Bob Hayes Online

First off, Happy New Year.

Second off, WTF? This ad is on the top of the Drudge Report as of this writing. God knows where else it’s been placed.

In no particular order:

1) You’re not welcome. Give me my tax money back, you corporate whores.

2) You didn’t have any money, so you begged for the taxpayers to bail you out, and they did (against the popular will), and the first thing you do is spend a bunch of money on an ad THANKING THEM? You know, my folks gave us some money to help us buy our house (thanks!) - I’m pretty sure that if we’d taken a couple grand of that money to put up a billboard in our town saying “Thank You!”, that they would have been pissed off. Because they gave us the money for a house, not for PR stunts. Chrysler’s money, ditto.

3) With public relations and economics skills like these, no wonder your company is in the toilet. It deserves to be in the toilet. Fail now, and get out of the way.

(Sorry, Joanne. But you know I still love ya.)

Imagine a network of rail/bus/street/streetcar/parking nexi, distributed over a metro or semi-metro area.

Each node in the network is connected to at least one other node, so that the network is completely routable; there might not be direct connections from every node to every other node, but there is at least one indirect path from each node to every other node.

To access the system, individual travelers (and possibly cargo shipments with handlers) access a node by whatever means they wish - parking their car there (for a fee), and registering at a computer kiosk similar to the ticket sales machines and booths common to current conventional mass transit systems. Each traveler indicates (on a computerized system) their intended destination, and their bid for the trip - i.e., how much they will pay for the trip. They could also signal mode preferences (I’d rather take a cab over the river than the train) or book future travel (I know I will want to get on the train back home every day around 5:15.) The transit authority would set the minimum prices and maximum prices, or might choose to allow free bidding. Passengers could also access the system from home or public computers with Internet access.

The owners and operators of the conveyances on the network - whether trains, buses, cars, streetcars, hovercraft, or what have you - act as independent contractors on the network. The transit authority will no doubt have a registration, screening, and inspection role to play in the supply- side access to the market. Each contractor will monitor, in real time, the expressed demand within the network and route their capacity accordingly; the real-time monitoring will permit conveyances to signal acceptance of conveyance terms to groups of people at a time and “snap up” those customers - first come first serve. Once a passenger accepts the terms (”a train will take you to the Napoleon Hill station and will arrive within four minutes; the fare is $2.00″), the kiosk charges their credit card or accepts cash and makes the sale. The negotiation process could take place at the kiosk, or via the traveler’s own independent communications device. The kiosks themselves would constantly show the average prices for various trips on the network, allowing travelers to be aware of the going market rates for the travel they wished to buy.

The experience from the point of view of a traveller would be something like this. John enters the Union Station transit terminal and hurries over to the nearest free kios. He has a hot date, and wants to get to the Lincoln Tunnel terminal - just one block from his girlfriend’s apartment - as quickly as he can. Punching in “Lincoln Tunnel, and make it snappy.” He sees that the train ride most recently has gone for $3.50, the train will arrive in seven minutes, and the transit time will be half an hour. Not good enough - but a cab company offers to pick him up immediately (they have a car already at the station) and get him there in twenty four minutes or less for $27.00. He accepts, swipes his card, grabs the receipt that tells him to go to cab stand B and get in cab 974, and hurries away from the kiosk.

The next customer at the kiosk, Mary, arrives with her daughter and a crated dog in tow. Mary is heading for the veterinarian, and has an appointment there in an hour. She’s not in a big hurry, and she doesn’t want to spend a lot of money. On the downside, the vet is four blocks from the nearest terminal, and Mary does not want to carry this dog four blocks in the July sun. There isn’t a train service to her vet’s terminal (the tracks haven’t been laid yet by the rail companies - but Mary does check the box to indicate that she’d be interested in rail service if someone decides to make the option available) but the bus takes just 40 minutes and costs only $2.00 for Mary, $1.00 for her daughter (kids ride for half price on most conveyances, a marketing tactic almost universally adopted), and an additional $2.00 fee for the dog crate. Mary books the bus ticket and splurges on an additional $5.00 to cover the quick cab ride from the destination terminal to the vet’s office.

(In one alternative timeline, when Mary and family return from the vet the total fare ends up being $17.00, because now it’s rush hour and the bidding for rides is hotter. In another timeline, the dog has to stay with the vet overnight so Mary and her daughter take in a movie and dinner out to avoid the rush hour, and come home much later for $5.00 total.)

A third customer - a married couple this time, Phyllis and Phil, arrive for their regular commute. It’s mid-afternoon, but both Phyllis and Phil work an odd shift as CD duplicators at the local software company. They punch in their standard commute settings on their iPhones and quickly confirm a $3.00 bus-ride to work, and hasten on their way - nothing fancy, they do this every day and the fare is always about $3.00. Today there’s one change, though - Phil also remembers to buy a ticket for his dad, who’s coming to visit for Saturday dinner the next day. He locks in a great deal on the 60-minute train ride for his father, with a bus ride to cover the six blocks between Phillis and Phil’s apartment and their home terminal, and e-mails the ticket information and confirmation code to his dad before taking the escalator up to the bus loading area.

