Your (California) high-speed choo-choo update

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Built into the legislation that authorized the first $9 billion dollars of bonds to be issued to build California's high speed rail system and which was approved by voters back in November of 2008, was an advisory panel known as California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group, ostensibly an independent watchdog group for the project.

If supporters of the project thought this panel to be an Amen Corner for high-speed choo-choos then they found themselves to be sorely disappointed this past week.

In a scathing critique that could further jeopardize political support for California's proposed $98.5-billion bullet train, a key independent review panel is recommending that state officials postpone borrowing billions of dollars to start building the first section of track this year.

Gov. Jerry Brown has said he will ask the Legislature in the coming months to issue the first batch of $9 billion in voter-approved bonds for a high-speed rail network that backers say will create jobs, help the environment and transform the state's economy.

But in a report Tuesday, a panel of experts created by state law to help safeguard the public's interest raised serious doubts about almost every aspect of the project and concluded that the current plan "is not financially feasible." As a result, the panel said, it "cannot at this time recommend that the Legislature approve the appropriation of bond proceeds for this project."

Although the panel has no legal power to stop the project, its strong criticism, coupled with recent polls showing public opinion has shifted against the proposal, is giving some key political leaders pause.

"The peer review group report raises important issues for the Legislature to weigh as we consider any appropriation for the project during this year's budget process," said the leader of the state Senate, Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), a longtime supporter of the program.

The project has won major support from organized labor, some big-city mayors and many state lawmakers. But Tuesday's report adds to a string of negative assessments from the state auditor, the state inspector general, the legislative analyst, the UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies, as well as the transportation committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

So what did this panel that includes private-sector financial experts, a University of California dean of engineering, a former Caltrans director and a local government representative find wrong with the project? What didn't they find wrong?

The expert panel asserted that the plan to start construction between Chowchilla and Bakersfield does not meet requirements approved by voters. Their report also found ridership estimates are unverified, construction costs may exceed the current $98.5 billion estimate, and the state agency overseeing the project lacks adequate management resources.

Left unsaid in the article was the fact that the initial funding to put down the rails in the Central Valley will cover just that, the rails. No transmission grid to get power to the trains, no lights and crossing gates and not even any actual trains.


And, oh, by the way, the project has no money...

Most problematic, the report said, is the lack of certainty about funding the balance of the project once the state exhausts the $9 billion in available bonds and $3.3 billion in federal grants. Congress has eliminated future funding for the project, and Republicans are attempting to freeze funds already granted.

The fact that the funding plan fails to identify any long-term funding commitments is a fundamental flaw in the program," the panel said. "We cannot overemphasize the fact that moving ahead on the high-speed rail project without credible sources of adequate funding … represents an immense financial risk on the part of the state of California."

About every single group in this state that has taken a sober look at the high-speed rail project has pointed out serious flaws in the project, a fact that will not deter the faith-based believers in high-speed choo-choos who believe that the money for this project which may cost as much as $120 billion dollars will appear on the backs of unicorns bounding over rainbows to be delivered to Brown's Folly office in Sacramento.

Brown's office signaled that the governor isn't likely to be swayed by the panel's findings. "It does not appear to add any arguments that are new or compelling enough to suggest a change in course," said Gil Duran, Brown's press secretary.

Because why should the fact that there is simply no money for this project distract one from having the Obama administration and Big Labor urging you to stay the course on this disaster?

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Video clip of the day

Reason.tv went down to lower Manhattan last week to check out the Occupy Wall Street protests and this is what they saw.






We've been kind of rough on the OWS crowd and perhaps unfairly so as though we sympathise with over-arching complaint of corporatism/crony capitalism (something that we have railed against in full throat on these pages) that is the coin of the realm here in America currently, we see a generally anti-free market/anti-capitalism and, at times, authoritarian values system that informs the movement and that will, of course, draw our suspicion and ire as warranted.


Labor unions and the Democratic Party will attempt to co-opt the movement but as the video shows, what cogent message is there to co-opt? And as far as the establishment Democrats are concerned, who cares? as long as a lap dog media gives it heavy rotation and allows it to become a distraction from the failed statist/cronyist policies of a failed administration.

Yeah, what he said

Hey, weren't we admonished by the big fella that Las Vegas was a no-fly zone? No matter.

Biden provided the closing address at the 28th Annual International Brotherhood of Teamsters Convention at the Paris Hotel on Friday. The Vice President, who is known for his straightforward style, didn't hide his feelings about the current labor union fights across the country. He believes they are under attack by his Republican rivals for no apparent reason.

Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged it wasn't a political event, but it still didn't prevent him from sending this warning to Teamsters union members during his address at their annual convention in Las Vegas this past Friday.

