dragonfly

I think I've said it on here but I'm going to say it again. This debate about what is in the above quote is a phony one for one major reason: Reserve currency status of the U.S. dollar. This is missed by most of the elitist politicians and pundits that are addicted to their reasons for looking down on their cultural inferiors and just love to group said inferiors into a selection of ridiculed states. Well here is one of those inferiors pointing out the standard elite ignorance: most economists put the value of reserve currency status at $1.2 trillion ~ $1.5 trillion*. Guess what - if it weren't for the prominence/prestige of the U.S. military (currently threatened from within) and its operational maintainence of safety on the high seas, the dollar would not be the world reserve currency. The same thing accompanied the rise of the British empire when the pound sterling enjoyed that status and is now a sort of junior reserve currency to ours, making London the financial capital that it is. So if you don't' mind a little bit of logic, this says that The DOD, funded by $760 billion per year, is an astounding profit machine for the U.S. economy. The state of Texas with numerous large military bases and defense contractors is typically ridiculed by the elite on their lists of states on the dole but the joke is on them, they think that all of the cost of the military spending in Texas is just welfare, when that spending may be returning as much as 200% of its cost back to our economy. I mean really where do you think the conventional simplistic analysis on this originates other than bIgotry? Mature people should grow out of simplistic views of the world. Or you would think. I would prefer not to bring this up again, but if I see the fallacy repeated, I'm going to link to this post. * Reserve currency status confers a built-in demand for U.S. dollars, coupled to the world population growth. Which helps to allow a seemingly endless expansion of the money supply by the Fed to cover endless deficit spending on our real welfare state programs.

What the heck does that mean, "disorganised"? OK you don't like the way Houston looks, big deal - we have the largest tree planting culture here of any city, forests planted by the state are maturing along much of the freeway system here, not so anywhere in CA. Not to mention the city expanding or promptly replacing lost live oaks lining a plethora of city thorougfares. And disorganised? You know, it turns out that what humans do worldwide is organise, believe it or not. It goes by the name of the modern industrial economy. And who cares that there are supposedly cities that one thinks Nashville should "emulate" whatever that means. I would say that 3 rail lines, dedicated bus transitways (first one just opened bisecting the West Loop and connecting with the just rebuilt NW transit center, link below) and bus lines going out to satellite transit centers over HOV lanes w/barriers does the trick. I've dropped my vehicles off at two different dealers way out (20+ miles) and biked over to a transit center bringing a bus to take me to the NW one a couple of miles from my neighborhood. The scale of transit planning here is executed at a level you guys could never grasp without living here. For example the Beltway 8 planning began with the county buying up the land for it when it was farms back in the '50's, and it opened as a tollway in '89. There are 4 county owned tollways here between 2 counties and 1 state owned one - the recently opened Grand Parkway (99 tollway). Between the state and county management of highway expansion, I saw about 15 years ago that one of the highway construction trade magazines designated Houston as a benchmark example of highway construction and operation management. Take a look at a map zoomed out. For a metro 3-1/2+ times the size of Nashville, we have a freeway and tollway system here probably 6x the extent and complexity. "Horrible traffic"? People just don't complain around here about traffic like they do in Austin about the ungodly IH 35 bottleneck downtown, or in Nashville about the Green Hills awful bottleneck. What they complain about is the closing of streets to upgrade utilities -- because of the city going vertical at a rate like no other in the country. video: https://abc13.com/metro-new-northwest-transit-center-shuttle-service-major-hub/8435926/ photo looking NW outbound US 290, keep in mind there are about 3 dozen transit centers generally looking like this, themed as Park 'n Ride, although with enclosed bike racks it is more like Ride 'n Ride: https://www.masstransitmag.com/technology/facilities/article/21213268/houston-metro-transforms-aging-transit-hub-into-flagship-facility

Baltimore: 1924 (now Bank of America) 509 ft 37 stories. And there were a slew of them in Philly and Pittsburgh. When I was kid there were six cities in the SE larger than Nashville and this covers 1957: Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans, Louisville, Memphis, Birmingham. And for good measure throw in St. Louis . So for Nashville to have, if only for a year the tallest in the SE + St. Louis, was an unique distinction for a year's bragging.

