeless sleeping in tents and crapping on the sidewalk without that tax cut.

originally posted by: lakenheath24
Pffft...that aint nuthin.

en.m.wikipedia.org...

Thing is...government involvement never works. Even Roosevelts New Deal has been proven to not have ended the depression....in fact it may have extended it.

You know you may be right, I mean if we leave the word criminal out of it for a moment look how industrious and hard working gang's and drug dealers really are, it's a full time job were they can make big buck's in short periods of time and it's dangerous BUT if there was something they could do that paid just as well that was legal how many of those crime gang's would lost members fast.
The problem is that Gang mentality is part of there culture as well as a way of getting on.

How can you fix that?.

But for humanity's sake there has to be a way.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Government involvement such as we know it doesn't work because it is impersonal.

Most of the things that would help the intractable poor the most are going to be highly individual and deeply personal and you are going to need the cooperation of the poor person in question because they're going to have to work as hard as anyone else, maybe harder to change their condition.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Gangs are a father replacement. They take the place of the daddy who wasn't there for many of those boys. They provide that father-figure and structure.

Well Roosevelt only banned pot because it was alleged that it made the brothers wanna rape white women. Who knew? Guess slavery made white brothers want to rape black women. Crazy world aint it!

Anyway....there are lots of white gangs to...in fact i would say gangs started with the irish and italians. At least as far as the hollywood typecasting goes. Ok

a reply to: LABTECH767

Could be. There were lots of gangs in the 50's.....does the same sentiment apply? Or we talking black folks only here?



a reply to: ketsuko

a reply to: lakenheath24

How many kids grew up fatherless after WWII?

Dunno. Tell me. Would be interesting to see the figures. What about ww1, Korea, Vietnam?


I would agree that a lack of a father figure is a direct result of male children joining gangs though.. look at the movie gsngs of new york for example.....tribal warfare that.





a reply to: ketsuko

originally posted by: JAGStorm
Story here

ST. LOUIS (AP) — If a streetcar line ceases operating in the St. Louis area, the federal government may want to be paid back some of the millions of dollars it spent to support the project.
In St. Louis, the U.S. government paid for about two-thirds of the $51.5 million Loop Trolley, a 2.2-mile system running from University City’s Delmar Loop to the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on Wednesday. The trolley began operating in November after years of delays. Rider numbers have been low.

...............The project and the St. Louis’s trolley have been subject to similar criticisms, although Milwaukee officials say rider numbers on the local streetcar have so far exceeded expectations.

Is this the dumbest thing you've ever read? 51 Million for 2.2 miles!!!!
There are a few places I would not want to ride on public transportation and St. Louis pretty much tops the chart, Milwaukee is #2.

When the government gets involved it never seems to work out. It is very much fake news that they used the Milwaukee streetcars as an example. Those streetcars have been free for the first year. Yeah, a lot of people like to use free transportation. I've even read they were making some people ride it to skew the numbers. Once it stops being free we'll see how it does. My guess very similar to St. Louis.

Back to the title of my OP. No I don't think the government should get involved in poor areas. I think history has shown us that many areas can get gentrified on their own in a much more natural manner. In the same way they became poor areas, they can become more robust areas. When you try to force things it never works. When you let residents and businesses do it, it can be very successful.

BTW for both the cities mentioned (St. Louis & Milwaukee) I could think of 51 Million other ways that money could be used in a different manner!

You could have given us johnny foreigners some idea as to just how much a dollar can buy in the USA?
But I'll go out on a limb...with regard to the infrastructure cost involved here, and say $51 million, is not so great a cost.

It does cost $8 to $10 million per mile to build a motorway, a street car infrastructure, much more.
*$27.8 million/mile (S Line, Salt Lake City, 2013) to $54.5 million/mile (QLine, Detroit)
going by those figures then, the St Louis project is relatively cheap.

* www.metro-magazine.com...

The very succesful Deutsche Bahn AG is solely government owned, as is,
The Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer français (SNCF)... and the TGV, crackingly successful.

Amtrack, is also government owned, but not doing so well, Repubs want it back into private hands.

UK at present is run by franchises at present, the success rate is variable, some companies run things better than others, but overall the trains are mostly modern and decent, with the high speed lines very good.

Thing is, you can't make an equation out of public services the way you aspire, nor is it a lefty, righty thing per se.

The philosophy is flawed...more so when you use the word, "Never" as if to prove a point.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
Is this the dumbest thing you've ever read? 51 Million for 2.2 miles!!!!

That's not that bad actually. Government contracts are almost always a sure path to wealth.

First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?

-- S.R. Hadden, in the movie Contact

Take another recent project as an example. Trump got $1.6 billion from the Congress in March 2018, for approximately a 100 miles of new wall and replacement wall.

That's $16 million per linear mile of upright steel. And that is for replacements and easy sections. The rough sections are estimated to cost as much as $50 million per mile, not counting the maintenance in the decades to follow.

Government officials LOVE awarding overpriced contracts to supporters and donors.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Edumakated

They put one through downtown.

