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In the U.S, public transportation has the same problem as healthcare. That problem is that spending more money on it won't make it better since the costs are a

In the U.S, public transportation has the same problem as healthcare. That problem is that spending more money on it won't make it better since the costs are already many times higher than any other country. However, there is always a demand that to get better public transportation and healthcare we must continue to raise taxes. Finding out what is so expensive and fixing that never occurs to anybody, probably because it's some well connected person's cash cow.

BurningFrog 9y ago
> Finding out what is so expensive and fixing that never occurs to anybody It occurs to a lot of people. We're just completely powerless.
- windlep 9y ago
  Not only that does it occur, but it also occurs that the same people messing it up have bought off both sides. So it's not like voting for Dems or Republicans will magically make it cheaper. They'll just change who pays the insane prices, if that.
  - ringaroundthetx 9y ago
    Yeah my frightened brethren in coastal US cities dont get it, the political party is a sideshow: play by a more effective set of rules If you DONT have a state-sanctioned racket I’m like “Do you even America bruh?”
  - imbur 9y ago
    Are there any examples of states or countries that handle this the right way? Can this be applied to NYC?
    - oblio 9y ago
      Most European countries have a multi-party system, usually due to not using first past the post voting systems. As a result you have more parties, more diversity of choice and less polarization and of course more competition. Parties can actually go away and they do, usually every few decades. The downside is that you can get deadlocks as no party can get a majority sometimes, even after making coalitions with smaller parties. Still better end result than the US end result, in my opinion.
      - walshemj 9y ago
        You also get small parties extorting billions in pork for their support or pet project in the UK the DUP and Libdems in the previous coalition did this and likewise the greens in Germany.
        TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
        The DUP and LibDems are examples of FPTP distortions in the UK. The “extortion’ by the Greens doesn’t seem to have damaged Germany unduly, except by forcing it down the path to so-cheap-it’s-almost-free renewable energy.
        Paradigma11 9y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany "According to Forbes, the IEA reports that in 2015, German prices were 17.9 cents per kwh for industry, and 39.5 cents per kwh for residential customers, versus 7 and 12.5 cents respectively in the U.S."
        oblio 9y ago
        In what measure is that a result of bad policy and or a result of a desire to promote thriftiness? After all gas in the US is cheap and in Europe it's expensive and I think a major part of the price are excises meant to discourage consumpation. As a side note, the EU is also pushing heavily energy efficiency for homes, this might be related.
        walshemj 9y ago
        Given that was the direct result of a panic over tsunami's in japan and guess what Germany doesn't have much of a coast line. The early mothballing of Germanys nuclear reactor which where being phased out is the direct cause of the increase.
        9y ago
    - chimeracoder 9y ago
      > Are there any examples of states or countries that handle this the right way? Can this be applied to NYC? New York State is the source of the problem, not New York City (although the city government is affected by these as well). The problem is that the two political parties have passed a series of laws that empowers the party leadership and ensures that voters have essentially zero influence in the so-called democratic process. Party leadership, not voters, is able to nominate the candidates that they want to represent the party in each race[0]. The parties have a gentleman's agreement not to compete with each other in the other party's claimed districts[1], so the general election is almost always uncontested. Due to fusion voting, third parties are pressured to endorse first-party candidates in order to maintain ballot access, so you'll almost always see the same candidate running (oftentimes uncontested) on multiple party lines. The only "choice" you have is in choosing which party to use to vote for the all-but-guaranteed victorious candidate. Party registration is fixed as well, so it's impossible to switch between parties in order to influence party direction. The deadline to change parties for the 2018 cycle passed in October. If you submitted a change of registration on October 13, 2017, it won't' take effect until 2019. Yes, you read that right. And the party leadership is controlled by a series of local clubs (yes, they literally call them clubs). For example, the dominant party in my district is the Democratic party, and my local Democratic club is run by the son and daughter of the last Irish mob boss in Manhattan[2]. The son, incidentally, openly jokes about how similar the system is to Tammany Hall when violating election