Delta Airlines - and ATL on a Leash

Photo Courtesy of Torsten Henning, public domain

Delta was threatening to leave Atlanta-Hartsfield over a disagreement on paying for a new terminal. Front page news yesterday was them finally making a deal. I also checked Delta's webpage, and it seems both ATL and DAL are very happy with the deal so far, or so they say. My guess is ATL probably has its' tail between its legs and a large red sore spot on the rump, but they still have a smile on their face.

Atlanta-Hartsfield is responsible for over "20 billion dollars annual impact" according to the DAL Newsroom - or approximately $4,000 for every man, woman, and child in Greater Atlanta. As Delta effectively owns half of Atlanta-Hartsfields Terminal space, and has Atlanta as its most important hub and corporate headquarters, Delta is heavilly connected to that $4,000. At a time when every one of ole' ATL's pillars is failing below it, from finances to media to Lockheed Martin, that $4000 has become more important then ever before. Unemploymet is now over 10%, and despite vast areas of unused brownfield in the city, especially near Oakland City and East Point MARTA stations and in Bankhead east of Tech, Atlanta continues to fail at attracting heavy industry. With no other possible expansion points in sight, the Airport has become a critical economic stabilizer, perhaps even an opiate, fool's gold telling us we're okay when we're not.

I've said it many times and I'll say it again, we are obviously suffering from taxes, regulation, and inefficient infrastructure, especially in transportation and water supply. Why else would half of Bankhead, in the core of the city and near major freeways, be deserted? Why else would a relatively well-educated labor force find no employment, despite low labor and living costs? And why else would a major rail hub with low land costs fail to find industry? And when we do "develop," it only serves to push out the locals, creating yet more despair and more crime somewhere else! And sometimes we can't even find tenants - we are clearly subsidizing, by one means or another, development that we don't need. Folks, you don't get land valued lower then Idaho Falls in a metro area of 5.3 million by making smart decisions!

So instead of cowtowing to Delta Airlines and depending on one industry for our cities future, let's actually diversify for once.

A States Rights argument against Federal Aid for Fulton County

Now that the flood waters have lowered a bit, I wanted to take a few minutes on this quiet Sunday evening to make the case that Fulton County NOT get aid from the federal government.

While I understand that many are suffering because of recent events, and they certainly should be helped, it is my personal belief that only the State of Georgia, along with any private charities, should be responsible for helping them through this crisis.

The whole point of a monetary system is to assign value to certain items, places, people, services. The whole point is the correct distribution of assets. It should not surprise anyone that there are certain parts of the country where you would not be flooded even if it did rain like that and it probably wouldn't anyways - my childhood home of Seattle, WA immediately comes to mind. In the Seattle Area, there are very strict regulations that prohibit you from building on flood plains. As a result, only a handful of communities built before these regulations were in effect ever get flooded to begin with. What's even better, the floodprone areas are reserved for farming, keeping local agriculture close to the city center and allowing for easy expansion of railways and classification yards if made necessary by industrial growth.

In addition, as Fargo, North Dakota demonstrated earlier this year, the elbow grease and hardwork of the townspeople, or local government, can be a far more powerful protector and rebuilder then anything that dispassionoate, hardhearted FEMA could ever muster. They saved their town completely, the floodwaters never breached their sandbags.

If Georgia is not willing to regulate its' building, it should either pay the cost of repair work and humanitarian aid like a gentleman, pursue the grace of voluntary donors, or improve the land to handle future flooding, while also picking up its' current bill. Preferably, it should do all three.

When states pay for their own disasters, the natural disadvantages of living in that state are fairly, justly, and correctly measured against the citizens, driving out business to safer states and places, and making states responsible for their own maintenance. What's even better, as states are more responsible for their own maintenance, federal government will have both less mandate and less ability to interfere in their governance. States Rights and States Responsibilities go hand and hand.

