Because they can

I never took the Stanford Marshmallow test but presume that I am patient.  The current issue of The Economist notes that transportation in Los Angeles ought to involve more buses and less rail transit -- and also congestion pricing on the freeways. Finally.

Tom Rubin sent this:




It is hard to fathom the bizarreness of the situation but the graphic helps. While $20-$25 billion have been spent on rail transit in LA county since the mid-1980s, transit use is down -- while the area's population is up by over 1 million (many of them low-income immigrants). It boggles and it would be hard to engineer a worse outcome but our social engineers are at work.

It's about anti-car greenness and all of the silliness that the romantics conjure -- while in bed with those on the receiving end of all the billions.  Drive down LA's Wilshire Blvd right now and observe subway work in progress. Bootleggers and Baptists having a party.

Beyond LA, politicians from both U.S. parties borrow and spend because they can. There are no bond market signals that the world is tiring of ever more U.S. debt. Pres Trump just sent Congress a budget proposal. The only contest will be over who gets the most pork.

Arnold Kling recently posted that there are 13 countries in the world with populations over 100 million. He mentions that all except the U.S. and Japan are "very authoritarian, incompetent, or both."
Both of these countries' treasuries are heavily in debt. What Americans can hope for is to remain the tallest pygmy.

Be careful out there

Watching last night's State of the Union was not easy. With cameras on and the nation watching, preening and pandering were on full display.  That's our democracy (our politics). Some of the post-event talking heads, who were obliged to say something cited perennial stats about the low esteem/low approval that the public accords to "Congress."  But that's a silly view in light of the fact that these guys get re-elected at astoundingly high rates, mostly in the 90-percent range, always over 80-percent, year after year.

It's simple to reconcile the two points. People's view of Congress is almost irrelevant.  But people tend to like "their guy". Or he/she becomes their guy by "bringing home the bacon". After all, incumbents have to make it their business to know their constituents and also what buttons to push. It's a simple point. Consider the players, not the categories.

On a similar theme, a favorite political topic is "worsening" income inequality. But the bulk of the arguments made compare snapshots of different groups over time, not the progress of real people over time. Even better, what is inter- generational mobility? What are the odds that someone born at the bottom can move to the top? Where and when?

Data are great but a some judgment is always essential. Big Data alone cannot do the job.

ADDED

Here is a brief post about the anomaly of people who trust their government less but want it to do more.