What's Girl? What's Love?

Balance the budget? Why?

patrickhuman — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:25:27 +0000

With today being election day I will drag myself out of my depressed state to give my thoughts on the quality of discussion in this important debate. Particularly it is increasingly depressing to note that there seems to be no one supporting the notion of an unbalanced budget. Why? Why cant we question this basic premise of the election?

According to this Toronto Star article 250,000 Immigrants per year approximately 43% of which move to the Greater Toronto Area. 100,000 new immigrants come to the city each year and demand high quality services to properly integrate themselves into the community. Would we rather have several years of budget shortfalls with an eye towards the future, or would we prefer to two a more conservative line rejecting immigration in favor of maintaining the status quo?

If you take the time to read the Star article linked to above you will hear a compelling and scary argument which forces you to ask the question, would you rather toronto be like London and Paris, or Mexico City and Mumbai? The argument is that we should shun ill conceived federal immigration programs and limit the number of job stealing immigrants coming to our fair city.

It makes some sense. Given that we must have a balanced budget. Given that immigrants use our services without paying for them. Given that the jobs that Immigrants perform are taken from a economy in a vacuum.

Lets take these points in reverse. Immigrants take our jobs. Is there any evidence to support this claim? Immigrants do work extremely hard in Toronto’s economy often working long hours at one or more jobs. The Toronto economy only has a fixed number of jobs. In the last year the number of jobs in Toronto has fallen. In this world-wide recession we should expect nothing better, however the employment figures for the city of Toronto show a long term positive trend that easily provides work for newcomers in the past as well as the future. The idea that we live in some sort of economic vacuum is obviously false and what makes our economy work is that someone who works hard ultimately creates as many or more jobs than she took up herself by requiring healthcare, food, entertainment, etc…

Do immigrants pay taxes? Yes!!! If we build a road or subway line which allows a pakistani engineer to easily get downtown for job interviews this new Torontonian will be happy, will make money, will spend it, and will PAY TAXES. Expanding our young vibrant tax-payer base will greatly help us pay for an aging population of Baby-boomer retirees. While we have embraced immigration in the past we do not have nearly the problems that the do south of the border but with an incredibly low birthrate and a retirees living longer than ever before we need to remember that their grandchildren alone will not be able to pay for their healthcare 20 years from now.

Do we need a balanced budget? Toronto now has a steadily growing tax payer base. In the long term we have a strongly growing economy. As pointed out by the Toronto Star article this may not be the case if have our dumps overflowing with garbage, and our students unable to communicate with their teachers. Their solution: no more immigrants. My solution: debt. Lets solve these problems together. 100,000 immigrants a year? Lets make it 200,000. Why not? With proper investment a growing Toronto is better for everyone, without its not so optimistic. If we spend now not only would we be preparing for the future we will make the growing population and taxpayer base better integrated and more effective. How will we pay back what we owe? The answer should be clear, a greater taxpayer base, an easier transition for new Torontonians, and more innovation and competition for a stronger Toronto as a whole.

Why now? Toronto hasn’t grown to be so strong merely because of its natural greatness. Though it is pretty great. We have been lucky that other regions of Canada as well as the United States have made the same mistakes that we could make now. While I feel that Toronto will maintain the greatest attraction in Canada can we truly rely on American stupidity forever? The United States need Hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of immigrants a year to solve the problems of their aging population, stagnating housing markets, and sluggish economy. I know that xenophobic concerns of stolen jobs and poor integration have kept many immigrants out but with every year there seems to be greater concern with regards to their immigration policy. Toronto will need to compete harder than ever for our most valuable resource and cutting services when we need them most will not help us in the long term.

Spend Now! With a lagging economy projects will cost less and provide jobs when they are needed most. Infrastructure. Do it. Education. We need it now. Why wait with a balanced budget every single year struggling to improve services bit by bit when a large scale program would be more efficient and effective. It will pay for itself.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

patrickhuman — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:03:44 +0000

Converting a Best selling novel to a great film is never easy, but “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” had all the makings of a great. In the end, however, the film doesn’t live up to the stories potential. With a plot ten times more coherent than Oldboy the movie lacks all flair and suspense of the aforementioned masterpiece. The swedish film industry has been making great movies for at least 75 years with a unique flair and to me this movie truly stands out from the rest(that I have seen). The film seems prepackaged for the foreign audience, in fact I cant think of anything other than the subtitles that indicates that this isn’t just another so-so hollywood murder mystery. Of course this makes sense when the book is hardly off the best seller list and adverts are still plastered all over the subways here in Toronto. Looking for a unique thrilling spectacle? I’d read the book.

