Why History Matters on the Trains: Governments want you to forget about their train disasters
History is critically important in why people suffer when they ride the subways in New York or Amtrak almost anywhere. Their daily frustrations trigger questions. Why is Penn Station falling apart along with Amtrak, New York City commuter railroads and the New York City subways? It is owing to the triumph of a subtle kind…
Is Renewal Rip-off (RR) Coming for You?: Some card companies enable vendors to keep reaching into your pockets forever. How to stop the rip-off
Someone offers you a publication or some kind of service at a dirt cheap six months or one year introductory rate. You’ve always wanted the publication so you are delighted to obtain it. You give the vendor your credit card number. You have no idea of it at the time, but soon you’ll be receiving…
The Never-Ending Woes of State Enterprise: The historic failures of governments running transportation businesses
Why is Penn Station falling apart along with Amtrak, New York City commuter railroads and the New York City subways? It is because the public utility concept of running enterprises—the idea that certain enterprises shouldn’t be privately owned because all the people who run them care about is profits—is taking over more and more parts…
Memorial Day—-A Dissenting View, Part 3: Honor the heroes, but also examine the causes of war
The Mexican War, 1846 The United States, which wants to buy California from Mexico, has just incorporated Texas into the United States. Texas is a former province of Mexico that won its independence from Mexico after a short war of rebellion. The successful revolution came in part because an unstable Mexican government revoked the constitution…
Memorial Day—-A Dissenting View, Part 2: Honor the heroes, but also examine the causes of war
Lord Acton, the great historian of freedom who died in 1902, said there were only two justified wars in American history: The American Revolution and the Second War for American Independence. Acton, who was a correspondent of Confederate general General Robert E. Lee, defended the right of the South to succeed from the union, which…
Forgetting History: The Collapse of Penn Station and the Disaster of Government “Enterprise”: After decades of government disaster, isn’t it time for something new?
Amtrak’s Penn Station in New York City, once one of the most glorious cathedrals of commerce built by one of the most successful transportation companies in history, is collapsing. Tracks are in disrepair. That’s because they have not been properly maintained over decades since Amtrak, despite promises to the contrary at its founding in the…
