A Desire Named Cincy Streetcar

The Cincinnati City Council is expected to approve some funding today for streetcars. the Streetcar movement is popular in the Cincinnati blogosphere (They’re way more hip than riding a bus, right?). And there are some points to be made by activists in favor of streetcars. However, I think the streetcar effort is primarily driven by the big property owners along the proposed route (some of whom are on city council). The project takes tax dollars from everyone across the city and spends them to improve transportation along a certain 3.9 mile stretch. This will certainly improve the land values for those who are fortunate enough to own property along the chosen route. The area will gentrify. But, these improved property values will be paid for by the taxes of everyone else in the city. It’s a classic case of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs. In other words, I would say it’s pork for a certain group of Cincinnati elites.

This is not to say the streetcar is a bad idea. I’m undecided, but certainly not convinced.

The relevant question is - is this the best use of the taxpayers’ money? Chris Bortz today argued that it was and said it would have a 14 to 1 return (!!!). Yet, there’s another form of public transportation, which the city has been cutting recently, which appears to be a better investment - buses. They’re more flexible to respond to changing demand, require no major capital investment, and help people from the suburbs gets to their jobs downtown (i.e. a big economic return for the region). Streetcar backers have not been able to put together a convincing argument on why a small streetcar is better than additional busses. I suspect the city will move forward with this project anyway, not because of the debate, but because the streetcar has important support from relevant special interests in Cincinnati. This is unfortunate.

Update 4/20:
I don't want to give the impression that I'm alleging some conspiracy emanating from a smoked filled room. The supporters who would benefit are pretty visible - Besides the activists who spoke at the city council hearing, many of the other speakers were various business/land owners who would benefit from a streetcar. I've read Tom Luken also made this point at the hearings (not that I necessarily want to be associated with him). They probably genuinely believe it's a good project, but they are lobbying for tax dollars to help themselves. So, it's a classic case of a small group of people who would benefit and a large group who will pay the cost (city taxpayers). I don't think the streetcar will be a disaster, I just think it's probably not the right investment decision, and may be being made for the wrong reasons. Could be worse...

Stats on Tea Partiers

Some interesting poll numbers about Tea Partiers via @binarybits: Tea Partiers are 65% pro-choice, 57% pro same-sex unions, and 53% pro maintain/increase legal immigration.

Here's the New York Times story. FYI - I'm not the Tea Party type, but I do think they've been unfairly painted by the left as bigoted extremists. This gives Democrats a comfortable naritive about themselves, where all opposition to their plans is illegitimate and probably motivated by some dark internal flaws.

John Cleese offers insight on this mindset in a 1987 SDP/Liberal Alliance spot:


"The great thing about having enemies is that you can pretend that all the badness in the whole world is in your enemies, and all the goodness in the world is in you! Attractive, isn't it?"

Ohio Style Casinos

Allow me a brief sarcastic rant - The Columbus Dispatch reports new rules being proposed by Neo-Puritanical Ohio politicians:

"The four new casinos in Ohio would not be granted 24-hour liquor permits, nor would they be able to offer complementary alcoholic drinks to players, under the set of ground rules that House Democrats plan to introduce within the next two weeks."

Wouldn't it be interesting if you could just choose to gamble and drink legally wherever you wanted - not just at the casinos and tracks that have given adequate dollar amounts to the correct politicians in exchange for a legal monopolies? Nah, we'd all gamble and drink ourselves into Gamorrah...

HT Politics Extra

Update Nice story on the lobbying effort against this.

Surreal Cincinnati

So, let's say you're walking out of Cianciolo's or the Ohio Book Store - If you're a rather fatalistic fellow with some time to browse, you just may be in luck: MainStreetCaskets.com has a prominent storefront right on Main Street in Cincinnati. This store front is complete with a facing of merchandise out front for curious window-shoppers. A quick perusal of their website shows the value of this little shop (The 'Going Home' for only $899! That price is just insane).

But we all know this already... I'm posting about a more recent development. From the same storefront as MainStreetCaskets.com, you can now also buy scooters. Talk about one-stop shopping - Now you don't have to make two trips! Below is a camera phone picture - apologies for the low quality.BTW, I think funeral-related expenses are priced way too high because there is not enough competition. So, I support developments like this business that helpp open up the market. However, as a store front this is pretty surreal and I'm surprised that it works as a business decision.

Conan v Leno

I much prefer Conan O'Brien to Jay "The Evil of Banality" Leno. However, as Bill Simmons explains, you can't say NBC was being stupid dumping Conan. Leno put on an awful show at 11:30, but it drew a good audience. Conan dumbed down his show to try to copy this, but was unable to repeat Leno's sucess and lost half his audience in six months (HT: James Choi).

Do you think Conan worked at 11:30?
Conan's show sucked at 11:35. That's the reason the ratings were down — not because of his lead-ins. What's Jon Stewart's lead-in? What's SNL's lead-in? Conan did a watered-down, toothless version of his 12:35 show, and even his die-hard fans weren't crazy about it. These are the facts. Only after they canned him did he show flashes of the old Conan again. Look, he's not Johnny Carson; he's a gawky, super-witty, awkward, hyperactive goofball who isn't going to appeal to everyone.

Do you think Conan handled this situation the right way?
I thought he was too whiny. Look, it's television. His job was to deliver ratings and revenue; he lost nearly 50 percent of Leno's 11:35 audience in six months, but took none of the blame and made no effort to fix his show. This wasn't his fault? And besides, he's the one who stupidly passed up all that Fox money in 2004. I never understood that. What was so special about a Tonight Show that had twelve years (and counting) of Leno stink on it? How iconic could it have been?

Isn't this all kind of silly? Isn't the theory that everyone just watches everything on Hulu and DVR anyway?
Normally, I'd agree with you, but did you see the numbers? Leno's 11:35 show made $35–40 million profit for NBC; Conan's show was on pace to lose $5 million and had zero critical buzz. So it was a big deal, I think; look at where Conan was five years ago and where he is now. It's one of the biggest falls in TV history. NBC paid $43 million to get rid of him!

Hold on Hope

Homeless Haitians Told Not To Flee to U.S. - The U.S. State Department has been broadcasting via radio to Haitians: "(We) will intercept you on the water and send you back home where you came from." Kerry Howley comments via Twitter "Massive monetary aid to Haiti looks very cynical through immigration lens." ...Indeed, opening our doors to refuges is probably the best thing the United States could do to relieve suffering in Haiti. However, that doesn't appear to be an option politically for the current administration.

In the long-term, The biggest help the United States could give to Haiti's economy would be to repeal tarrifs on Haitian sugar. Unfortunately, this policy also has a significant special interest group opposed to it: domestic sugar producers. Those producers are dominant politically even though the potential benefits in lower food expenses to U.S. consumers from a liberalized sugar marker outweigh the excess profits producers are currently making from their captive market.

The fact to find depressing about this is that it shows how little of a voice Haitians have in the United States. U.S. aid to Haiti is definitely helpful... But the policies we could adopt to really help Haitians are not even on the table because of their slight costs to American special interests. If 1/100 as many Americans were suffering you can bet the goverment would take every step necessary to help (And would be heavily criticized for any failings, as in New Orleans. I'm not saying we should treat this the same as a domestic disaster, but we can easily do more. The current U.S. Administration is providing some important and very public help to Haiti, but certainly not the best help.

Update: The U.S. has now also banned commercial air travel from Port-au-Prince due to security concerns.

File Under "Things Bad for Downtown Cincinnati"

Graphic Anti-Abortion Billboard To Appear in Cincinnati

Regardless of how they feel about abortion, most people don't want to see this while eating lunch.