Not entirely true, to help with the astoundment. I've clarified on here before that it is true that the L&C was taller than anything in Atlanta and Miami for roughly 1 year until the Bank of Georgia topped out at a couple of stories taller in 1958. Since I was 8 yo in 1958 and my dad worked in the L&C tower from its opening until 1967 I've know this all my life. I've also clarified that The Gulf Building in Houston was completed in 1929 at 37 stories, 430 feet and the L&C is 409 feet. Hope this clears up why you will never see that the L&C was ever the tallest in the south.

Based on what past example? Maybe look at the history of L.A. and of Houston where I am. The metro here grew like gangbusters in several big spurts over the decades. Did that require rail? Nah. The first rail line opened right before Superbowl 38 in Feb. 2004. The metro population at that time? 4.5 M. The advent of rail in Houston has been shamefully wasteful and currently is the most dangerous in the world for train/motor vehicle collisions, even pedestrian deaths. The same cultists kept neglecting to control their rail envy and kept bringing it up for a vote for a couple decades and it kept getting voted down. Then finally when they scaled it back enough to minimum scale and with a NFL promised Superbowl coming onto the horizon, it passed. They managed to convince a few more people how shameful it would be for the city to host an event of that profile without shiny toy trains to show up in the video coverage. And so it opened in Jan. 2004. Oh BTW Los Angeles managed to reach metro population of 13.5M in 1990 without rail and then their light rail opened that year. Here you go one of many accidents every year: Woman Killed in Metro Light Rail Accident in Downtown Houston | Majic 102.1 (myhoustonmajic.com) Law firm advertising for representation in Metrorail accident lawsuits here: METRORail Accident | Houston Train Crash Injury Lawyers (abrahamwatkins.com)

Absence of documented evidence requested, plus other unanswered questions duly noted. Absence of logical or evidential refutation of the Projections versus Census Counts correlation with state voting patterns duly noted. Absence of a supposedly required logical connection between the existence of said correlation and the leanings or personality of the reporter reporting the correlation duly noted.

Please I would like to see documented evidence of the last administration's "attempt to undercount minorities." How did that "attempt" play out. What would be the rationale? Or the supposed benefit? In case you're interested, here is how your state and my state and every other state with R majorities possibly were intentionally undercounted this time. It's interesting how the D states all beat their projections with the census figures and the R state failed to meet the projections. Really interesting. All of the projections were off as if they were all about politics. Here you go read on: https://townhall.com/columnists/stephenmoore/2021/05/04/why-did-biden-census-bureau-add-25-million-more-residents-to-bluestate-population-count-n2588890?fbclid=IwAR2c5wDgPJnxSTHhp7Zz1g808U2EhTucmG2wLbH-Obb6mP7CcDancERZDK4

OK believe it or not I'm going to reference a piece that I read in the school library at the former UC, now UTC, in 1969 right before I transferred to VU. Look below at page 97. This piece opens with a brief reference to the destruction required to put in the interstate through the North Nashville environs. That is precisely why it stuck in my mind, since I had a little bit of knowledge about North Nashville. It goes on to describe what the original interstate system was concieved to be during the Eisenhower years and how the original plans got corrupted by financial interests, both public and private. I remember being about 10 yo and asking my mother if Nashville would ever have expressways like Atlanta, where we visited my grandparents often (at that time, the 75/85 behemoth thru downtown Atlanta was a GA state-built expressway). My mother must have known at the time that interstates were coming to Nashville, because she answered affirmative. It would be interesting if someone can get the text of this article. I've already spent a half hour looking for this cover if anyone wants to find it, maybe at the NPL. Here is the only internet reference to the piece I could find: https://trid.trb.org/view/224428

I was living in Atlanta for a short 1972 stint and that was the heyday of John Portman who was the Gerald Hines of Atlanta except Portman was a developer AND architect, not so Hines. Portman got national recognition in the '60's for Peachtree Center and the first in the nation huge atrium Regency in Downtown Atlanta which really put the city on the map (along with the Braves in '66). And I remember some buzz in '72 that the man had a big plan for the tallest in the south at around 70 stories. The tallest at that time in the SE was First National at 40 stories, in Atlanta. My grandmother in '72 told me the 70 story tower was several years away. It turned out to be Peachtree Plaza at 73 stories finished in '76. She didn't live to see it, she passed on in '73.

