Bullets That Go Nowhere

One part of the President's agenda unveiled this week....centered around $8 billion going to bullet-train construction.

No one is saying for sure where the $8 billion will go....but the smart guys are already betting on California. There are at least a dozen plans sitting out there.....almost all with zero funding. You see....selling bullet-trains....just ain't that easy.

This is an interesting history and business lesson. The French, the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Germans to some degree.....have bullet-trains. All of these....required massive government funding to make them functional. To be kinda honest.....none of them today....truly pay for themselves, and so other "funding" ends up coming out of somewhere....to make the whole thing continue on.

The key feature of a bullet-train....is that you go from point "A" to point "B". One train station to another train station. The speed? Typically over 200 mph. The luxury? What would be a eight hour trip by car....occurs in less than two hours.

The issues here?

First, you have a special track requirement and you can only go from point "A" to point "B". Say in this case, LA to San Fransisco. If you want to go anywhere else...it's the vanilla track and 75 mph. So you spend mega-millions, to make this special track occur.

Then, you start to ask who makes this run from LA to San Fransisco.....and would be willing to just park their car, travel to San Fransisco.....and get there to be in a car-less situation? The answer? Very few people. You have to remember.....the ticket for this experience from LA to San Fransisco....is going to likely be the same costs as a airline ticket. So you have to calculate in this idea of how you travel around your destination location for a day, a weekend, or a week.

Then, we come to riders. Typically....it's not the lower-class workers who ride such a train. Remember....this is a $100 ticket typically....or more. So it's a decision that a middle-class or upper-class family is making.

Then, we come to time. If the amount of time equals airline travel....is there any advantage of a bullet-train over an airline? No. There really isn't any real advantage....unless maybe you count the station downtown in San Fransisco as your real final destination and your 4-star hotel a block away makes the perfect place to stay.

Historically, there are lots of plan's sitting on the shelf because no one can find real funding for this idea. The plan of getting a bullet-train from LA to Vegas? Of all the plans out there, this is the only one with financial payback possibility....the rest are built on imaginary profits without incentive.

The German effort? Well....they built their bullet-train track from the Frankfurt airport (one of the major hubs of Europe), to Koln (about 100 miles to the north). The sell here was the business side of operations sitting in Koln and quick easy access to the Frankfurt airport. The ticket? Well over $80 one-way. Who rides? It's about seventy-percent business related traffic. The mom's and pop's usually just drive down with their car or take the regular train which is a quarter of the train price. There are other plans on the shelf, and some will be built....but truthfully.....the Frankfurt train isn't a greatly profitable deal and I would question if they make any real profit to pay off the construction.

So this $8 billion is more or less a pay-off to someone. My guess is that political folks in California will make a fair 'profit' off this deal and some of their friends are in the construction business. It'll take three or four years to build this and it'll go well over the $8 billion mark.....requiring the US government to fund another $5 or $7 billion to finish. The profit? Don't be asking silly questions like that. It'll never show a real profit.

What this really does....at some point about six years into the future....is cast a giant shadow over future construction in America of a bullet-train system. People simply don't travel by train any longer in America. It's one thing to travel forty miles by some Metro-like system.....but the idea that you would travel 400 miles by train? No.....and speed doesn't influence that decision. In six years.....the numbers will be added up and we will realize that bullet-trains are a farce and the airline industry will breathe a sigh of relief.

The Meeting

At my age....I've probably attended around fourteen hundred (1,400) meetings in my life. Meetings are long and drawn out. Ninety percent accomplish little to nothing. You would beg to get out of some of these. When a meeting runs past one hour.....I tend to start rubbing my knuckles and daydreaming.

This week.....I finally went to a meeting that was the most fascinating meeting (in fact, the only fascinating meeting) of my life. If you were charging money to attend.....I'd actually pay $3 at the door to attend.

So you are scratching your head, and wondering about this meeting?

Well, it's the Pentagon building facility meeting. Yep.....it's the big guy of the Pentagon that runs all of the engineer business and projects related to fixing or keeping the building open.

The guy running it....a comedian of sorts. I would wish that some reality show would come up and just walk with this guy for eight hours a day....and put it on TV each night.

I was utterly fascinated.