Poppin' Pills

Courtesy of Ross Koepke, University of Indiana, public domain

I read in the AJC today that several Georgia pharmacies, including KMART, CVS, and WalMart, have been handing out the wrong perscriptions to people, resulting in a school bus DUI (Gwen Dalley, Loganville), heart problems (unnamed 27-year-old, Cartersville), annoying nausea and neurological misfunction (Allie Fenell, Piedmont Park), and excessive antibiotic use (Canton). Lastly, these have resulted in almost no regulatory effort. Many of the "citations" are delivered privately as letters of concern that the public cannot see.

Before anything else, it might be wise to try a free-market solution. A public Wall of Shame, posted in a prominent place in the city and also on the internet, listing every pharmacy and the total number of registered mistakes found, to discourage shopping at poor quality pharmacies. If we wanted to be really kind, we might post several columns with descriptions of each kind of mistake (handing out wrong perscription, filling wrong perscription to correctly labelled container, improper details on otherwise correct label, et cetera). In any case, a shops direct sales or prices would be directly affected by their performance on our board of shame.

In addition to the board of shame, we would encourage those who received bad perscriptions to call regulators before calling the pharmacy, so that correct process and lawful reporting can be properly handled.

This paragraph is hillarious:

"Some studies indicate that about 3 percent of the prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies have potentially harmful errors. The patient may be given the wrong drug, the wrong dosage or the wrong directions." -AJC, same article.

It's especially funny because they are clearly trying to downplay the danger while, mathematically, you only have to accept 33 perscription refills to get screwed! 3 percent might be a small chance for a once-in-a-lifetime, but for a monthly perscription filling well, let's just say I'm happy to not be on pills. Besides, if it was the kind of pills I need, you probably wouldn't like my stories very much.

Of course, there is another major Healthcare problem in Atlanta. Grady Hospital, a charitable hospital run by state subsidies and private donors for the benefit of the poor, is nearly bankrupt. They're just closing out their Dialysis unit today, and were trying to move patients to other states only to find that three of these (New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia) would not take them, while other states are saying the same. They apparently forgot to tell some that Grady would foot their dialysis bill if they stayed, and 10 have already left. May God be with them.

Strict regulation may work, but it may be more effective to implement a simple device like the Wall of Shame. Grady Hospital has shown that the smaller your efforts, the more fruitful they usually are.

Whither the Stock Market?

One of the principle arguments for the ill-fated bank bailout was that without banks, there would be no investment in our economy as companies could not borrow. It is true that companies would not be able to borrow as easily, but this does not mean they could not find financing.

In our economy, investment occurs in two primary ways. One is, of course, banks, and the primary source of funding for large and established businesses, but with large businesses unable to compete, and so much pent up demand not being met, another time honored way of generating investment capital (selling stock in an Initial Public Offering) could've seen a resurgence.

With IPO's investors buy stock with the promise that 1) when dividends are offered they will receive their share and 2) if they manage to acquire more then 50% of the stock, and have money to buy the other 50%, they can force the other 50 to sell and acquire the company in a hostile takeover. Normally, IPO's sell stock for only around a quarter or half a dollar a share, but with a tightly constricted credit market, prices could easilly soar to five dollars a share, and growth rates beyond that. This would help the stock market, and the larger economy, as the big businesses and investment banks could also balance their portfolios with IPO's.

An IPO economy would be an economy built on small investors and small firms, where big firms expand by purchasing small firms or small firms purchasing each other. It would be dynamic and compartmentalized, so if a handful of firms fail, no significant effect on the economy will be recorded, and the chances that the workers involved could find new work quickly, without a Keynesian demand shockwave but instead a mere bumping down of asset prices encouraging supply growth, would be much greater, as firms going under would only encourage existing firms to expand.

But back to liquidity. Lack of liquidity means that asset prices sink. But lower asset prices means that what small business needs to operate (centrally located real estate, machinery, current businesses and production facilities, raw materials and, of course, labor) becomes much less expensive, encouraging further growth. Maybe instead of forcing banks to live, we should allow IPO's to carry our growth for a little while and the growth in their stock to rebuild our bank accounts, which will in turn build NEW banks, perhaps started out of IPO's.

Yes, you lose a little money in the short run, but without all those ineffective banks congesting and polluting a crucial economic sector, this short-term easing of pain will cost our country dearly in the future. We will go from being among the preeminent financial centers to being the sickman of finance, with London, Hamburg and Shanghai doing much of the business that NYC, CHA-town and ATL do today.