By utilizing a bidding model, and publishing the average bid amount information, both passengers and conveyance providers have exact and accurate information of the demand picture at any given time. Given most urban infrastructures, it would seem a logical first assumption that much, if not all, demand could be profitably met by transit companies. Full buses and trains make money, and the classic problem of mass transit has been the need to have large quantities of the equipment running at low capacity in order to provide service at a particular time of day. Under a bidding model, people wishing to take trips that other people don’t want to take will have to bear the costs of their relatively expensive choices or needs. Alternatively, people with those needs could trade time for money, by waiting longer periods in order to accumulate more bidders for a particular ride. (”There might not be anyone else needing to go over to the little-used Junktown terminal, but if I wait a half an hour, I bet a few more people will show up.”)

This would also be a highly profitable model for the conveyance companies, while also promoting vigorous competition and eliminating the kind of ill treatment of passengers that “you’re stuck with us” mass transit authorities are notorious for providing. If train company A will not provide good service to the people wishing to make a trip, then bus company B is certain to spot the opportunity (”look, a whole wad of unmet bids from Johnson Street - let’s snag those and send a bus over”) and scoop them up. Customers equal money in this model - and customers who want to represent more money in order to get better levels of service are free to do so.

I would anticipate the development of several tiers of service providers, in fact - from luxury cabs to utilitarian jitney bus companies - in order to capture the entire transit market. There is so much diversity of demand and desire that a similar diversity of providers would spring into existence, funded by the real demand for real service.

The main peril that I see in such a system is that established conveyance companies would engage in regulatory capture of the transit authority and try to keep out new competition. I would mitigate that risk by building free competition principles into the charter and structure of the transit authorities themselves - for example, by establishing an “open audition” policy by which any comer could offer services on a trial basis within the system (indicated clearly as such), so that the more adventurous travel patrons could “take a chance” on the newcomer and quickly establish a bona fide track record. There are other ways of keeping competition open, but all of them in the end rely on a demand for free competition from the transit customers themselves.

Municipalities or areas that wished to subsidize travel for their poorer citizens would, of course, be free to do so. However, my suspicion is that this model would drive down the costs of travel for nearly all travelers - with the exception of those who under current systems enjoy high level of service in areas or times of low demand. Those folks, it should be acknowledged, would end up paying more or enduring worse service.

No relation (as far as I know) but I wish he was: J.P. Hayes reports penalty on self, is disqualified for year.

Wild.

Science: it works, bitches!

H/T AoS.

Having a discussion with Lynn Gazis-Sax about whether the current court battles over gay marriage are going to result in polygamy being validated by the courts. I say yes, she says no; her “no” is based on how difficult it would be to integrate polygamy into current law. My “yes” is based on the fact that in my view, when it comes to sexual morality and the courts, the courts will rule on the basis of emotion, not the textual language of the Constitution or the law. So we have a bet (which this post is to memorialize): I say within ten years, a state court will create a right to polygamous marriage. If I am right, Lynn will donate $100 to the Federalist Society. If I am wrong, I will donate $100 to Amnesty International. (Now I just have to add an entry to my Google calendar for ten years from now, otherwise I’ll forget.)

I have been a long-time reader and occasional commenter over at Hugo Schwyzer’s blog. Although I disagree with much of Hugo’s writing and belief system, I’ve found his work to be challenging to me as a Christian and as a man. Less nobly, I’ve been amused at his moralistic self-contradictions; just as one example, like many people with his type of uber-Green views, Hugo flies all over the world with nary a twinge of conscience, completely blind to how discrediting his behavior is to his ideals. (But he buys carbon credits, so that makes it all right. Eye-roll.)

Hugo embraces the animal rights movement and is personally a vegan - a welcome sign of consistency, I suppose, since one might expect him to advocate for animal rights while eating meat constantly and buying “vegetable credits”. However, his elevation of the moral status of animals has gone past the point of reason. It is arguable that research on vole behavior and brain chemistry (involving the killing of the animals) might not be justifiable; certainly, it is a reasonable position to be opposed to such research. (Although Amanda Marcotte, of all people, chimes in with a comment that points out why such research is valuable.)

In the comments, though, Hugo goes on to make a point that is simply, incontrovertibly, around-the-bend moonshine batshit insane. Regarding his father, who died a few years ago, Hugo writes:

I would not sacrifice the life of a single vole or monkey or rat so that my father could have lived. And I loved that man with all my heart — but I know, in the final analysis, that all living and sentient, pain and joy-feeling creatures are equally valuable.