"And don't any of you, by the way, any of you guys vote Republican," Biden said. "I'm not supposed to say, this isn't political. ...don't come to me if you do! You're on your own, Jack!"

That this administration would just leave everyone to be "on your own" let alone Jack would be music to our ears but the fact that Joey B. said what he said reveals the statist mindset of the primacy of the government over the individual and the political codependency of the Democratic party and labor unions.

Follower blog post of the day

Lookin' out and around for our friends in the blogosphere... how about some local flavor, San Diego style?


B-Daddy comes out for city councilman, Carl DeMaio, for mayor of San Diego.

I am leaning to supporting Carl DeMaio for mayor of San Diego. My biggest reason was his outspoken opposition to Proposition D, which made a big difference in its defeat last fall. Meanwhile Bonnie Dumanis ducked the issue and Nathan Fletcher was on record as opposing, but did little to work against its passage.

Thus far, DeMaio appears to be the only candidate that is willing to confront the issue of pension reform for public employees which is dogging the finances of many states and municipalities.

As B-Daddy notes, DeMaio is making all the right enemies and in particular, Big Labor.

Check out the rest, here.

Markets happen

The San Diego city council voted 7-1 to strike down the economic impact report required of big box retailers (see: Walmart) two days ago. But before we throw it over to B-Daddy who is becoming the go-to blog for local issues we would like to note one thing: Marti Emerald, who represents our district, was the lone dissenter in the vote.

It was a curious vote as there is a Walmart in Emerald's district and if the parking lot at the Walmart, the shopping center of which also contains a Target and a Sam's Club, is any indication, it would suggest Emerald's constiuents might disagree with her sentiment.

Take a drive due east from this alleged big box killer of small and local businesses about 2 miles down the 94 or Univerity Avenue and you will find yourself in downtown LaMesa. A quaint, throwback "main street" of two or three blocks.

Curio shops, antique stores, family restaurants, fine wine, beer and cigar bars and straight-up won't-find'em-at-Walmart drinking bars abound.

Do the grunt work on Saturday at the big-box retail-plex, relax with family and friends on Sunday in downtown LaMesa. Needs are met, businesses of all shapes and sizes thrive and everyone is happy. Never once saw the sense in Big Labor's crusade against Walmart.

Emerald would do well to note this free market phenomena happening at opposite ends of her district.

Delta employees vote to...

... have feds order them to vote again.

Delta Air Lines Inc. flight attendants’ vote to reject union representation may be nullified by a U.S. labor board controlled by Obama administration appointees, according to a senator and an analyst.

The National Mediation Board, which in August ordered a new election for technicians who work on simulators for Delta, will take similar action after reviewing flight-attendant allegations of company interference in balloting, said Ray Neidl, an analyst at Maxim Group LLC in New York. “The deck is stacked in the union’s favor,” he said in an interview.

Democratic appointees of President Barack Obama gained a majority on the three-member board last year, and in May eased rules for organizing elections in the airline industry. Given that stance, the panel will probably order a revote by flight attendants, said Senator Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican.

“Nothing tells me they won’t do that,” Isakson said in an interview. “To come around and revote again, it’s a lack of respect for the employees.”

Nullifying the vote results announced Nov. 3 would present a new challenge to the position of Atlanta-based Delta as the least-unionized major U.S. carrier. The flight attendants rejected union representation with 51 percent of the 18,760 votes cast against organizing.

A mediation board spokesman didn’t return a telephone call for comment. The board referees relations between labor and management at railroad and airline companies under the 1926 Railway Labor Act.

(italics, ours)

We chose this article as it was one that referenced another election mulligan decreed by this particular labor board.

We suppose this means the employees of Delta and perhaps employees everywhere will have to keep voting until they get it right.

World upsidedown

Via KT:



And from KT:

Ignore the "Those crazy Frenchies are striking again" meme and consider this: every time they nationalize an industry, its problems become political, not economic. That is, there is an upper limit on what unions working for a private firm can demand because they don't want to bankrupt the company. When you work for a government that can print money, that limit is practically unimaginable.

KT's right. There is no rational purpose behind public-sector unions. Government bureaucracies do not have bottom lines and balance sheets in the same way private enterprises do. In the private sector, when the unions and management sit down to negotiate a new labor contract in good faith, there is an understanding on both sides of concessions that can be made and new benefits granted. When management can print money, what is its pain threshold? What new benefits that labor is going to demand will hurt management's bottom line?

We suppose Europe is finding out the answer to this question, right now.