A Limited Economy - the Pitfalls of Fulton County's growth

As I briefly mentioned in the Beltway article, there are five pillars of Fulton County's economy:

Banking
Corporate Headquarters that generally moved here from somewhere else
Selling Weapons to Exactly one Customer
Passenger & Mail Air Hub (Atlanta Hartsfield, Delta & AirTran Airlines, UPS and FedEx)
Mainstream Media, including CNN and Turner Studios

Besides these, there are a few smaller sectors, including being a retailer for nearby rural areas, freight railroads, and research. But the majority of the economy is based on these five. One of these has already hit the ground and won't likely grow for quite some time (Banking). Two of these are flaky (guess which?) One has been damaged by high fuel prices, and many experts believe will continue to decline in the future due to a combination of high fuel prices and competition with high-speed rail (Air travel) and one of these is already on it's deathbed (MSM.) So where do we go from here?

Maybe we should start with research. Georgia Tech is already the 4th best engineering school in the country, tied for that honor with Cal Tech and University of Illinois. Its' Systems Engineering (ISyE) program in particular has been the best in the country, at Undergrad, grad, and PhD, for years, while it's Aerospace, Civil, Biomedical and Chemical programs are also consistently in the top 5, and all but one program (Environmental) are in the top 10 (US News & WR). Our College of Computing is 9th according to US News & World Report, and one of only five that Microsoft recruits from. And we are among the greatest centers of Optics research in the world. What's more, a state of the art Nanotech research institute was built on Atlantic Drive on the north-end of campus, completed just in the last few months. Perhaps Atlanta can become a great center of nanotech research and manufacturing?

Further, freight rail service (a minor contributor to growth) will likely continue to grow as the Southeast grows industrially. This may mean more work for mechanics, warehouse workers, and tracklayers in the Atlanta area, but one would doubt that, even under optimal conditions, this could be a major driver of growth. It might even drive out some growth as the rail lines become too congested to allow Atlanta to be a major distribution center.

The rap music scene has succeeded at establishing Atlanta as a center of tourism. But these fads come and go, and besides the rap clubs, does Atlanta really have that many impressive tourist spots? Especially for long-distance, fly-in tourism?

In industries not yet explored, there is still some potential for manufacturing. Though most manufacturing in Atlanta died years ago, land is still cheaper in Atlanta then almost any other major American city, and the great availability of freight and air transit is a valuable asset. Low taxations and light regulations could help convince factories to move here. But then again, those same railways may simply get too congested here, pushing the factories further out to places like Dalton, Columbus, Athens, and Macon where constructing sidings and bypasses is easier.

Retail is about as far ahead in Atlanta as it can be, and with the growth of Dot Com retailers like Amazon, it is doubtful that it will continue to be a major economic centralizer on the level of what it was in the last century, when entire cities like Seattle, Victoria, and Portland were largely built by outfitting. Today, I doubt any city will be built by that again, except perhaps in very specialized high-end sectors (like farm-equipment) with security issues that have grown as much as they can here in America.

Consulting and business services has grown here, GaTech being first in ISyE and towards the top in Computer Science and Business helps, but these don't employ that many people, though the jobs they do create are extremely well-paid. If sectors like Consulting make up all of our growth, our entire blue-collar class will be left unemployed.

I doubt we can expand our railroads much, but expansion of freeways is politically feasible and can aid in the freight handling of many industries. In particular, I-85 can be rerouted through the Eastern side of downtown (largely undeveloped areas) to provide a partial beltway and carry traffic away from the connector. Also could help expand downtown in size by decentralizing the transit links somewhat.

In all, Fulton County faces a very uncertain economic future. We need to tread lightly in coming years.

Christian Left supports Exploitationist Policy

Seeing the shocking decline of the Christian religion in America today, many groups in the Christian Left are advocating a return to government oppression.

"When you went back to the good ole days of the early Christian Church, when witnesses were fed to lions and crucified upside down, why the Church was abuzz with activity! We were winning new converts, sharing possessions, expanding across the globe, and gave birth to, like, dozens of incredible Christian thinkers! Plus it made for great entertainment." An unnamed representative of the Christian Left told us on Friday. He did not want his name given away lest he be known as a sadist.

