4 ms·

>Also, government operated facilities do not have a profit motive, Great, so the shit-show we have now, except without any incentive to efficiently spend. Sur

>Also, government operated facilities do not have a profit motive, Great, so the shit-show we have now, except without any incentive to efficiently spend. Sure that will go over swimmingly. Everyone knows that government construction projects are known for coming on-time and on-budget, and for the best value.

turtledove 4y ago
Seattle just built a major light rail expansion ahead of schedule and under budget. But I specifically believe in building more, smaller units. Places with eg 20 apartments. By building smaller scoped projects, costs are better understood up front, maintenance costs are lower, and you need less specialized construction expertise. Building 50 20-unit complexes to house a thousand families is going to serve everyone better than building one mega project to house a thousand families.
- notch656a 4y ago
  This light rail [0]? [0] "Light-rail cost soars $1 billion" https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20001213&slug=TTGI2KF2J https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20001213&slug... -------- Edit: here's another one "Sound Transit’s light-rail system, called Link, has also had its share of challenges. The 25 miles of light rail that voters were told would be completed by 2006 at a cost of $1.7 billion, have resulted in 23 miles of track which, when completed, will end up costing $5.2 billion." "The $2.6 billion spent so far on the starter light-rail line takes the rider from Westlake Station downtown to an airport station 0.4 mile from the terminal in 37 minutes. " https://seattlebusinessmag.com/article/why-sound-transits-projects-are-so-costly#:~:text=The%2025%20miles%20of%20light,end%20up%20costing%20%245.2%20billion https://seattlebusinessmag.com/article/why-sound-transits-pr....
  - turtledove 4y ago
    Sort of? That's a very old article. The project was voted on as a $1.6B project, and was approved. It came in almost two hundred million under budget in 2016. This is the project I'm describing: https://mynorthwest.com/24890/university-link-light-rail-to-open-early-under-budget/ https://mynorthwest.com/24890/university-link-light-rail-to-...
- carom 4y ago
  There are floor area ratios (FAR) now that prevent small units. I have a 6500 sqft lot. I can build 14 units. I have a FAR of 3, so 19500 sqft / 14 units is 1390 sqft per. Zoning is your problem, not who is building. Developers and landlords are working in the insanity that are municipal governments. Do you understand why we write people off when they say they want more of their involvement? Loosen zoning and I'll take advantage of it. We don't need to pay some bureaucrat who has no incentive to do their job efficiently to sit in the middle of this. Zoning office budgets should be tied to number of permits approved or units built. Right now they get the same money for being impediments. Oh, I almost forgot, I also need to have 14+ parking spaces if I build out fully. Again, zoning problem. Developers don't just love parking lots.
v-erne 4y ago
Its not like private sector is free from overspending and funds misallocation - most of money that flows in there is still controller by the jerks on top that are stroking their ego by investing in buzzwords. The invisible hand of market is myth as much as santa is.
- cudgy 4y ago
  The US market is far from the invisible hand. There is a massive hand with a club attached called the Federal Reserve, which has artificially held down interest rates resulting in a major manipulation of the housing market. Additionally, there are numerous governmental restrictions on minimum square footage, sometimes onerous building codes, impact fees, and zoning restrictions to name a few.
  - v-erne 4y ago
    No true scotsman, ay? Yes, there are many artificial constructs that prevent true free market, but I still do not believe that capital accumulation by capital overs is not an property of this idealistic system. Do You have any real example of invisible hand working (by which I mean not ending with the top dogs holding all the bones) ?
    - notch656a 4y ago
      You acknowledge the imperfection of the private sector, including wasteful spending. Now imagine that except with the power to waste even more money by sending an IRS agent to take your money at gunpoint and without being constrained by (at least if 'turtledove' word to be take) a ' profit motive'.
      - v-erne 4y ago
        Profit motive is so primitive and so one dimensional constrained and yet it somehow mesmerized so many thinkers that we build build "golden idols" in praise of it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_Bull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_Bull). I do not believe that this is it - there have to be other better constrains combinations. It just that there is so much vested interest in current system that no one will dare to contest it enough to really try something different.
mellavora 4y ago
Ah, the classic "private enterprise is better than government" argument! Private enterprise is good at projects where the project owner can (directly) capture the majority of the value created and is responsible for the majority of the costs involved in that creation. The mis-alignment is that this creates strong incentive to shift the costs outside the organization. Government is better at projects where the majority of value created is diffused across a large share of the population and/or over a long time frame. They do have a strong incentive to keep costs down, because costs are paid by taxes and taxes are unpopular and lead to revolution. This is simple economics. There are numerous examples of government projects which may or may not have been under budget, but which created 10x or 100x or 1000x returns. Things like "public roads", "internet", "education" spring to mind.
- notch656a 4y ago
  >Government is better at projects where the majority of value created is diffused across a large share of the population and/or over a long time frame. They do have a strong incentive to keep costs down, because costs are paid by taxes and taxes are unpopular and lead to revolution. >This is simple economics. I'm sorry, but simple economics from where? By what authority is that some immutable 'simple economics?' I reject your thesis. Regarding 'costs' being 'taxes' and them going 'down', I invite you to study the change in federal taxes as a proportion of GDP in the past say 130 years. >There are numerous examples of government projects which may or may not have been under budget, but which created 10x or 100x or 1000x returns. Things like "public roads", "internet", "education" spring to mind. Yes now think about how much better return, and many other projects may have emerged, had the government not sucked that money out of the economy. "Muh roads" sounds nice but you can privately build a road without taking money at gunpoint from peoeple, and also get good returns. If I take $20 from you and buy you a $1 pen, I don't get to brag that because I bought you the pen you wrote a multimillion dollar book (even then it is true in some perverted sense the pen [road] had 1000x+ returns).