P.S. As federal employees, we do not belong to a union. The AFSCME set up shop in our office about 6 months ago and we decided not to join, not only out of principle as explained above, but also because the labor rules governing the conduct of the union turn the traditional concept of labor-management relations completely on its head. It's a parody of a union to the degree that an old-school union type would not recognize it.

Let's put it this way: Under AFSCME labor rules, labor and management are basically in bed together. Scandalous? Perhaps. But the completely perverse concept of public-sector unions, as it is, actually makes this arrangement sensible.

Coming to a port near you

The Gaza "Peace flotilla" dust-up hits the West Coast:

An Israeli cargo ship arriving in Oakland today was forced to sit idle and not offload its containers when longshoremen joined forces with a coalition of communist and Islamist groups who picketed the port in protest against the recent violent incident off the coast of Gaza.

The ship, owned by Zim Lines, was not carrying any controversial cargo, nor is Zim involved in politics in any way; it was targeted simply because the shipping company is based in Israel.

The planned protest and blockade were organized by The Free Palestine Movement (one of the same groups which organized the Gaza “flotilla” in the first place) as well as a rogues’ gallery of nearly every communist, anti-Israel and radical Islamist group in the Bay Area:

Follow the link as Zombie notices a willful conflating by the local media of the concepts and actions of "picketing" vs. "protesting". They are very much different, however, they are being treated as one in the same in order to provide cover for the labor unions involved.

Spotting the basket cases

Want to know how to be able to tell the economically stable states from the basket case states? It’s easy. Check it out.

First, some news out of the Golden State.

The lowly regarded California Legislature is widely viewed as accomplishing so little that some critics say the solution is to cut back lawmakers’ hours — way back.

A proposed ballot initiative that would return the Legislature to part-time status, as it was until 1967, is getting considerable buzz on conservative talk radio and at Tea Party protests.

You talk to some long-time California residents and they’ll pinpoint the late 60s as the moment that things started to turn south in California. But having a full-time legislature isn’t indicative of fiscal Armageddon, is it?

The length of legislative sessions varies widely around the country, but according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, there are nine states where the legislatures are more or less full time — California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Forget full time. It’s like the pols are working overtime to make most all of those states above completely FEMA-worthy.

And in other totally related news:

Forbes magazine has completed a comprehensive look at "The Global Debt Bomb" and in the course of compiling the results found this very interesting tidbit:

"The five states in the worst financial condition--Illinois, New York, Connecticut, California and New Jersey--are all among the bluest of blue states. The five most fiscally fit states are more of a mix. Three--Utah, Nebraska and Texas--boast Republican majorities and two--New Hampshire and Virginia--skew Democratic."

But wait, it's actually more serious than that when you look at the 10 states in the worst financial condition, according to Forbes:

"Of the 10 states in the worst financial condition, eight are among a total of 23 defined by Gallup as "solidly Democratic," meaning the Democrats enjoy an advantage of 10 percentage points or greater in party affiliation. These states include the ones listed above as making up the bottom five, plus Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin.

So, if you are scoring at home and if we could construct a Venn diagram for statist dysfunctionality that woud be: California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin.

We’ll be darned. It’s like a trend or something. Economic basketcase states all have 3 things in common: full-time legislatures that go Democratic and which all happen to be relatively Big Labor states.

A shovel-ready union rally coming to a town near you

Well, well, well… Look who came to town a couple of days ago looking for work.

The national head of the AFL-CIO came to San Diego yesterday to push for more funding for federal jobs programs and to throw his support behind a City Hall effort to ensure that workers on government infrastructure projects be hired locally.

Richard Trumka, a former coal miner who was elected to head the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations in September, said that even though the economy appears to be recovering from the recession, the job market still looks “pretty grim” and will require more government action to help put people back to work.

“Local jobs are the key to everything,” he told a crowd of around 250 union activists at a rally at the south lawn adjoining the San Diego Convention Center. Most were wearing red T-shirts bearing the words “Local Jobs.”

Dear Big Labor, kiss our lily white suburban ass. Hundreds of union construction workers who are currently out of work could’ve been gainfully employed at this very moment if it wasn’t for your obstinacy.

Just over a year ago Gaylord Entertainment of Nashville, Tenn., finally threw in the towel and scrapped plans to build a $1 billion hotel-convention center complex on Chula Vista’s waterfront just south of San Diego. Gaylord, knowing that union wages would drive up the cost of the project tried to negotiate with the city and the unions a ratio of union/non-union jobs. Gaylord felt that the most equitable ratio was a 50/50 split. Big Labor told Gaylord no dice. It was all or nothing, take it or leave it. 100% union jobs or no deal.