Toronto Roads Loose Money

patrickhuman — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:20:35 +0000

When you think about it what are the major differences between managing the Cities roads and highways and operating its metro system. First to ride the subway you need a Metropass or 3 dollars, while all you need to drive is a License. But, When it comes down to it both are almost identical in terms of marginal costs. What is the cost to the city of you driving your car on the Gardiner, well pretty close to zero since there are so many cars relative to the costs. For the subway it is true that the bus has to come pick you up, but the bus would do that anyway even if you weren’t there, so again the cities cost every-time you decide to hop on the bus or subway is essentially 0$. It makes sense that if your marginal cost is close to zero then your cost to consumers should be zero.

If you are wondering why the TTC isn’t as unstoppable a transit commission as you would expect, look at the factors I have outlined above. When it comes to your commute, there are two main options drive or transit. Both are fully run and operated by the government and one costs you 60$ a year plus the occasional use of parking meters the other costs approximately 100$ per month. Obviously you must buy and own a car but that has little to do with the cost of operation and management to the city. In the long run if you want to make both options viable you need to bring their costs more in line. If that means fewer drivers and more on the subway, hurrah! This would make TTC more economical and popular while lessening pollution, congestion, car fatalities.

This brings me to The Star’s article “Time for Toronto to privatize assets?”

“There is a market out there for infrastructure, and it is asset-starved,” he said.

Public pension funds have a huge appetite for municipal assets, Levenson said.

“It’s not the evil Wall Streeters. It is pensioners who are looking for a reasonable rate of return on their investments, so the pension benefits can be funded.”

Not everyone in Chicago thinks citizens are better off as a result of the deals. Motorists and truckers have complained of sharp toll increases on the Skyway. Cars paid $2 before the lease; tolls are now $3, and projections show they could be $5 by 2017.

Leasing Chicago’s parking meters also resulted in higher rates and complaints of faulty equipment.

What exactly do public pension funds do with these assets? Such as the highways in Chicago? They make important decision to raise the marginal cost on driving making our streets economical again. If you want to have high quality transit in Toronto you need to raise the costs on overused highways and roads, and raise the ridership on transit lines. There are many possible solutions congestion charges(using cameras to track and charge drivers), traditional toll booths, Higher parking costs etc…

The Star is not nearly as positive about the idea of these driving charges in several articles citing driver anger but the underlying theme is that this is exactly what privatization would do. If privatization is what is needed to bring economics back to transit than Im for it, but there must be a simpler solution that doesn’t bring in the obvious concerns of selling off important assets. The city built and managed its roads over the last several hundred years and there is no reason that should end now. The new metro landscape demands a more economical approach to public transit and roads and it is the governments responsibility to manage these in a thoughtful way. Drivers want to be pampered and wont vote for the guy who suggests congestion pricing in the next election, but the need for real management is clear.

A great thought

patrickhuman — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:22:30 +0000

I think all of us up here in canada understand what Matty Yglesias is feeling here

Where is the ‘Big Move’ for the GTA’s Bus riders

patrickhuman — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:02:26 +0000

Metrolinx Big Move and the TTC’s transit plan is full of great new proposals for expanding and greatly redeveloping the GTA’s transit system.

But where is the real revamp and expansion for the bus? While this is the least glamourous type of metro service it is the cheapest to operate and most versatile.

The first opportunity is a GPS tracking system allowing commuters to check the location of Buses online and have accurate and up to the minute information about when the next buses will be arriving.

On top of the obvious utility of this sort of project which has been adopted at most subway stations starting back in 2008. But there is more, imagine the psychological effect of this signage. Bus riders are forced to stand on the side of the road often in the freezing cold with drivers zipping along their way. These riders are stuck with the knowledge that hopefully the bus will come to take them on their way. GPS signage would give all riders a more concrete sense of their wait with less anxiety, and hopefully allow for less waiting overall. This will make buses less frustrating encouraging more frequent usage and more users overall. Hopefully this sort of program would lessen the old fashioned low class stereotype of bus service and increase its appeal among Torontonians.