In order to get it, they had to create a vote where the only people who could vote were more or less tenants along the proposed route and not property owners or business owners (basically the ones being taxed on it). Of course, most of the ones who voted for it would have been apartment renters, most of whom likely don't live there anymore.

Reminds me of when they voted in the union where I work it was very devise came in with 51%. then those who voted in the union non long term employees, who mostly moved on to air craft work with our multiple aircraft manufacturing. It became like a bad marriage both digging in and not willing to comprise.

a reply to: JAGStorm

We are spending 700 Billion dollars are the military this year that did absolutely NOTHING to protect us on 9/11. Maybe we should take some of the money being spent on foreign military bases and spend it on better schooling.

originally posted by: tinner07
a reply to: network dude
You blame the liberals because what? we dont pray to jesus to fix everything?

No its because the liberals screw the pooch every time. They would be better off seeking guidance rather than in there arrogance thinking they have the answer to every problem, which their track record shows they dont.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: LABTECH767

Gangs are a father replacement. They take the place of the daddy who wasn't there for many of those boys. They provide that father-figure and structure.

Yeah, but every bad discussion ever made by any human being, since the beginning of time could probably be traced back to some kind of daddy or mummy issue.

It may an interesting observation, but bringing attention to it doesn't actually solve anything. So, its essentially irreverent.

originally posted by: lakenheath24
Well Roosevelt only banned pot because it was alleged that it made the brothers wanna rape white women. Who knew? Guess slavery made white brothers want to rape black women. Crazy world aint it!

Anyway....there are lots of white gangs to...in fact i would say gangs started with the irish and italians. At least as far as the hollywood typecasting goes. Ok

a reply to: LABTECH767

Yes there are, KKK and Neo Nazi to name just two, Mafia are arguably a white gang as well though there was a lot of racism against Italians - and Irish going back.

As for the race divide it is pure blind and stupid hatred on both sides of that divide, many black folk have no idea that they have white ancestry and many white folk have no idea that they have black ancestry.

Back when people were being kidnapped from there homes and shipped over to be sold as slaves in foreign lands' there was a practice that went on, a white or pale skinned slave was a status symbol and they were used in house hold positions so to get these slaves from very black skinned lady's the white men would rape them, if the child was not white enough and a girl she would usually end up being raped as well once she came of age and many father's raped there own daughters this way but the caste off's were put back into the general slave population and those that were too white usually ended up passing as white - since really there is no difference other than a bit of pigmentation in the skin.

This was not just in the US as it happened in south America and also in Jamaica and Haiti.

Meanwhile many of the people that had been kidnapped were themselves already partially of white ancestry as for a very long time (Thousands of years) slave trade went both way's between Africa and Europe.

I suppose the only real lesson we can gather from this is that human being's are human being's and can be equally inhumane to one another.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: JAGStorm

We are spending 700 Billion dollars are the military this year that did absolutely NOTHING to protect us on 9/11. Maybe we should take some of the money being spent on foreign military bases and spend it on better schooling.

Protection being the operative word. Isn't it true though, that military spending is in fact the ultimate form of socialism when you think about it, and thankfully the personnel integrated as well these days.
But as you say, it needs to work, lefty, righty...makes no difference in that scenario does it?

Take that philosophy in all things, only means we could all do better, rather than standing back and admire the snake oil salesman.

In edit, I almost forgot the list of military contractors...presumably current.

en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: JAGStorm

We are spending 700 Billion dollars are the military this year that did absolutely NOTHING to protect us on 9/11. Maybe we should take some of the money being spent on foreign military bases and spend it on better schooling.

If people were educated better there would be less people looking to joining the military, so education is not only not a priority but is detrimental to the war machine.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Only the Pentagon Could Spend $640 on a Toilet Seat

adjusted for inflation,

Senator demands answers on Pentagon's $10,000 toilet seat

when ever any part of the Federal Government gets involved in spending any money, there are countless numbers of people, firms, companies, that are willing to stick it to them. even the part of the fed that gripes spends tons of our money gets fleeced.

the first article said five decades. been going on longer than that.

a reply to: smurfy
Well all government contracts are "job for the boys".
smurfy, tell me if my calculations are correct. The UK high speed rail link between London and Birmingham, approx 100 miles, is costing upwards of £24 billion. I think that equates to £240 million per mile?
The whole link is estimated to rise by £30 billion to £86 billion.

originally posted by: crayzeed
a reply to: smurfy
Well all government contracts are "job for the boys".
smurfy, tell me if my calculations are correct. The UK high speed rail link between London and Birmingham, approx 100 miles, is costing upwards of £24 billion. I think that equates to £240 million per mile?
The whole link is estimated to rise by £30 billion to £86 billion.

I actually think high speed rail has 10000X more merit than a trolley where they are putting them.
At least the rail moves a lot of people to work and home and is used instead of cars.

The Milwaukee streetcar basically takes people to the Casino (the casino is who is paying for the first year)

All rides will be free for the first year thanks to Potawatomi Hotel & Casino! Just hop on and hop off to connect with jobs, entertainment, dining and more! After the first year of operation, passengers will purchase tickets off-vehicle as there are no fareboxes on board. Fare inspectors will make random checks of all passengers throughout the day to make sure they have valid streetcar