[PRCo] Re: Europe ....

[Schneider Fred]

It's the American way ... if you could only trace the flow of cash  
from the oil companies and auto manufacturers and concrete companies  
to their lobbyists to the political campaign funds and gifts to  
politicians you would understand.   I once discovered, laying out in  
plain view in the stacks in the state library in Harrisburg, where  
someone had abandoned it, a directory of lobbyists.   It was as large  
as the Centre County telephone directory.   Now, mind you, except for  
being the home of Penn State University, Centre County doesn't have a  
whole lot going for it.    Wikipedia says the population is 135,000  
and that includes a very large institutional population that doesn't  
have phones, i.e. the students at Penn State University and a huge  
state penitentiary.   There might only be 20,000 wired (as opposed to  
cellular) phones in the county.   That phone book is about 5/16ths of  
an inch thick.

The U. S. population is 25 times larger than the Pennsylvania  
population.   Guess who wins in Washington.   You or the lobbyists.

Remember when this country was founded that we had a naive idea that  
our president and senators and representatives would tend their farms  
and go to Washington periodically to conduct the national affairs ...  
they would have two jobs but their primary focus would still be their  
farms back home.   Jefferson still had to make money at Monticello.    
Washington still had to make sure the slaves worked at Mount  
Vernon.   However, both John Adams and John Quincy Adams, his son,  
were political animals.   We learned very early that our national and  
state leaders couldn't extract a large enough "pound of flesh" from  
us if they were only working part-time.


On Oct 15, 2008, at 11:58 PM, Ken and Tracie wrote:

> Before they started to spike in price. We watched our house jump  
> from around
> $250,000 to $279,000 to $430,000, then down to $340,000 and who  
> knows what
> it is now.
>
> I don't care as I have no intentions to borrow against equity or  
> selling it.
> We may lose it anyway, if the county decides to replaced the street  
> to the
> north of our subdivision with an expressway and widen the street to  
> the
> south of the subdivision into an eight lane "super arterial."
>
> This town hasn't figured out that the more freeways and wide  
> streets they
> build, the more people use those streets and you still have gridlock.
>
> Every viable light rail or commuter rail proposal we have gets killed
> (probably on purpose) when politicians insist on altering the  
> routes from
> where people need to go.
>
> K.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Schneider Fred" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 8:28 PM
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Europe ....
>
>
>> And before they started back down again?
>>
>>
>> On Oct 15, 2008, at 10:50 PM, Ken and Tracie wrote:
>>
>>> If  I didn't owe on this house or have a daughter possibly starting
>>> college
>>> in four years, I would have told that hospital I work for to "shove
>>> it"
>>> years ago.
>>>
>>> Fortunately, we closed on this fixer-upper before housing prices  
>>> went
>>> through the roof.
>>>
>>> K.
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Schneider Fred" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>>> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 7:23 PM
>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Europe ....
>>>
>>>
>>>> Owes is correct.
>>>>
>>>> I suspect the entire list is below average because we are all  
>>>> old men
>>>> except for Derrick.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>