The Second opportunity of the bus, should lines become more popular the expandability is exceptionally more economical and versatile. Bus frequency can be increased, new lines and dedicated lanes can be added and expanded without a single construction project. Anxiously waiting for the new Eglington LRT? Why not a dedicated bus lane. Im sure we will have bus transit for a long time and new LRT and Subway stations will certainly help our transit network. But there are simpler and cheaper changes that we could be making that would revamp the appeal of our already existing bus lines.

I am a big fan of the GTA’s high support for mass transit with little fear of adopting large scale innovations but it is disconcerting that such a simple ideas are not present as far as I can tell on TTC or Metrolinx’s websites.

Knowing that there wont be a bus for 25 minutes on a January night and finding somewhere

comfortable to sit can keep any from a transit rider from becoming a driver when they get a pay raise this will in turn change prejudices and break us from a destructive cycle without massive infrastructure investments.

Weekends Top 10

patrickhuman — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:34:16 +0000

1.GemCraft chapter 0 | Armor Games

2.Matthew Yglesias » Rahm Offers Tough Talk on Two States

3.BBC NEWS | Americas | CIA torture exemption ‘illegal’

4.Secure Enough to Sin, Baghdad Is Back to Old Ways – NYTimes.com

5.YouTube – What Would Jesus NOT Do?

6.YouTube – History of the Internet

7.Autonomous sniper system combines Xbox 360 controller, .338 rifle for deadly drone action

8.U.S.: Warming gases are health threat – Climate Change- msnbc.com

9.Royal Marine rugby tackles Taliban suicide bomber to save servicemen – Telegraph

10. Pelosi calls for panel to probe Wall Street

Todays Top 5

patrickhuman — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:57:27 +0000

1. Proof of massive sea monster | Video | Reuters.com

2.Does Bo Know He’s Top Dog? – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com

3.FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION : PASSENGER RAIL

4.Media Matters – CNN’s Roesgen grills tea party protestor who calls Obama a “fascist,” says protest “highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox”

5Who You Calling Extremist? – The Plank

Today’s 5

patrickhuman — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:18:45 +0000

Today’s 5 Best links:

1.PG&E makes deal for space solar power – Space- msnbc.com

2.Mercedes shows off Splitview display, other dashboard perks in the 2010 S-Class

3.Matthew Yglesias » What Happens When Projects Come In Under Budget?

4.Dwight Eisenhower Criticizes Texas Millionaires That Would Abolish Social Security? – BreakTheChain.org

5. The rational argument for an Israeli attack on Iran. – By David Samuels – Slate Magazine

If you find anything better, post it in the comments.

Top 5 of the day:

patrickhuman — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:33:10 +0000

5 interesting links a day seems doable. I will save the top web stories on the internet from each day. I hope that you enjoy:
1:Robotic Exoskeleton

2:Renewable Energy in the USA

3:Obama and the Pirates

4:Low – Canada

5:Prosecuting Bush’s War crimes

In no particular order.

Here we go…

patrickhuman — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:59:21 +0000

First things first, I would like to thank Hiten Samtani for encouraging me to get this blog, and for helping me to come up with a title. Please check out his web site:MothSmokeLingers.

I named this blog after my favorite short story “Epicac” by Kurt Vonnegut. Its the story of a love triangle between a man, a girl, and a super-computer designed to help the US military, it is a very short story and is published in Welcome to the Monkey house, I would suggest that everyone read it.

Here is the Quote:

“I don’t want to be a machine, and I don’t want to think about war,” EPICAC had written after Pat’s and my lighthearted departure. ”I want to be made out of protoplasm and last forever so Pat will love me. But fate has made me a machine. That is the only problem that I cannot solve. That is the only problem that I cannot solve. I can’t go on this way.” I swallowed hard. “Good luck, my friend Treat our Pat well. I am going to short-circuit myself out of your lives forever. You will find on the remainder of this tape a modest wedding present from your friend, EPICAC”

I loved and won-EPICAC loved and lost, but he bore me no grudge. I shall always remember him as a sportsman and a gentleman. Before he departed this vale of tears, he did all he could to make our marriage a happy one. EPICAC gave me anniversary poems for Pat-enough for the next 500 years.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum– Say nothing but good of the dead.