As a result, 250 unemployed union workers turned out for a rally outside San Diego’s own convention center pleaing for more of your tax dollars to build stuff that may or may not be needed or wanted.

We’re wondering if the irony of the rally location was found on any of these people.

It is precisely because of situations like this (combined with our long memory) that we despise Big Labor.

We waited 7 years for that?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday revisited central goals that have eluded him his entire governorship as he proposed a new jobs program and warned of another painful budget year in his final State of the State address to the Legislature.

The governor also proposed a constitutional amendment that would require the state to spend more on higher education than it does on prisons every year.

Sigh.

Those were the big ideas of how Governor Schwarzenegger was going to get California back on its feet. A training program funded by god-knows-what because we are broke to the tune of $20 billion and growing and a bizarre constitutional amendment that would neither reduce crime nor necessarily improve the quality of higher education which is not even the level of education that needs the most help in this state.

Look, nothing is going to improve the situation in this state right now until we get the CALPERS pension situation under control. We’re blogging on the fly and don’t have any good numbers in front of us but when the state employees union set their current pension agreement with the state back at the height of the tech boom in 1999, they tied benefits to some truly outrageous stock market expectations for the decades to come. We are hamstrung by the defined benefits that the stock market has not been able to cover and this situation will get even worse as time goes on.

There are some other, smaller things we can do though, to help put a dent in labor’s influence in Sacramento. A ballot initiative is afoot to make it illegal to use taxpayer money, deducted from the paychecks of state employees, for political purposes.

Steve Poizner, who is running for governor, is backing the initiative. W.C. Varones describes Poizner thusly, “…a long-time undistinguished moderate politician running for governor as a born-again reformist-populist-conservative…” We couldn’t help but think that describes Schwarzenegger but in reverse.

Anyway, get ye over to W.C.’s place for details on that and another fine idea regarding our legislature. Hint: it works just fine in Texas.

P.S. And while we’re on the subject of ballots and elections, swing by K.T.’s joint, who has a few words on the upcoming special election in Massachusetts on Jan. 19th to find a replacement for Ted Kennedy’s vacated Senate seat.

Look for that union label... in places you'd least expect it.

We ran across the following item today from the Wall St. Journal courtesy Weasel Zippers regarding some highly dubious union organizing which involves the state withholding dues that are part of the subsidies paid to day-care centers.

Michelle Berry runs a private day-care service from her home on the outskirts of this city, the birthplace of General Motors. "The Berry Patch," as she calls the service, features overstuffed purple gorillas, giant cartoon murals, and a playroom covered in Astroturf. Her clients are mostly low-income parents who need child care to keep their jobs in a city that now has a 26% unemployment rate.

Ms. Berry owns her own business—yet the Michigan Department of Human Services claims she is a government employee and union member. The agency thus withholds union dues from the child-care subsidies it sends to her on behalf of her low-income clients. Those dues are funneled to a public-employee union that claims to represent her. The situation is crazy—and it's happening elsewhere in the country.

A year ago in December, Ms. Berry and more than 40,000 other home-based day care providers statewide were suddenly informed they were members of Child Care Providers Together Michigan—a union created in 2006 by the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The union had won a certification election conducted by mail under the auspices of the Michigan Employment Relations Commission. In that election only 6,000 day-care providers voted. The pro-labor vote turned out.

Hmmm.... That story had an air of familiarity about it. To the archives!

Sho’nuff, back on Labor Day we blogged about a situation in Illinois where similar dubious union orgainizing practices were taking place, and similarly, the target was at-home assistance for the developmentally disabled and where even if you did not choose to be part of the union, union dues would be withheld.

We loved the money quote from one Kathy Keith who has cared for her son who suffers from Down syndrome for the past 23 years.

"Are you saying I can go on strike and not wipe my son's rear end?" Keith said, questioning if union membership would pit her interests against her son's.

The case in Michigan is particularly galling because Berry is serving low-income parents and the withholding of dues will be passed right along to these folks.

According to the article, the scheme in Michigan is effectively throwing the unions a cash lifeline as these unions, particularly the UAW, are hemorrhaging members and thus money and power.

You will also be pleased to know that in both Illinois and Michigan the Purple People-Beaters of the SEIU are heavily-involved.
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When Germany faced the last depression, its government turned to a hand-in-glove partnership with corporations (including some American corporations, as has been shown in recent years) to solidify its power over its own people and to wage war on others.

Slight twist to the corporatist or fascist business model of above: this time we find the government forging a hand-in-glove partnership with the unions which could very well be considered corporations or Big Business in their own right.

P.S. Is it coincidence that the Big Government-Big Labor complex in both Michigan and Illinois are targeting stay-at-home women who lack the experience, time and resources to organize themselves against this forced “organization”? Don’t think that BG-BL thinks these folks are easy marks?