turtledove 4y ago

Seattle just built a major light rail expansion ahead of schedule and under budget. But I specifically believe in building more, smaller units. Places with eg 20 apartments. By building smaller scoped projects, costs are better understood up front, maintenance costs are lower, and you need less specialized construction expertise. Building 50 20-unit complexes to house a thousand families is going to serve everyone better than building one mega project to house a thousand families.

notch656a 4y ago
This light rail [0]? [0] "Light-rail cost soars $1 billion" https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20001213&slug=TTGI2KF2J https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20001213&slug... -------- Edit: here's another one "Sound Transit’s light-rail system, called Link, has also had its share of challenges. The 25 miles of light rail that voters were told would be completed by 2006 at a cost of $1.7 billion, have resulted in 23 miles of track which, when completed, will end up costing $5.2 billion." "The $2.6 billion spent so far on the starter light-rail line takes the rider from Westlake Station downtown to an airport station 0.4 mile from the terminal in 37 minutes. " https://seattlebusinessmag.com/article/why-sound-transits-projects-are-so-costly#:~:text=The%2025%20miles%20of%20light,end%20up%20costing%20%245.2%20billion https://seattlebusinessmag.com/article/why-sound-transits-pr....
- turtledove 4y ago
  Sort of? That's a very old article. The project was voted on as a $1.6B project, and was approved. It came in almost two hundred million under budget in 2016. This is the project I'm describing: https://mynorthwest.com/24890/university-link-light-rail-to-open-early-under-budget/ https://mynorthwest.com/24890/university-link-light-rail-to-...
carom 4y ago
There are floor area ratios (FAR) now that prevent small units. I have a 6500 sqft lot. I can build 14 units. I have a FAR of 3, so 19500 sqft / 14 units is 1390 sqft per. Zoning is your problem, not who is building. Developers and landlords are working in the insanity that are municipal governments. Do you understand why we write people off when they say they want more of their involvement? Loosen zoning and I'll take advantage of it. We don't need to pay some bureaucrat who has no incentive to do their job efficiently to sit in the middle of this. Zoning office budgets should be tied to number of permits approved or units built. Right now they get the same money for being impediments. Oh, I almost forgot, I also need to have 14+ parking spaces if I build out fully. Again, zoning problem. Developers don't just love parking lots.

v-erne 4y ago

Its not like private sector is free from overspending and funds misallocation - most of money that flows in there is still controller by the jerks on top that are stroking their ego by investing in buzzwords. The invisible hand of market is myth as much as santa is.

cudgy 4y ago
The US market is far from the invisible hand. There is a massive hand with a club attached called the Federal Reserve, which has artificially held down interest rates resulting in a major manipulation of the housing market. Additionally, there are numerous governmental restrictions on minimum square footage, sometimes onerous building codes, impact fees, and zoning restrictions to name a few.
- v-erne 4y ago
  No true scotsman, ay? Yes, there are many artificial constructs that prevent true free market, but I still do not believe that capital accumulation by capital overs is not an property of this idealistic system. Do You have any real example of invisible hand working (by which I mean not ending with the top dogs holding all the bones) ?
  - notch656a 4y ago
    You acknowledge the imperfection of the private sector, including wasteful spending. Now imagine that except with the power to waste even more money by sending an IRS agent to take your money at gunpoint and without being constrained by (at least if 'turtledove' word to be take) a ' profit motive'.
    - v-erne 4y ago
      Profit motive is so primitive and so one dimensional constrained and yet it somehow mesmerized so many thinkers that we build build "golden idols" in praise of it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_Bull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_Bull). I do not believe that this is it - there have to be other better constrains combinations. It just that there is so much vested interest in current system that no one will dare to contest it enough to really try something different.

mellavora 4y ago

Ah, the classic "private enterprise is better than government" argument! Private enterprise is good at projects where the project owner can (directly) capture the majority of the value created and is responsible for the majority of the costs involved in that creation. The mis-alignment is that this creates strong incentive to shift the costs outside the organization. Government is better at projects where the majority of value created is diffused across a large share of the population and/or over a long time frame. They do have a strong incentive to keep costs down, because costs are paid by taxes and taxes are unpopular and lead to revolution. This is simple economics. There are numerous examples of government projects which may or may not have been under budget, but which created 10x or 100x or 1000x returns. Things like "public roads", "internet", "education" spring to mind.

notch656a 4y ago
>Government is better at projects where the majority of value created is diffused across a large share of the population and/or over a long time frame. They do have a strong incentive to keep costs down, because costs are paid by taxes and taxes are unpopular and lead to revolution. >This is simple economics. I'm sorry, but simple economics from where? By what authority is that some immutable 'simple economics?' I reject your thesis. Regarding 'costs' being 'taxes' and them going 'down', I invite you to study the change in federal taxes as a proportion of GDP in the past say 130 years. >There are numerous examples of government projects which may or may not have been under budget, but which created 10x or 100x or 1000x returns. Things like "public roads", "internet", "education" spring to mind. Yes now think about how much better return, and many other projects may have emerged, had the government not sucked that money out of the economy. "Muh roads" sounds nice but you can privately build a road without taking money at gunpoint from peoeple, and also get good returns. If I take $20 from you and buy you a $1 pen, I don't get to brag that because I bought you the pen you wrote a multimillion dollar book (even then it is true in some perverted sense the pen [road] had 1000x+ returns).