CNN Video on the California High-Speed Rail Debacle

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c1#/video/bestoftv/2012/05/30/ac-griffin-california-high-speed-rail.cnn

Bottom Line?  It's not about the train; it's about the money!   Your money!

Is it not yet clear to everyone in the United States that this project must be terminated?

It is not too late. Wait much longer and enormous permanent damage will be done to California.

The project, if it continues, will cost well above the various projected costs. All such projects do.

There will be very few, if any benefits to the people of California, except for the handful who stand to profit handsomely from the project.  This has been proven many times over.

The voters of this state have been, and continue to be, lied to by the rail project promoters. The project is in their self-interest.

The Governor and the Legislature will do nothing to prevent the $3.3 billion federal dollars from reaching California. That is their only interest in this project. 

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Kofi Annan is the former head of the United Nations and currently the envoy for the United Nations and the Arab League. He met with the Dictator of Syria who has been killing women and children to negotiate a truce and peace settlement. He has been unsuccessful.  This is what he had to say in an interview upon returning from Syria:

“I know it is stressful, there are lots of fears and threats, but people can find ways and means of making their feelings known, of getting the message around that we do not accept this; this is enough, no more violence, no more,” he said. “You can play a role in a way that perhaps you cannot imagine, but people and the population do have lots of power, and working together can do a lot.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/world/middleeast/kofi-annan-meets-with-bashar-al-assad.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Our point here is not to compare the brutal violence and horrors of Syria with the high-speed rail project. 

Our point here is to take Mr. Annan's words about public protests and apply those to our high-speed rail situation in California.  

The must be a major public protest to stop the project.  When enough of our voters and tax-payers raise their voices in opposition to the train, it will come to an end.

Fellow Democrats, drop High-Speed Rail or you will deserve to lose this election

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/08/opinion/carville-democrats-could-lose/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

Carville is a guy to take very seriously. What does what he says have to do with HSR? Everything. If my fellow Democrats were really smart, they would dump this vision, this program and California's project like a hot potato.

HSR is not about or for "the rest of us." Most of those of us struggling in this economy with mortgage payments, debts, and insecure jobs or no jobs, don't give a damn about building this train for the rich.  We can't afford a vacation to Disneyland.  We don't commute between San Francisco and Los Angeles. High-Speed Rail is a project for other people, not us. We are never going to be spending the premium costs of these most expensive train tickets available. . . . . that is, if this project is actually ever completed.

Which now seems most unlikely. Yeah, it will start and they will spend as much of the $6 billion that they can, but after that, can you see $100 billion -- or anything like that much -- becoming available to be spent on a train that runs no farther than 400 miles north and south within California?

The project is, more than ever, a major political manipulation.  The Union bosses who are the actual decision-makers are using this project for the same propaganda purposes as the elected officials they seek to influence.  The regular Union guys who show up at meetings and hearings are paid to show up; they need the money.  Mostly it's Union/ Democratic Party member collusion.  The Union rank-and-file are getting screwed in this so-called deal.

We are driving fewer miles on the road.  We are not waiting to ride high-speed rail instead. The point is we are travelling less. It costs to travel, even if the transit costs themselves were low -- which on costly HSR they certainly aren't. And it will cost when you get to wherever you are going. Travel, as we all know, isn't getting any less expensive.

Lower income people aren't about to give up their cars, trucks or SUVs.  That's a luxury for politically correct upper middle class people. Lower income people -- if that's where Democratic Party sympathies lie -- will not be riding high-speed rail.

Which is to say that the Democratic Party support for this train is highly contradictory and runs totally against Democratic Party ideology.  And for that, the Party will be punished this November.

The Democratic agenda totally ignores the on-the-ground realities behind high-speed rail. HSR is not public mass transit; it's no more "green" than other current transit modalities. And these modalities, like driving and flying, are being upgraded rapidly to be far more economical and fuel efficient. The outcomes of this trend are already visible in reduced national gasoline consumption.

It ought to be clear by now that there is no altruistic agenda behind the Democratic support for  HSR.  Our Party leaders are not doing us any favors.

The project in California, as advocated by the Governor and the Legislature, is totally self-serving, and on many levels, including career and resume benefits, profits, power, and political control.  As we like to say on this blog, it's not about the train at all; it's about the process.  And that means, getting and spending huge amounts of money.

I never thought I would think or say it, but my Democratic representatives deserve to lose this election if they don't relinquish this shameless charade.

When it comes to High-Speed Rail, they can't hear us.

Grandchildren visiting are taking priority over blogging.  Until end of the week, there will be less activity on this blog.

Yet, reading the daily papers re-affirms a saying about which I am convinced, coined by the American writer Upton Sinclair:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

What that means for us is that there really is no point in trying to convince anyone related to the CHSRA or the Democratic Party in California that what they believe, or say they believe, is incorrect.  

