Sunday, April 12, 2009

KRM BS

Racine Mayor Tom Friedel has made the preposterous claim that KRM will "connect our residents with the nearly one million jobs that currently exist within one mile of the proposed KRM stations."

Here is the problem. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (via Milwaukee 7 web site) there were only 640,000 jobs in all of Racine, Kenosha and Milwaukee counties in 2007.

To KRM supporters: Does the end, a train, justify the means, lying?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

But that 1,000,000 includes hundreds of thousands of unfilled jobs in Illinois that, quite mysteriously, none of the many unemployed in Illinois want.

colt said...

and will not hire you if you drive to apply in a car.
Heard the same BS at the Insider's meeting on KRM people are such fools

smallgovsam said...

Such is the sophistry of elected officials and Keynesian economists that their grandiose plans will "create jobs." What the Fabian intelligista fail to take into account is the OPPORTUNITY COST of the undertaking. What other uses could the capital have other than a rail transport?

Exempli gratia, if our omniscient politicians decide to reconstruct Khufu's Great Pyramid in Gary, Indiana, resources and labor would have to be diverted from other, more productive ventures into building the geometric monument. Capital doesn't come from nowhere.

The same principle applies for baseball stadiums, parks, and trains. A dollar used for the public work CAN'T be used for purchasing a soda, healthcare, or a computer. (I recently had to set my geography teacher straight when he said stadiums are "good" for the economy.)

Denis Navratil said...

According to Friedel, we have a rare opportunity to create 70,000 jobs by creating a unelected taxing authority that will then build KRM. I can't help but wonder what is rare about this opportunity. If a train from Kenosha to Milwaukee will result in an over 10% increase in jobs in the KRM area, then certainly we should crisscross our region with trains and increase jobs by 40% or 80% or heck, why stop there, 200%. C'mon naysayers, all aboard!

Anonymous said...

Let's say I have one acre of land that I estimate will produce three bushells of corn. With the addition of twenty pounds of fertilizer it might produce four bushels of corn. Add irrigation, maybe that number goes to six bushels. Now add a government or other “expert” – add forty pounds of fertilizer and irrigation and you’ll get eight bushels of corn – but if you can get lots of tax money to pay for it, add five hundred million pounds of fertilizer and irrigation to that one acre of land and you’d get several million bushels of corn! What say you naysayers???

Downtowner said...

In 20 years when Tom Friedel wants to run for Mayor after, Jody Harding saves Racine from it's passion to tax itself to death. Jody will make Racine a Low tax "Island" on the Lake Michigan Shore. As businesses decide to make Racine their home and those "Millions" of people are climbing over each other to be low taxed citizens and businesses, we can decide if we need a Train then!!

Of course by then Chicago will build the METRA to us and we won't have to pay for it at all!