There's someone at the door who would like to see you...

...and would like to know what you are doing in there.

Entrance question: So, what exactly would a strike entail?

Since it’s Labor Day, it’s a good opportunity to see what Big Labor is up to these days.

Kathy Keith has cared for a son with Down syndrome for 23 years and never dreamed that one day organized labor would consider her a prime candidate for a union card.

So she was skeptical when representatives from two of the nation's largest unions began competing for her attention over the last few weeks with unannounced visits to her home, mailings and phone messages promising to fatten her state stipend.

The Bartlett resident is among about 3,000 people who receive state funding to assist someone at home with a developmental disability. As a result of an executive order signed by Gov. Pat Quinn in June that allows collective bargaining by "individual providers of home-based support services," unions are now trying to sign them up in an unusual effort to boost membership.

The move has left some care providers angry and confused. Many are mothers, fathers or close relatives who are caring for loved ones, advocates say.

"Are you saying I can go on strike and not wipe my son's rear end?" Keith said, questioning if union membership would pit her interests against her son's.

The two unions in question are the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and an outfit you may have heard of before, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as ballots will soon be sent out in the mail.

Caregivers who don’t vote or expressly reject representation by either will be given another choice to become members of either SEIU or AFSCME depending on the ballot count winner. And even then, if they still decline representation then, well, you might as well sign up because you will be charged a “fair share” dues anyway, according to union representation.

The article touches on it but doesn’t fully address why is it that two government employee unions are attempting to represent private citizens or the in-home help of those citizens. Merely accepting a government stipend makes one a govvy?

Unannounced visits to your house (how the unions got the addresses of these residents is something else that is not addressed in article). The specter of union regulations imposing on the care of your loved one. The privilege of paying union dues to a union you do not even belong to… what’s not to like about all this?

So, for their never-ending quest to swell the ranks of their membership by means no matter how unseemly or questionable and for motives that remain unclear, on this Labor Day of 2009, we salute you, Big Labor!

H/T: Secular Apostate

You just don't know what's good for you, now do ya?

For many years, the United States has been a leading proponent of freedom world wide, emphasizing that unions should be allowed secret ballots around the world. But for some reason that's not good enough for our home grown Stalinist wanna-bes like Harkin.

More brilliant ideas keep churning out of Congress. B-Daddy has more on card check legislation stumbling its way through Congress, here. Plus, a movie. It’s Friday! Yaaaaay!!!

Significant of Nothing

Contract requirements allowed a maximum completion time of 140 calendar days with a penalty for late completion of $205,000 per calendar day and an incentive of $200,000 per day for early completion. Contract time commenced on Saturday, the 5th of February, with materials and equipment moving to the jobsite that day and through the weekend. Even though the final construction plans were not available until February 26th, C.C. Myers, Inc. immediately went to work on a 24-hour-day, 7 days-per-week schedule with up to 400 workmen on the job, while maintaining a safety record that even surpassed C.C. Myers, Inc.'s AGC award-winning program.

That summarizes the Herculean task undertaken and achieved by the construction company C.C. Myers in opening the world’s busiest road, the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles that had been destroyed by the Northridge quake in 1994. Work was completed in 66 days…. 74 days ahead of schedule!

And the dirty little secret that no one ever wants to talk about is that this was accomplished, or rather expedited because then-Governor Pete Wilson relaxed the normal procurement and permitting regulations and waived environmental impact reports while implementing a bidding procedure and incentive system that tied potential profits to a successful on-time/ahead-of-time completion of the freeway.



In other news yesterday, Nancy Pelosi unveiled the House’s own version of the Great Stumble Sideways or This Old House (still haven’t settled on one yet) and not to be outdone by Obama, it comes with a price tag of $825 billion, a cool 50 bil over Obama’s projected stimulus plan cost.

We bring up the former as an example of quick, hard-hitting and smart decision-making and management practices as a juxtaposition to the opposite that this stimulus plan will be.

Is it really possible that a Congressionally-conceived and administered jobs program will waive environmental impact reports? Can you imagine Democrats signing off on relaxing overtime restrictions above union objection or establishing work-arounds for long and laborious open-bidding processes?

As President-elect Obama is soon to find out, there are a few specific reasons why nothing ever actually gets built here in California anymore and with Big Labor and Big Green both wanting to take responsibility for Democratic gains over the last couple of years, there are a few constituencies that will be looking for a little payback.

Then again, when actually building something is not really the end but rather the means to a 2, 3, 4 million man and woman jobs program, work for work's sake if you will, who the hell cares?