Democratic Party elected officials, starting with Governor Jerry Brown, depend upon Union campaign funding, today more than ever.

The facts and realities of this high-speed rail project are totally irrelevant.

The Construction Union's rank-and-file have a greater unemployment rate than most other Unions.  Furthermore, Unions are under heavy fire from the Republicans in many states and are fighting for their very existence.  That puts the burden on the Democratic Party regulars to offer as much support as possible. (I'm pro-Union, by the way, but what is going on here is the striking of very bad bargains.)

For reasons of their own, since those are not congruent with the truth or reality, these Unions believe that federal and state funding for the construction of this high-speed rail project will provide zillions of permanent, wonderful, well-paying jobs.  At least, that's their mantra for those members now unemployed.

The Governor is eager/desperate for those $3.5 billion in federal funding to come to California and will continue to promote the HSR project that is the basis for obtaining those funds. His salary depends on it, so to speak. The same is true for all the other Democrats in the Legislature, many of whom are determined to obtain some of those funds for their Districts.

Needless to say, Chairman Dan Richard has personal ambitions, including financial ones, of his own as he represents the rail authority with endless verbal distortions, as does Mike Rossi and all the other Board members.

So, as we watch this debacle unfold in California, we can be sure that all our entreaties are of no avail. They fall on deaf ears. I wish my colleagues on the Peninsula would come to that same conclusion, and had come to it far earlier.

Why? Because a far more confrontational and adversarial agenda had been and continues to be called for.  Persuasion is not the name of this game. Neither is accommodation or compromise, a favored tactic of most politicians, as they seek to have it "both ways."

That is not possible. It has never been possible.  There's an old, stupid joke about hitting a mule on the head with a 2X4 in order to get his attention so that instructions can be whispered in his ear.  In our context, that's not such a stupid joke, however.  For us, lawsuits are such 2X4s.  

We need to hit both Caltrain and the rail authority on the head with lawsuits to get their attention.  Nothing less will have any effect.  And they do continue to provide us with ample opportunities to sue them.

When it comes to High-Speed Rail, they can't hear us.

Grandchildren visiting are taking priority over blogging.  Until end of the week, there will be less activity on this blog.

Yet, reading the daily papers re-affirms a saying of which I am fond, coined by the American writer Upton Sinclair: 

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

What that means for us is that there really is no point in trying to convince anyone related to the CHSRA or the Democratic Party in California that what they believe, or say they believe, is incorrect.

The facts and realities of this high-speed rail project are totally irrelevant.  Yes, this project is terrible and in so many ways that the list becomes book-length. 

That's what William Gindley and Mark Powell and Ken Orski and Wendell Cox, the CC-HSR and the CARRD groups,  and the LA Times and the Sacramento Bee, and even the New York Times and the Washington Post have been trying to tell us. Nonetheless, the people who make decisions, the Democrats, cannot hear them.  

Democratic Party elected officials, starting with Governor Jerry Brown, depend upon Union campaign funding, today more than ever. 

The Construction Union's rank-and-file have a greater unemployment rate than most other Unions.  Furthermore, Unions are under heavy fire from the Republicans in many states and are fighting for their very existence.  

That puts the burden on the Democratic Party regulars to offer as much support as possible. And that's where their support comes from. It assures their jobs.  It's like their salaries.

For reasons of their own, since those are not congruent with the truth or reality, these Unions believe that federal and state funding for the construction of this high-speed rail project will provide zillions of permanent, wonderful, well-paying jobs.  At least, that's their mantra for those unemployed.

(I'm pro-Union, by the way, but what is going on is the striking of very bad bargains. All those promised jobs will not magically appear.)

The Governor is eager/desperate for those $3.5 billion in federal funding to come to California and will continue to promote the HSR project that is the basis for obtaining those funds. His salary depends on it, so to speak. 

The same is true for all the other Democrats in the Legislature, many of whom are determined to obtain some of those funds for their Districts. 

Needless to say, Chairman Dan Richard has personal ambitions, including financial ones, of his own as he represents the rail authority with endless verbal distortions, as does Rossi and all the other Board members. 

Keep in mind the enormous power of an organization that gets to spend billions on many hundreds of contractors. What do the facts have to do with this? They can't hear us.

So, as we watch this debacle unfold in California, we can be sure that all our entreaties are of no avail. They fall on deaf ears. I wish my colleagues on the Peninsula would come to that same conclusion, and had come to it far earlier.

Why? Because a far more confrontational agenda had been and continues to be called for.  Persuasion is not the name of this game. Neither is accommodation or compromise, a favored tactic of most politicians, as they seek to have it "both ways." 

That is not possible. It has never been possible.  There's an old, stupid joke about hitting a mule on the head with a 2X4 in order to get his attention so that instructions can be whispered in his ear. In our context, that's not such a stupid joke, however.  

