September 16, 2009, 1:19 pm
Kevin Drum links this:
The city of Palmdale is running out of water, and as a result prices are going up. Way up:
"My bill went from $12.80 to $185," [Tracey] Summerford, a Neighborhood Watch captain, told the water board.
"My water bill went from $139 to $468," Sanchez said at that meeting. Since then Sanchez received another monthly bill, one for $324. Together that meant she owed the water district $792, plus a prior balance that brought her total to $924. "That's my two car payments," said Sanchez, who moved into her home in November....I feel discouraged. I feel like we should have stayed in Santa Clarita and lived in our apartment."
I wrote in the comments:
This is really good news. For years California has claimed to have water shortages, but municipal water prices never reflected that shortage. Politicians would prefer to use command and control allocation and rationing powers than just let price do its work.
It is really good to see some California communities price water in line with its scarcity. Under-pricing water has always provided an implicit subsidy for building and farming in certain areas. I wish all California water would be priced on the basis of supply/demand clearing rather than political patronage.
By the way, the author later calls Santa Clarita "the city." That is pretty hilarious to anyone who has been there. Santa Clarita sure looks like the burbs every time I have been there.
September 8, 2008, 8:54 am
A few weeks ago I was amazed at the story of the city of Chicago spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build the terminal rail station of a rail line that had no plan, no route, no approval, and no money. Why spend hundreds of millions on a station that could well be orphaned? The reason, I supposed, was to make a toe in the water investment where the public could later be shamed into voting more funds for building a rail line to actually connect to their fabulous new station.
It appears that California may be doing the same thing. This November, voters in that state will have the chance to approve a $9.95 billion rail bond issue. $9 billion of this is earmarked for building a high-speed rail line from Anaheim to San Francisco. But current estimates for this line's cost, which are always way too low, are for $30 billion. Who in their right mind would proceed with a $30 billion (or likely more) project when only $9 billion of funding has been obtained? Only scam artists, Ponzi schemes.... and the government.
Update: Wow! Boy, I must be dumb or something. The website supporting this bond issue says that this project will create 450,000 permanent new jobs. How can anyone oppose that? This is really amazing, since the entire US railroad industry currently employs 224,000 people, but this one rail line will create 450,000 jobs!
Update #2: I like to make predictions about government rail projects, so here is mine for this one: I don't know what end they are starting with, but if they start from the south, I will bet that $9 billion does not even get them out of the LA area (say past Santa Clarita or Santa Barbara), much less anywhere close to San Francisco.