"Look, we're supposed to help the poor! And for the past few decades, it has been customary to attack all sorts of people for committing sin, so since we've already engaged in violence against homosexuals, we should definitely sic the IRS on rich people who aren't giving enough to charity." We are grateful for the memory of this particular whistleblower, as he got struck by lightning on the very next street corner after speaking to us.

"We are told that all authority is appointed by God. Therefore, I am full heartedly in support of all of Obama's policy, right or wrong."

"But what about Jesus standing up to the Pharisees?" My friend is silent.

"See, all freedom is evil. And it's evil cause it makes us do evil things and be evil. See, without freedom there wouldn't be any evil people."

One of the chief arguments for the liberal approach to Christianity is once we conform to some centralized will, that will can in turn conform to God's Will, and then we can all conform to God's Will at once, and all inherit the kingdom of heaven together. No one gets left behind! And no one gets unfair treatment. Not one bit.

See, Jesus just couldn't find enough man in him to hold us all up by the shirt collar and say "WWWWASZZZZZZZZ DDDDAAAAA BIGGGGGG IDDDEEEEAAAAA???????" So he relies on government to do it for him. He just was too soft of a guy. He just wasn't strong enough. I don't know, somehow he just lost his heart after the Old Testament. After all, we all know that strong people would never let themselves possibly be taken advantage of. And that you should never tolerate any mistreatment or poverty, rrrriiiggghhhhttt? Unless of course it involves being fed to lions, which is entertaining. As it is written, "the busy bodies shall inherit the earth." (Epistle to the New Englanders, Chapter 6, verse 8)

And besides that, how can you possibly support voluntary charity and support individualism? I mean, the two things are like, totally against each other! I mean, for any individual to possibly even consider having a purpose to his life or any sense of honor is fundamentally appalling! How could you! And besides, didn't that Anianas guy get struck dead for, oh wait, no, he lied.

It is also written that: "In my father's house there is exactly one room. And if you don't fit in to it, by gully, you're goin' to hell! Squeal little piggy squeal! I'm gonna SMACK YA HARD BOY!" (Gospel of Stalin, Chapter 15, verse 3.141583)

And it is commanded: "When poor people are not given rich people's money, highly distasteful, expensive and offensive cupcake shops, specialty stores and lawn gnome producers are allowed to sprout on streetcorners, providing people with grotesque lawn decoration that is highly offensive and degrading to the neighborhood as a whole. It is our duty as good Christians to eliminate all lawn gnome producers and specialty stores for the sake of good taste. After all, 'love thy neighbor as thyself' and 'friends don't let friends own lawn gnomes.'" (Epistle to the New Englanders, Chapter 9, verse 72)

It is written also that: "When the widow goes to find work, she shall find none, due to our extremely high levels of taxations against business and absurd regulations, so that good government will have to give grace to her and my love for the poor be known while my IRON FIST against the wealthy, middle-class, anyone who wants a job, and well-to-do clamps down harder and harder and harder.... MUWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! You shall feel my wrath poor earthlings!" (Gospel of Stalin, Chapter 3*i + 4, verses 5*i + 3.141583*e^22)

And it is commandment: "Thou shalt support exploitive actions in every way, that you shall have more ways to help each other and thus love one another." (Screwteronomy, Chapter self, verses Can't, Not, and Won't.) It is also written: "Blessed are those who are completely worthless, for they shall never mind the growing interference of government." (Gospel of Stalin, Chapter 0, verses 0, paradigm lost)

It is suggested further that: "If you allow anyone to be free, accursed is you, for you have made any part of my creation meaningful and any part of my good sacrifice good, so that now, I can't give as much grace. Accursed is also you if you prevent anyone from sinning in any way other then sending them to jail, that in jail I may save them from a creepy guy named 'Speck' who is gazing at his victims private areas suspiciously." (Gospel of Stalin, Chapters 5 million, verses Avagadro's Number)