For us, lawsuits are such 2X4s.  We need to hit both Caltrain and the rail authority on the head with lawsuits to get their attention.  Nothing less will have any effect.  And they continue to provide us with ample opportunities to sue them.

When this High-Speed Rail disaster is finally build, who will be around to say "I told you so."

Wolf RIchter poses the situation with high-speed rail very well in this article. California continues to operate along the edge of an economic cliff.  Nonetheless, the Governor and fellow Democrats are determined to juggle a number of running chainsaws as they stumble along the precipice.  (Is that too many metaphors all at once?)

However, the rail authority keeps reassuring us that they know what they are doing. They keep generating new phraseology to cover their improvisations, but it's all theater; show business.  No substance.  Like those theater stagings where the front of the "flat" shows a house, but the back is nothing but sticks and canvas. (Sorry, yet another metaphor.) 

"Initial Investment," "blended system," "Initial Construction Segment," "value engineering," "Initial Operating Segment." What do these terms mean? They mean that they have fundamentally changed their game plan due to the realities of no further funding from Washington. And it means that they have moved away from the commitments required in the authorizing laws.

Here's the thing.  All the numbers that the rail authority is putting out, the total costs of construction, the number of annual riders, the time it will take from LA to SF, the number of jobs, the environmental impact, etc. etc. are all based on predictions; forecasts.

We can and do challenge them and, against their mathematical models, produce data that demonstrates the incorrectness of their numbers.  Nonetheless, the only way we can empirically and factually prove that their numbers have been all wrong, is not until the train becomes fully operational.  And that won't be for what, two decades?

At this time, they will tell us that it's their word against ours. Their "facts" disagree with our "facts." If we don't like it, sue them!

Then as construction commences next year, and after two decades they get a train running, what will we do when the total costs have risen to $200 billion and continue to climb?  When their ridership is grossly less than what they predicted?  When their train tickets cost so much more than they are saying now? When there have been far fewer jobs than estimated? When their operating costs are staggeringly high and need to be massively subsidized, as this article suggests?

Will we all then say, we shouldn't have built this train?  It was a huge mistake that we will be paying for forever? We stupidly supported the building of the most expensive White Elephant in the history of the US?

It should be totally apparent to every one of us that the Governor and rail authority don't give a damn what several dozen complainers like us have to say. The Governor calls us "decliners," a strange word but adequately dismissive, like Rod Diridon's infamous "rotten apples."  

And, those of us still around twenty years from now, what will we say, "We told you so?"

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http://www.businessinsider.com/the-great-train-robbery-california-version-2012-5

'The Great Train Robbery' Is Costing California Billions Every Year

Wolf Richter, Testosterone Pit | 

May 2, 2012, 8:23 AM | 

Wolf Richter is an entrepreneur, executive, and writer based in San Francisco.

The hoped-for April spike in personal income tax revenues for the State of California fell once again below the overoptimistic assumptions used to get the budget to “balance.”

Instead of the $9.4 billion that the government had counted on collecting in April, it only collected $7.4 billion, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office. A 21% shortfall! In addition, corporate taxes were $450 million below forecast. After months of “disappointing” tax revenues, the total shortfall in income taxes now amounts to $3.5 billion for fiscal 2012 ending June 30.

The budget, supposedly balanced when it was passed last summer, had been spewing red ink from day one. Tax revenues were one problem. Expenditures were the other. The most recent re-revisions pegged the deficit at $9.2 billion. That was a few weeks ago. Now it’s going to be re-re-revised to nearly $12 billion. And the dance of shuffling funds between accounts, slowing payments to municipalities, begging Wall Street for loans, and selling crappy bonds will start all over again.

Yet permanently broke California, instead of fixing its fiscal problems, is getting ever more entangled in a mega-project of JELL-O-esque nature: high-speed rail between San Francisco and Los Angeles. In 2008, voters authorized $9.95 billion in general obligation bonds to fund the first stage of the $35.7 billion project; the federal government would pick up a chunk, and it would be profitable! By November 2011, costs ballooned to a range between $98.5 billion and $117.6 billion—though construction hadn’t started yet. And all heck broke lose.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) then dared to request $2.7 billion, the first tranche of the bond money, to be matched with $3.5 billion in federal money, for 130 miles of track in the Central Valley from just north of Fresno down to Bakersfield. Lacking electrification, it could only be used by regular diesel trains. In January, the High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group recommended that the project be put on hold: if future funding didn’t materialize, that initial section in the Central Valley would become an icon of high-cost rail from nowhere to nowhere.