I have to say that, with sympathy to Hugo’s hypothetical moral dilemma, I don’t know a meaningful definition of “love” which would prioritize a vole’s life over a person’s. “I love you, but not enough to kill this little hairy rat to save your life.” Yeah, great, thanks. There’s probably a Hallmark card for that.

But it’s the closing phrase that is truly mad. All sentient life is equally valuable? A dog is a pig is a rat is a baby? Two ferrets trump one human infant? This is Singer-esque, and it’s morally insane. Valuing life is a good thing. Doing so in a hyper-egalitarian, “everything is equal” fashion, is nuts. Hugo is aware, not that his position is crazy, but that his advocacy for it is turning people off; he’s announced a moratorium on animal rights blogging for the rest of the year. Hopefully in that time of reflection he will come to a more moderate place.

Healthy, well-managed banks with no need for federal bailout money are deeply unhappy that they are now competing with the US Treasury. Some money quotes:

Peter Fitzgerald, chairman of Chain Bridge Bank in McLean, said he was “much chagrined that we will be punished for behaving prudently by now having to face reckless competitors who all of a sudden are subsidized by the federal government.”

At Evergreen Federal Bank in Grants Pass, Ore., chief executive Brady Adams said he has more than 2,000 loans outstanding and only three borrowers behind on payments. “We don’t need a bailout, and if other banks had run their banks like we ran our bank, they wouldn’t have needed a bailout, either,” Adams said.

Yep. Sorry, fellows. You didn’t act like idiots, and so now you’ll be punished for it.

Subsidizing stupidity automatically penalizes success.

I am worried about this bailout.

Not just the potential abandonment of the principle that in a free market, companies that make dumb decisions must be free to fail. That’s troublesome, but it’s not like we’ve been honoring free market principles consistently in this country in the last twenty years.

I am reminded of my time at Microsoft, in the long long ago, when I was a junior software development engineer on Microsoft Bob, MS’ ill-fated attempt to create Windows with a human face. Not long after I had joined the team, there was a crisis owing to Bob 1.0’s poor sales - the rumor mill said that the project was going to be canceled, that we would all be out on the street, etc. We had a team meeting (perhaps 40 people) to brainstorm what to do, but when we arrived at the meeting, it turned out that our senior management team - not present at the meeting, and represented by their minions - had already decided what to do. They were going to revise our spec for Bob 2.0 (the project we were working on) so that we could get it done better, quicker, cheaper - all via magic, apparently - and that was going to solve everything and instantly create a huge market for our dog of a product. Although all the previous decisions this team had made had resulted in a steaming pile of fail, they were on the job this time. Our management team was there for us. They were On The Ball.

I remember raising my hand and asking a question that, I am sure, did my Microsoft career no good, but which had a number of the developers nodding their heads. I said “So what you’re saying is, the people whose plans and ideas got us into this mess in the first place, are the same people who have a plan to get us out?”

Perhaps the world will end if we don’t do this bailout. Certainly, a huge contraction of the economy is something that we should avoid if at all possible. But I’m not really sure why letting some incompetent lenders go out of business is going to cause a bigger contraction than taxing the bejeesus out of all of us would.

And I would feel a lot better about the whole thing if the people saying they’re going to save us, weren’t the exact same people who fouled it up in the first place.

A moving story of loss.

I remember, as a teenage boy, working at a pizza restaurant in Del City, Oklahoma. One of the assistant managers was a young woman not much older than me named Alicia, who became pregnant by her boyfriend. She decided to keep the baby despite her fears (the boyfriend was not going to step up, from my remembrance), and as the days passed her fear slowly transformed to excitement. She talked about what she would name the baby, what she would do for the baby. She showed us booties she had knitted. One day she excused herself to go the bathroom and came out not very much later, in tears. She had miscarried, there and then. I remember not knowing what to say, how to comfort her. (Fortunately there were others, more emotionally skilled, on the scene.)

What a tragedy, and what burdens of pain so many of us carry around inside, secretly or not so secretly, but with nowhere to ground them.

This is just really something. Quite good artwork, devoted to the service of a cause that seems laughably sincere. Yes, great artist of the People! Save us from the fundie wickedness that is Sarah Palin with your artistic genius!

H/T Lileks, who I think I saw on the street in Denver but I was too shy to say introduce myself, instead making a couple of jokes at the expense of the bird porn people. Besides, he was working. (Well, I was working, too, in that bizarre kind of “I don’t have to be doing this, but I want to be doing this, so it’s work” kind of way. But he was like getting a paycheck and everything, so I didn’t want to bug him.)

(Although, in retrospect, it occurs to me that even someone of Lilek’s stature in the midst of doing actual reportage on the bird porn people, cannot really say “This was important! Why are you bugging me!?”I shoulda said hi. Damn!)