As it is written: "If we don't run our government and politics just the right way, then all the people who die in a given year will instantaneously be condemned to Hell while Christ sits at the judgement, going, "tsk tsk tsk, you poor sinners. To think I was going to forgive you all until you refused socialism. And now, I have to send you all to hell. I know, I know, all those boring chruch sermons, those days standing out on the street corner freezing asking for donations and looking 50 years old while people told you to 'go to Hell,' I know, it was for nothing. All those times when your wife cheated on you and you forgave her because she was one of my children, meaningless. I mean, you should've been like my friend Stalin here. I mean, sure, he was a mass-murderer, never turned the other cheek or followed any of my advice or loved me, and oppressed my church, but his politics were shinin' man!"" (Gospel of Stalin, Chapter [3, 1, 0], verse [1, 3, 5]*infinity - infinity + 1*(World Peace equation) + Avagadro's Number*pi*i)

But once government becomes truly oppressive, by gully, life will improve! It will be like heaven on earth! Oh how we shall love each other, or else...

The Black Kingdom

Not long after the windows on the Westin were replaced, a brand new storm of fury whipped through Downtown Atlanta

A memo had been released. The AJC reported friday that "The memo notes that for the first time since 1974, “African Americans could lose the mayoral seat in Atlanta, Georgia, especially if there is a runoff;" Worse, "a Norwood (white) mayoral candidacy" might replace Shirley Franklin (hold that thought.) "Time is of the essence..." and "and the key is a significant black turnout in the general election..." Of course, all three black mayoral candidates have distanced themselves from the memo.

Even incumbent mayor Shirley Franklin was offended by this memo, calling it "bigoted" and "multiple variations on the word."

But notice, in the actual quote (before AJC applied qualifiers) the adjective was "Norwood," a neighborhood of Atlanta that is somewhat, well, suburbanish. But it's still part of the city, and it's citizens are still allowed to run for high office if they so choose.

There are really two threads to this memo. One of them, the outrageous one, is the racial overtones, the idea that black people "must be" represented against all other groups (White, Asian & Hispanic) in the city, at least two of those (White & Hispanic) about even in number with Blacks. The other, and the one that really says more about what Atlanta is, is the one that attacks Norwood. Why is it that Norwood people aren't Atlantans?

What is Atlanta exactly? You look at a map, and you see this odd conglomeration and butchered, twisted, tortured line advancing across the landscape, bending here, curving in there, shooting in and then shooting out, a mess, a mess of many locales over vast distances. Downtown is a place of tall towers, fancy restaurants, and constant activity, while sleepy Norwood, Home Park, and much of Buckhead and Collier Hills are single family houses with large lawns that don't have crowds, don't have action, don't have the city. They also have money and in some of these places (Norwood especially, and also much of Collier Hills) don't have to see homeless people.

When Aaron Turpeau, the author of the article, responded to the response, he said: "Everybody has an agenda. The developers have an agenda, downtown business has an agenda, the gays have an agenda, the Hispanics have an agenda." And he was trying to draft the black version. Included in his vision was "Economic equality, access to City Hall, and respect for those displaced by development." In other words, welfare/socialized taxation, controls on development (Norwood), and preferential treatment for his people (not Norwood).

On a level, these ends are loving. He has lots of friends who have little (unlike Norwood), he sees people driven out of what they have by the rising prices that always accompany development (and Norwood), and his friends, of course, he wants them at the front of the line (ahead of Norwood.)

But someone has to be at the back of the line, sir, and there is someone you don't know who you are pushing back. Further that same development that you so hate creates jobs, stable taxation for educational development in places unlike Norwood, and the abillity to take care of more people with the same land and resources. Not only does this help Atlanta, HIS FRIENDS, and blacks, but it helps the entire country, by taking pressures off places that simply cannot support the same level of development.

If you push Norwood out, just like the last time wealthier folk were pushed out of Atlanta, the taxation base for the kind of government services that Turpeau wants will wither away and the books will be dipped in red ink. By forcing Norwood to be second-class against the rest of Atlanta, effectively what folks like Turpeau lead to, you are encouraging a city to secede from Atlanta to break the heavy burden placed on its back.