Resistance to the project became insurmountable. So, Governor Jerry Brown installed some new folks at the CHSRA—which suddenly chopped the price tag by 30% to a range between $68 billion and $80 billion. OK, on the Peninsula south of San Francisco and in the LA Basin, the system would be more like commuter rail. And it would also include more "medium-speed" links. Travel times would creep up. High-speed service, where available, might be ready by 2028.

“The great train robbery,” is what retired Judge Quentin Kopp called the new plan—and he, as state senator, co-authored the bill that created the first high-speed rail study.

But it gets even worse: turns out, operating costs are based on fantasy assumptions. The CHSRA plan assumes that it would cost 10 cents per passenger mile (the average cost of carrying one passenger one mile at a given load factor) when international high-speed rail systems averaged 43 cents per mile, according to a report that just surfaced. The low-cost leader was Italy with 34 cents per mile; at the upper end were Germany and Japan with 50 cents per mile; Amtrak’s Acela Express, though not truly high speed, was in the middle with 44 cents per mile. And in California, it’s going to be 10 cents per mile?

The CHSRA correctly assumes that train tickets compete with air fares and the cost of driving, which, despite our incessant complaints, are lower in California than overseas. Thus, the US market requires cheaper tickets. And to make the project appear profitable, and thus more digestible for the taxpayer, the CHSRA lowered its projected operating costs to less than a quarter of the international average.

But if actual operating costs are 43 cents per mile and not 10 cents per mile, annual subsidies of $2 billion to $3 billion would be required just to keep the trains running, according to the report. Yet, AB3034, the California High-Speed Train Bond Act, makes these subsidies illegal. A conundrum that the Legislature, the Administration, and the CHSRA have so far successfully ignored.

Thus, our dream of having a profitable high-speed rail system has gone up in subsidies, so to speak, at least in the current scenario, though scenarios change with the seasons, in the hope that money will start flowing soon. But the last thing California has is money—with its economy and budget still in shambles. And it may not just be California.

"Despite all of the rhetoric to the contrary, it looks like the air got let out of the balloon," commented the members of the ISM-Chicago Business Survey that had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. And now there are real reasons for concern. Read.... Calamity Economy Rearing its Ugly Head Again?

Read more: http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2012/5/1/the-great-train-robbery-california-version.html#ixzz1tjLtlZaO

An Anonymous Comment on this blog about High-Speed Rail

Whatever comments are posted on this blog, I do read them, but I'm not looking for conversations.   However, one comment came in on April 19th that I have re-visited several times that I want to reproduce here.

The anonymous author raises a powerful and fundamental issue about fraud.  He asks, is the High-Speed Rail Authority guilty of "breach of contract fiduciary duty?"  The answer to that question can officially come from one of two sources.  

The first source is the Government Accounting Office in Washington. Now that the rail authority has already spend federal dollars, that triggers federal involvement in the legitimacy of those expenditures. The GAO will be conducting their examination until early next spring at which time they will release their findings.

The other organization is the Congressional Committee headed by Darrell Issa, Republican Congressman from California. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has assumed reponsibility to review the California project and has already ordered the California High-Speed Rail Authority to refrain from destroying or deleting any records, paper or electronic, in anticipation of their review.

This rail project has given off strong scents of illegalities, waste, fraud and abuse and possible corruption.  Tragically, there has been no responsible oversight or accountability.  The rail authority has the absolute and unquestioning support of the Governor and the Democratic majority in both the Senate and the Assembly are uniformly supportive of this project.  It is the possible source of six billion dollars or more from both federal and state sources and the Democrats are single-mindedly determined to process those funds.

We have taken considerable pains to list the various deceits of which we believe the rail authority to be guilty. Indeed there are over 1,100 entries to this blog that seek to identify those untruths. Perhaps the most important of all is that the voters were defrauded when they were asked to vote on a project that the rail authority had not intention to build. It was, at that time (2008) "merely a concept" as Board member Rod Diridon said at the time.

What we are being presented with today is nothing like what the authorizing language of the legislation presented on the ballot.  If that isn't fraud upon the voters, I don't know what is. 

Here is that comment, and I agree that the implementation of the suggestion of justice department investigation and prosecution is highly unlikely within this current Administration. And that's too bad. Truth, honor and justice are obviously not the highest government priority.

"When a group of people actively plan to violate laws it is called a conspiracy. When they knowingly plan to violate federal and state laws it might well be a violation of the Federal RICO (Racketeering and Corrupt Influences) act. The RICO statues are very clear that any group of persons who conspire to commit fraud are violating RICO. RICO has been used in the past to prosecute local and state officials. As long as Eric Holder is Attorney General there will never be a Federal RICO prosecution of CHSRA directors and others who knowingly conspired to defraud the state and federal government. 

But what happens if Obama loses in the fall and newly installed US attorneys decide that the blatant, knowing disregard of Prop 1A constitutes fraud? US attorneys have a long history of launching political careers by prosecuting high PR value cases that generate public outrage.