laws[3]. If I wanted to have any influence in local politics, I'd have to influence the Democratic party, and if I wanted to influence the Democratic party, I'd have to pay the steep membership fees to join this club, and then hope that this dynastic family listened to what I have to say. Any initiatives to change this have to go through the New York State legislature, and any bills have to be approved by the top three ranking members of the government, who are coincidentally the most powerful members of the two parties[4]. Unsurprisingly, they have little incentive to reduce their own power. Unlike other states, New York doesn't have a ballot initiative process, so we can't bypass the legislature. Any statewide ballot initiatives have to be first approved by the legislature. [0] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/nyregion/new-york-politics-party-bosses.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/nyregion/new-york-poli... [1] Think of the way Comcast and Time Warner Cable (Spectrum) don't compete with each other. [2] You can't make this up [3] You really can't make this up: https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/mcmanus-member-of-manhattan-political-royalty-celebrates-a-birthday/ https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/mcmanus-member... [4] This is known as "three men in a room" https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/nyregion/us-attorney-preet-bharara-criticizes-albanys-three-men-in-a-room-culture.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/nyregion/us-attorney-pree...
exikyut 9y ago
Regarding healthcare, the problem is that, regardless of how that industry got to the point it's at right now, it's in the state it's in, and doing anything to jeopardize that would destructure a lot of things.
- knowaveragejoe 9y ago
  I think this nicely encapsulates the problem faced in a lot of facets of society. I'm not sure how to address it other than to raise awareness, but that has its own potential to backfire unpredictably.
  - pishpash 9y ago
    It takes leadership of a kind we don't have any more. The electoral process has been hacked and it's not really fixable without some larger dislocations happening first.
- BurningFrog 9y ago
  There are things that could be done to make US healthcare a lot healthier economically. They are all politically impossible to get through our political system. One important thing to understand is that the billions and trillions that are wasted are income and livelihoods for millions of people, and they have huge political power.
Spooky23 9y ago
We need to have a meaningfully competitive electoral system. I live in New York, although not in NYC. I call elections “affirmations”, as there are never meaningfully contested general elections, and probably a meaningfully contested primary about 1/3 of the time. All of the bigger offices (mayor, county exec, Congress) attract enough money that the incumbent can find an African American or other bloc voter candidate to run on a third party line and split the opposition vote. State legislative offices are only involuntarily vacated by death or felony conviction. It’s difficult to envision a brighter future as the national GOP platform is so poisonous.
- azernik 9y ago
  This is why I'm so happy about the California top-two primaries - they've created competitive elections in a dominant-party state. But they were only created through a ballot initiative over the objections of the legislature.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    Political parties will always resist the disempowering of the party, and things like runoffs, preferential and range voting, etc. gives more choice to the voter and fragments parties. It fragments them because the voter isn't punished as often for taking a chance on what are otherwise considered fringe candidates. The U.S. is one of the older representative democracies now with the oldest written constitution, which is also difficult to change. Making elections more modern, fair, and actually representative will take a lot of effort by citizens. If SCOTUS finds in favor of existing extreme gerrymandering practices in the Gill v Whitford case, it will be necessary for citizens to actively crack the grip of the two incumbent political parties, or accept generation long single party rule disconnected from representation of the citizenry. Gill v Whitford is the easier path, but modern elections still need to be a goal: city, state and federal. It will take time.
    - nshelly 9y ago
      And House rules give the top positions based on seniority, so states are incentivized to gerrymander to protect their senior representatives. We need to change Congressional rules in that regard as well. Due to top-two, California lost a 40-year incumbent in Fremont who was fifth in seniority in the 435-member House. Sometimes California takes it on the chin with its referendum when doing things that are against its current best interests but provide a useful experiment and forcing function.
TulliusCicero 9y ago
Well, one of the issues is that it'd probably take bipartisan effort to fix the cost problem in transit, but one party wants to "fix the problem" by just cutting it entirely.