Further, Norwood is governed by Atlanta and thus has every right to be represented in it. So are those Whites (outside of Norwood) and Hispanics. Until the day when Norwood leaves this city, they have a right to vote and to engage with City Hall every bit as much as Grant Park and Downtown.

In short, he's not seeing the big picture. And instead of aiding Atlanta & America away from this narrow thinking, this kleptocracy of taking from one group and giving to another, he wants to discourage justice and harmony to avoid the risks of a few years without power. He has, by way of his own cynicism and narrow-mindedness, become an enemy of justice.

What about all those Hispanics? They're not well off either. Now, you can say that what benefits your people will benefit theres, but the minute that's no longer true, they're out in the cold. Why are blacks so much more deserving then hispanics? Why should Blacks put themselves one step ahead in the line and trample on Lations whenever convenient?

In fact, let's go even further. Why should blacks be ahead of whites? Why do you think that creating more injustice and more social violence and more hate and more theft to balance out the injustice before is going to settle people's hearts and put them at peace? And how will it benefit blacks to resegregate society from the human heart outwards? People's actions are, after all, the fruit of their heart, and hearts that see themselves as anything other then human will take no compassion towards those whom they do not see as their kin.

We need to see people for who they are, not the color of the skin or what club they belong to. For as long as we continue this exclusive club way of handling our politics and society, we will always empower those who hate and push down those who wish for progress.

The Beltline

Atlanta has a problem. If you look at a roadmap of the city, you will notice that it's grid is shaped like a baseball. Look a little closer, and you see why: hundreds of smaller state and US highways looping around each other and railroad after railroad, freightyard after freightyard, and neighborhood after neighborhood to make there way in to the city. For commuters, this is a horrible arangement: it means that everybody and there city gets forced on to a 5-lane one-way street that curves, curves, curves to add miles to your travel distance and has more merging traffic and traffic lights then can possibly be believed to slow you down. The freeways (I-20, 75, 85, US-21/GA-400, and US-76E, along with 285 and minor spurs) are every bit as bad and, through downtown 3 (75, 85, and GA-400) are routed together on to the same ginoromous, ugly, 20-lane, merging traffic speed limit of 50 MPH concrete torment from hell.

Courtesy of Scott Ehardt. Public domain.

Of course, then again, were it not for the sheer volume of traffic carried by this array of roadways they might not have anywhere to commute too. Supporting a city of 5.3 million metro requires a lot of business centralized in a small area, and those legions upon legions of small highways may be awful for the commute from Alpharetta, but my friends from Elijay (100 miles out) find them very convenient for getting to Georgia Tech.

So eliminating the "problem" isn't a possibility, and building more roads on top of the curvy swurvy's already available, would lead to a maze of congested intersections and too much turning, and would involve costly demolition of (possibly hundreds) of buildings with valuable commerce, industry, or workers, in every single one. The most important areas to improve would cost the most to do so.

Railroads are very efficient in that for a fairly small width (around 8 feet) tens of thousands of passengers can travel. They also, through right of way restrictions, tunnels, and elevated structures, and through their own engineering advantage of the guiding force of their rails, can travel through an urban area at a much higher speed (70 MPH for a MARTA train) then the 30 MPH that a car or bus can manage in an inner-city, and can run predictably. This is the thinking behind MARTA, which is very convenient for the tiny percentage of the city it covers:

MARTA Route map. Public Domain.

Please note that only the bright colored lines are railroad. The light blue are freeways.

Now, if you're actually near one of those handful of stops, the trains come about every five minutes, can hold about a thousand people, and have extra wide doors for the luggage of people going to the Airport (Airport Station) or Greyhound (Garnett Station.) But clearly, most commuters cannot use these lines, and one of them (the one going east-west, blue-green) is almost entirely unused as it essentially goes to nowhere, while the other (north-south, red-orange) is very heavilly used and probably generates a profit for the authority.