You see, the Pentagon is about sixty years old. It's not a perfect work of art. It's been rebuilt dozens upon dozens of times. 9-11 shook the building at its roots.....but truthfully, you can't harm this building.

So on a daily basis.....there are all kinds of things going on....toilet spillages, power outages, broken escalators, broken fryers over at Popeye's Chicken, and water fountains that need to be fixed.

So for an hour, I was entertained. The meeting went from topic to topic....with history handed out every two minutes on this problem and what happened in 1988....and how this problem led to this fix....which led to another problem later.

The odds of me returning? Well....my new guy coming into the office is supposed to attend (he arrives next week). But I'm thinking (probably selflessly) that I ought to be attending this meeting.

So for an hour each week.....you might see me gleefully smiling over a silly meeting but in my mind, it's best damn meeting that a guy could ever attend. And yeah, I'll be there.

Just a Bit of Booze

There is an interesting story over at World Net today...about Representative Nancy Pelosi....her travels....her excess....and her alcohol.

It's not a very positive story...and it begs alot of questions....which Rep Pelosi is not going to answer. Before the 1980s...it's hard to find an episode where the head of the House or Senate got their own transportation via the Air Force. In the past ten years....it's been on a surge of sorts.

I'll let you read this entire story over at World Net. But there are two curious things about this report.

First, you start to think that maybe it's time that the Air Force was tossed out of this business.....and just give both the head of the House and the Senate their own contracted out jet....with a nationally-advertised budget. Be fair....toss them around $10 million a year to run around to funerals, meetings in London, dinners in Brazil, and whatever else they'd like to go and see. Once they hit the $10 million point.....they are finished for the year. Treat them like kids if necessary.

Second.....maybe it's just me....but there's an awful lot of heavy booze mentioned in the purchases and servings onboard Rep Pelosi's travels. A lot of booze. Now, she travels with an entourage....five or six members of her staff....maybe her family. But I'm looking at this, and I'm thinking that someone in her group has got a serious drinking problem. We aren't talking about just a small problem either. Maybe the Representative herself? I don't know.....but this amount of booze mentioned in limited reporting....makes me think of serious alcoholism.

I'd hate to suggest a Bama-county philosophy of "dry" for all senators and representatives. But let's think about this.....it's not my job to pay taxes.....and pay for some senator from California or some representative from Arkansas to booze up freely. I'm kinda curious what the heck we are paying for in the offices....and in the planes....and if this is from our tax dollars.

BCS Hell

So, with all of the emergencies facing the federal government today....as of yesterday....the boys have decided to pile one more log on that fire. The BCS Bowl Championship series.

Yes, the Justice Department has said that it will now review the mess...and offer up an opinion. They didn't say what it might be....but just the sheer admission of review...has to have the BCS guys shaking in their boots.

You see what is at the heart of this...is a rigged up system where approximately sixteen teams are "in" and fixed to be the champion...year, after year, after year. Out there...in the midst of this....is Utah State and Boise State...who have finally recruited and gotten themselves into a strange situation...national winners of a major scale. Yet, because of the arrangement for bowl games....neither can crack the system and be a national winner.

Let's even go one step further...there are probably twelve teams beyond the "Bowl-16" that we know of...that could be a national champion but the series is rigged against them.

Why a rigged deal? Money, TV access, and national audience. It's pure and simple. You are a member of the sweet sixteen group....you are legendary already around the nation. Boise State? Folks in Georgia have likely never watched a single game...ever....with them. The money? Well...we are talking about hundreds of millions for the town that gets one of the top three games.

Should the Fed's get involved in this? That's a curious thing. Most folks hate the idea of some Senator or some Congressman to be deep into BCS 'rigging'. They hate for the President or the Attorney General to be deep into BCS 'rigging'. But since the BCS committee itself won't fix it...you've got yourself into a pit.

My prediction....the President will need a group of experts to sort this out...so he'll call in former college presidents of the University of Nebraska, University of Alabama, Texas Tech, UCLA, USC, Florida State, etc. Yes, you might note that they are all members of the 'sweet-sixteen' group who got all of the bowl deals. Then they will have a three or four guys from Princeton to balance out this mess...mostly business degree guys who've been with failed Wall Street operations. Together, they will forge a new and improved failed BCS system....to help make America better and progressive.

There, I said it. A BCS system that is bold and progressive.