BurningFrog 9y ago

> Finding out what is so expensive and fixing that never occurs to anybody It occurs to a lot of people. We're just completely powerless.

windlep 9y ago
Not only that does it occur, but it also occurs that the same people messing it up have bought off both sides. So it's not like voting for Dems or Republicans will magically make it cheaper. They'll just change who pays the insane prices, if that.
- ringaroundthetx 9y ago
  Yeah my frightened brethren in coastal US cities dont get it, the political party is a sideshow: play by a more effective set of rules If you DONT have a state-sanctioned racket I’m like “Do you even America bruh?”
- imbur 9y ago
  Are there any examples of states or countries that handle this the right way? Can this be applied to NYC?
  - oblio 9y ago
    Most European countries have a multi-party system, usually due to not using first past the post voting systems. As a result you have more parties, more diversity of choice and less polarization and of course more competition. Parties can actually go away and they do, usually every few decades. The downside is that you can get deadlocks as no party can get a majority sometimes, even after making coalitions with smaller parties. Still better end result than the US end result, in my opinion.
    - walshemj 9y ago
      You also get small parties extorting billions in pork for their support or pet project in the UK the DUP and Libdems in the previous coalition did this and likewise the greens in Germany.
      - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
        The DUP and LibDems are examples of FPTP distortions in the UK. The “extortion’ by the Greens doesn’t seem to have damaged Germany unduly, except by forcing it down the path to so-cheap-it’s-almost-free renewable energy.
        Paradigma11 9y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany "According to Forbes, the IEA reports that in 2015, German prices were 17.9 cents per kwh for industry, and 39.5 cents per kwh for residential customers, versus 7 and 12.5 cents respectively in the U.S."
        oblio 9y ago
        In what measure is that a result of bad policy and or a result of a desire to promote thriftiness? After all gas in the US is cheap and in Europe it's expensive and I think a major part of the price are excises meant to discourage consumpation. As a side note, the EU is also pushing heavily energy efficiency for homes, this might be related.
        walshemj 9y ago
        Given that was the direct result of a panic over tsunami's in japan and guess what Germany doesn't have much of a coast line. The early mothballing of Germanys nuclear reactor which where being phased out is the direct cause of the increase.
        9y ago
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > Are there any examples of states or countries that handle this the right way? Can this be applied to NYC? New York State is the source of the problem, not New York City (although the city government is affected by these as well). The problem is that the two political parties have passed a series of laws that empowers the party leadership and ensures that voters have essentially zero influence in the so-called democratic process. Party leadership, not voters, is able to nominate the candidates that they want to represent the party in each race[0]. The parties have a gentleman's agreement not to compete with each other in the other party's claimed districts[1], so the general election is almost always uncontested. Due to fusion voting, third parties are pressured to endorse first-party candidates in order to maintain ballot access, so you'll almost always see the same candidate running (oftentimes uncontested) on multiple party lines. The only "choice" you have is in choosing which party to use to vote for the all-but-guaranteed victorious candidate. Party registration is fixed as well, so it's impossible to switch between parties in order to influence party direction. The deadline to change parties for the 2018 cycle passed in October. If you submitted a change of registration on October 13, 2017, it won't' take effect until 2019. Yes, you read that right. And the party leadership is controlled by a series of local clubs (yes, they literally call them clubs). For example, the dominant party in my district is the Democratic party, and my local Democratic club is run by the son and daughter of the last Irish mob boss in Manhattan[2]. The son, incidentally, openly jokes about how similar the system is to Tammany Hall when violating election laws[3]. If I wanted to have any influence in local politics, I'd have to influence the Democratic party, and if I wanted to influence the Democratic party, I'd have to pay the steep membership fees to join this club, and then hope that this dynastic family listened to what I have to say. Any initiatives to change this have to go through the New York State legislature, and any bills have to be approved by the top three ranking members of the government, who are coincidentally the most powerful members of the two parties[4]. Unsurprisingly, they have little incentive to reduce their own power. Unlike other states, New York doesn't have a ballot initiative process, so we can't bypass the legislature. Any statewide ballot initiatives have to be first approved by the legislature. [0] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/nyregion/new-york-politics-party-bosses.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/nyregion/new-york-poli... [1] Think of the way Comcast and Time Warner Cable (Spectrum) don't compete with each other. [2] You can't make this up [3] You really can't make this up: https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/mcmanus-member-of-manhattan-political-royalty-celebrates-a-birthday/ https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/mcmanus-member... [4] This is known as "three men in a room" https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/nyregion/us-attorney-preet-bharara-criticizes-albanys-three-men-in-a-room-culture.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/nyregion/us-attorney-pree...

exikyut 9y ago

Regarding healthcare, the problem is that, regardless of how that industry got to the point it's at right now, it's in the state it's in, and doing anything to jeopardize that would destructure a lot of things.

knowaveragejoe 9y ago
I think this nicely encapsulates the problem faced in a lot of facets of society. I'm not sure how to address it other than to raise awareness, but that has its own potential to backfire unpredictably.
- pishpash 9y ago
  It takes leadership of a kind we don't have any more. The electoral process has been hacked and it's not really fixable without some larger dislocations happening first.
BurningFrog 9y ago
There are things that could be done to make US healthcare a lot healthier economically. They are all politically impossible to get through our political system. One important thing to understand is that the billions and trillions that are wasted are income and livelihoods for millions of people, and they have huge political power.

Spooky23 9y ago

We need to have a meaningfully competitive electoral system. I live in New York, although not in NYC. I call elections “affirmations”, as there are never meaningfully contested general elections, and probably a meaningfully contested primary about 1/3 of the time. All of the bigger offices (mayor, county exec, Congress) attract enough money that the incumbent can find an African American or other bloc voter candidate to run on a third party line and split the opposition vote. State legislative offices are only involuntarily vacated by death or felony conviction. It’s difficult to envision a brighter future as the national GOP platform is so poisonous.

azernik 9y ago
This is why I'm so happy about the California top-two primaries - they've created competitive elections in a dominant-party state. But they were only created through a ballot initiative over the objections of the legislature.
- cmurf 9y ago
  Political parties will always resist the disempowering of the party, and things like runoffs, preferential and range voting, etc. gives more choice to the voter and fragments parties. It fragments them because the voter isn't punished as often for taking a chance on what are otherwise considered fringe candidates. The U.S. is one of the older representative democracies now with the oldest written constitution, which is also difficult to change. Making elections more modern, fair, and actually representative will take a lot of effort by citizens. If SCOTUS finds in favor of existing extreme gerrymandering practices in the Gill v Whitford case, it will be necessary for citizens to actively crack the grip of the two incumbent political parties, or accept generation long single party rule disconnected from representation of the citizenry. Gill v Whitford is the easier path, but modern elections still need to be a goal: city, state and federal. It will take time.
  - nshelly 9y ago
    And House rules give the top positions based on seniority, so states are incentivized to gerrymander to protect their senior representatives. We need to change Congressional rules in that regard as well. Due to top-two, California lost a 40-year incumbent in Fremont who was fifth in seniority in the 435-member House. Sometimes California takes it on the chin with its referendum when doing things that are against its current best interests but provide a useful experiment and forcing function.

TulliusCicero 9y ago

Well, one of the issues is that it'd probably take bipartisan effort to fix the cost problem in transit, but one party wants to "fix the problem" by just cutting it entirely.