The proposal is to take miles of unused railroad track encircling Atlanta and turn it in to an operating light-rail line, moving at a slightly lower speed (~50 MPH) through its turf and hitting more stations:

Proposed Beltline. Source: beltline.org

Much of the project is actually being funded by donations, and a broad grassroots action has been underway for years, under a action group called "The Beltline Partnership," to get the line built. The eastern section of the line runs through the highlands, a vast area of under-utilized land just east of Midtown, and in one case, just a few blocks east from the tallest building in the city. This section may also help conduct some traffic for the more developed midtown, downtown, and piedmont areas south from Lindbergh and north from the east-west line. The Collier Hills area, location of Piedmont Hospital and the Amtrak station, is at the far northern part of the line, west from Lindbergh.

Technically, the line will service 100,000 citizens within a half-mile (very reasonable) walking radius, though I suspect it will service some areas better then others.

The southern section of the line runs through vast areas of impoverished ghettoish former cityscape, notably the Grant Park area, where small, antebellum mansions from another era decay against neglect and the poverty of their new tennants (Boulevard, the main street, is often reffered to as million dollar drive, because a million dollars worth of drug deals are done there daily), and West End, where old factories and warehouses stand idle with billboards from decades ago and another world still blurting out their messages in that old style paint to the best of their ability along small, potholed streets. This southern section, unfortunately, does not connect well with the main MARTA line, as it crosses the north-south line halfway between the West End and Fort McPherson stations, and the line itself does not arrive at any major commercial or CURRENT industrial area until it reaches the east-west MARTA line, miles away and with miles more of backtracking east from west or west from east to downtown. The chance for development in this region is slim, as crime rates in this area are stifling, it's dangerously close to the airport, a major real estate discount, and the beltline, with its circle and extensive backtracking (look at map), creates an I-75 size commute WITHOUT CAR and through dangerous areas that would interest only the poorest of citizens.

Further, in a city where our main industries are Banking, Corporate Headquarters that moved here from somewhere else, main-stream media going bankrupt for years, airlines with rising fuel costs, and selling weapons to exactly one customer (US Congress), constant, steady, reliable growth and demand for development is not something we can count on, and for West End & Grant Park to develop sufficiently to support any kind of mass-transit, you'd need a gold rush. This section should've been discluded altogether, the line cut at I-20 or the east-west MARTA line. But, if playing Robin Hood with public money was the only way to get Atlantans on board, maybe it really was the best proposal, and the good done by the Eastern and Northern Lines will far outweigh the costs of maintaining, for however long they do, the lines through West End & Grant Park.

Goodbye to "Cash for Clunkers" and Good Riddance

Thanks for the invite to write for Atlanta Politics Online. I'm one of the editors of the One Conservative Voice blog, which focuses on national issues. I work as an actuary and would generally be considered to belong to the Austrian school of economic thought. On that note, I'd like to write what I hope is an obituary for the soon-to-be departed "Cash for Clunkers" program that ends tonight.

That so many of our elected leaders of both parties think that this program will actually provide stimulus goes a long way to explaining why our country has gotten as messed up as it has. I'll briefly discuss just a few of the things that are broken about this program, starting with the most obvious arguments and working my way to more involved defects which are cited less often if at all.

• It's nothing but a transfer of wealth from the US taxpayer to those who manufacture and sell cars.
• It doesn't actually stimulate anything because all it's doing is pulling sales from the past (i.e., those who were planning to buy a car anyway just waited until the program kicked in) and the future (i.e., those who would have bought a car next month or next year just accelerated their purchase).
• It does for the car market what CRA and the American Dream Downpayment Assistance Act of 2003 did for the housing market. Folks who until now did not have a car payment are being encouraged to buy more car than they can afford. I predict that the car repo business will be a good place to be employed in the next 6-12 months.
• It doesn't even succeed in its stated policy of reducing carbon emissions. While lower MPG cars are being replaced with higher MPG cars, the new cars are probably going to be driven more miles - particularly in the midst of summer vacation season - eliminating any predicted benefit.
• It is driving up (no pun intended) the prices of used cars by taking thousands of used cars off the road.
• Perhaps most damning (but least mentioned) of all is that it makes us all as a society poorer. Folks who focus on the price tag miss the basic point that economics is simply the science of allocating limited resources in the most efficient way; money is just a way "to keep score" for lack of a better term. The simple economic reality, looking beyond the dollars, is that productive real assets are being destroyed. It's no different than if we demolished houses to keep home prices up or killed cows to keep beef prices up. It's the same absurd policies that were followed during the Great Depression, and ultimately they will make us ALL much poorer, by a lot more than the $3 billion official cost.

