All three of these are financed and paid with taxpayer dollars, and all three were conceived to ‘do good’ for the citizenry, who needed all three very much, at least according to politicians. Politicians may have had severe second thoughts about all three, but they were vote getters, and their votes were cast as ‘yes’ enough times, that all three became law.
Freeways, seem to encompass all major cities, but Los Angeles was perhaps the first, and probably has the most miles, so I will examine Los Angeles, and assume that it applies to all freeways in America. Los Angeles freeways, were initially built adjacent to the tracks of the Pacific Electric Railway, which originated over a thousand electric passenger trains every day, and carried hundreds of millions each year. P.E. was owned by Southern Pacific Railroad, and showed a nice profit, taking no subsidies. It was simple to commandeer land adjacent to Pacific Electric, build multi-lane freeways, and have autos breeze by the electric trains with ease. It was a very clever gambit! Passengers on the trains, saw that cars were going faster, and of course were privately owned, comfortable, and had no fares to pay. What happened pretty quickly, was that Pacific Electric passengers bought cars, and abandoned the rail lines. The process continued, until Pacific Electric became unprofitable, and was glad to sell its rights of way to the freeway builders.
Today in Los Angeles, freeways are chock full, bumper to bumper, the air is fetid, and travel is far slower than it used to be on the P.E. It has become so bad, that new electric lines are being built to relieve the congestion! We’re going back to square one, except the choice rights of way are gone, the tracks are gone, the overhead wire and power plants are gone, and the cars, repair facilities and stations are gone. To rebuild, what used to be Pacific Electric, would cost many trillions of dollars. “Gee, we must have made a mistake. Our air is polluted, everyone is unhappy, it takes a long time to get where we are going, and we use huge amounts of gasoline.” I am certain that the above would apply just about everywhere in America.
The process was hurried along in Los Angeles and most other places, by a conglomerate named, “National City Lines,” which was made up of GM, which built busses, Mobil, which sold fuel, and Firestone, which sold tires. National City lines, would approach town or city fathers or legislatures, and tell them that they would buy their transit lines, tear up the tracks, burn the cars, and supply brand new busses, which were not limited to where they could go by trackage. It worked splendidly, in dozens and dozens of towns and cities, including Los Angeles. National City Lines was sued, found guilty, but the damage had been done. Their fine was $5,000.
The first public housing project was built in the early 1930’s, under FDR. Its goal was to spend taxpayer money, to let poor people live in comfort and pay little rent. Poor people were delighted! As fast as a public housing project was completed, it was instantly full of poor people. At the same time, public housing projects ruined the surrounding neighborhoods, which had been stable for many, many decades. The poor people who lived in the housing projects, committed crimes, robbed homes and business surrounding the projects, murdered, raped, and in general acted unlike a homeowner, who worked hard to pay for and maintain their home. The poor people also abused their new homes, besides committing crimes. Urinating down elevator shafts, spray painting walls, and abusing their public housing homes so much, that after a few years, the buildings had to be completely reworked, or in such miserable condition they had become, they had become un-fixable. Eventually, hundreds of public housing projects had to be torn down, they had become in such bad condition. Since neighborhoods had ceased to exist, more public housing was built on the same sites, many times not high rise buildings, but small, multi level homes, but the results are the same.
I had personal experience with a public housing project in Philadelphia. I had an ice cream parlour, #7 out of my eventual 10, on Ridge Ave in Philly. The area before the public housing project, was a lovely working class neighborhood. Homes were small, well built and cared for. Families often passed homes to their offspring, and generations lived in the East Falls section of Philly. My #7 store got robbed many times, by East Falls housing project residents, and crime, thanks to the public housing project, was astronomical. Gone was the neighborhood. ‘White flight’ became common, and people sold their loved homes for a pittance, just to get away.
The goal was to provide poor people a place to live with cheap rent. The result was that poor people had much free time to commit crimes, because their rent was cheap, or paid by government, which exacerbated an already bad situation. People who live with no responsibility to care for themselves or their abodes, will usually act irresponsibly, commit crime, have lots of babies paid by welfare, and the responsible poor, have not been benefitted. Ruined neighborhoods, high crime, and useless people, have been the results of public housing. Ask anyone who has ever lived or operated a business near one.
I’ll never forget where I was, when I first found out that government was going to feed people. I was in Silverton Colorado in 1972, and found it so absurd, I simply couldn’t believe it. “Feed the citizenry? You’ve got to be kidding,” was my thought and conversation with friends. That was 52 years ago, and now everyone sort of takes it for granted, so socialistic and debased we have become. It almost had to happen after public housing got started. After all, poor people have to live, don’t they? They also have to eat, so let’s feed them. Of course. we have subsidies for heat, electricity, rent, and even “Obamaphones.” Poor people have to talk, don’t they? New York has just authorized many millions to furnish illegals with paid debit cards. They have to shop, don’t they?
Hundreds of millions of Americans did all of the above without subsidies, and those subsidies, destroyed them. Want a place to live? Get a job? And the same with the rest. For 200 years, America was the richest, grandest, most innovative and prosperous nation on earth. Now look at us. You can’t walk in New York’s Times Square in safety any longer.
Is our society going downhill? It seems to me that subsidizing poor people, and taxing rich people, is the wrong equation. Rich people provide jobs for poor people, but poor people who escape poverty by subsidization, don’t seem to want a job. If rich people are taxed to death to support poor people, rich people will no longer supply jobs, but send their factories overseas. Why should the subsidized work, when rent is free, food is free, phones are free, and now shopping is even free, and most crimes under a thousand dollars, are not even processed. Stay clear of big cities, insure yourself with gold and silver.
-Don Stott – don@coloradogold.com. 970-249-4646