So, good riddance to this program! We can all sleep better tonight knowing that in the morning the federal government will not have this particular tool available for destroying our freedom and weakening our economy. And thankfully Congress is in recess, so they aren't yet working on developing their next misguided program.

OK, that's all I have for right now. I look forward to hearing from readers; any suggestions for topics are most welcome. What would you like to see here, and what format would you like my posts to take?

Our Friend Chambliss

Honestly folks, I really did not know what to write about today.

I was supposed to give you this Fulton County update, and I hadn't really heard about anything happening in this sleepy corner of Cosmopolitan America, even looked a little, so I decided to visit the webpage of my favorite Senator, Saxby Chambliss. His headline in the upper left of the site didn't link to anything, and on his biography page, 8 of the 9 paragraphs were dedicated to the last 16 years of his life, and his quick rise to power as a Senator. Many awards were listed, but few specific bills or accomplishments. A lot was told about him supporting this or that constituency or local interest, but very little was told about his actual philosophy or passion. He apparently was a lawyer before that representing farmers in South Georgia, and still lives in the South Georgia town of Moultrie. He supported the farm bill, and received a "Golden Plow" from the American Farm Beareau Federation. That farm bill along with the ethanol subsidies has caused more hardship among the poor in my neck of the woods then you could possibly believe or understand, for it drives up, beyond market levels, the cost of that most basic of neccesities, food.

Speaking of Ethanol, he introduced (and told us about in a seperate section called "Accomplishments") a short, sweet, easy to read bill called the Celluloise Ethanol Incentive Act of 2007, which proposes increasing the percentage of ethanol in gas tanks to 11% by 2013, despite the fact that most cars can only handle 10% ethanol, and forcing all geographical regions to use at least 30% ethanol from THAT region, making the subsidies even more burdensome and inefficient, especially in places like California & NYC where land is expensive.

He also supported earmark transperancy, despite himself working for many earmarks, including a 74 million dollar "goverment investment" ethanol plant in Truentlen county. More importantly, though, his attitude is the kind that causes earmarks in the first place, the attitude of stealing from one state to give to another, whether by tariffs and subsidies or programs funded by national tax dollars. My source, as usual, is his own website.

Is Saxby an exceptionally bad senator? No. He's probably even slightly better then most. But he doesn't really stand for anything, or if he does, he's sure not making it public knowledge. Unfortunately, that describes a lot of senators and politicians. It would be nice to elect someone who actually represents something one of these days, rather then just being constantly afraid for their office. It would be nice to find that rare person, like a Sarah Palin, a Ronald Reagan, or even a George W. Bush or LBJ with real fire running through their veins and a vision for the future, someone who really cares about this country and its' future.

The only things I like about Saxby is he's a Republican and he supports the F-22, a versatile, stealthy, well-armed, maneuverable fighter juggernaut that was unjustly canceled by the Obama Administration that would be built in Fulton County. Also, as far as we can tell he has yet to screw anything up or run off to Argentina with any Maria's.

Obamanomics and Georgia

by George Dienhart

Obamanomics at work. We're lucky here in Georgia, when compared to states like Michigan. Georgia’s unemployment rate rose to 10.3 percent in July, up two-tenths of a percentage point from last month. Yeah, that qualifies as lucky these days. If we were stuck in Michigan, we'd be at about 15%.

July’s total was 493,748, which was an increase of 63.6 percent from July of 2008. 163,839, or 33.2 percent, received state unemployment insurance benefits, while approximately 140,000 received federally funded extended benefits. The number of payroll jobs in July decreased 199,400 from July 2008. The manufacturing, trade, transportation and warehousing, professional and business services sectors were hit especially hard. Health care and private educational services showed a combined increase of 10,400 jobs, while local and state governmental education grew by 9,200 jobs.


Just some food for thought- we know that the federal government is growing out of control. Why did the state government add over 9000 jobs? Seems like bad timing to me...