I guess some people don't know that Metrocenter was conceived in the late 1960's as a 'better' use for flood plain. I mean a huge area without buildout in the middle of Nashville needed to be put to use with a seat of the pants levee and all. How well that worked for downtown Nashville was seen in 2010. Really. Pipsqueak increase in flow volume, infinitesimal compared to flow increase with river cresting. And how far downstream would the dredging go in order to get this enhanced volume conveyance? We talking half a trillion dollar project or what? May be of interest to give my anecdotal experience with this. First off, there are 4 government entities involved in controlling flooding in the Houston region, the two biggies are the Army Corps of Engineers and the Harris County Flood Control district,. The other two, the cities, mainly Houston, plus the state, control waters on the thoroughfares and the related pumping systems which every few years are overloaded. And what is never done is dredging. Admittedly it was done in the 30's ~ 60's by the Corps to deepen AND widen the bayous. How could this be done on a river? The only dredging is to maintain the Houston Ship Channel (the lower Buffalo Bayou on the east side) for shipping. And dredging to return sand to the beaches in Galveston County. But I saw proof of the efficacy of retention basins with the two times my house flooded. White Oak Bayou *(photo) presented 16 inches of water in my house from tropical storm Allison in 2001. Hurricane Harvey pumped untold trillions of gallons to the region in 2017 and I received 8 inches in my house. Big difference but even bigger difference to someone I know who lives 5 miles upstream from me. She got two feet in her house from Allison and 2 inches from Harvey. It seems reasonable to assume that a gigantic retention basin put in by Harris county made the difference. I was sad to see the forest get ripped out from the flood plain to go deeper but that had to be the difference, The new basin is 10 miles from me and 5 miles from her. Here's what I found on Metrocenter history: Metrocenter: Nashville’s Little Flooding Problem | Because I Can (wordpress.com)

Removing mass from a river bottom doesn't leave space for floodwaters because the dredged space immediately fills with water at the dredging. What is needed is flood plain or retention basin space. Which was reduced by your mis-engineered Metrocenter reclamation. Trust me I'm in Houston, we see how this all works (or not) down here.

Wondering if the contributor knows firsthand of that "type of educational experience", you know, from experience. If not, then where such knowledge based judgement may have been engendered would be the question, assuming it isn't based on crass, class resentment. As for consistency, contributor would surely feel the same about all college campuses you would think. Since I graduated MBA, can say for sure I would have been a screw off otherwise in co-ed public school, based on my 7~9 experience before transfer to the Hill. And I was not a child, since that "type of educational experience" is not for children. No doubt yours truly would not have been able to handle higher mathematics for 2 subsequent engineering degrees if that would be the "type of educational experience" I was looking for post-secondary, which I was.

Read again. My previous post. Wind is 16% of Texas installed capacity at 28,000 MW, the capacity of 15 very large, normal, non-fanciful power plants. Solar capacity is at 3110 MW putting the total capacity at about 19% combined wind and solar. A total waste that could have been spent on reliable sources to help us out during the disaster. And I haven't seen any of you guys acknowledging that you have a clue how much has been spent on dedicated transmission lines for the fanciful "green" power in Texas, paid for out of the pockets of rate payers as surcharges. Again, I see it on my bill every month. A total waste. Enough to build several normal power plants, quote: "Investments in infrastructure are paid for by electricity customers and taxpayers, and our state spent more than $7 billion to build out the CREZ Transmission Lines for wind and solar generation." Link: Texas energy commissioner says grid spending placed green politics over reliability (worldoil.com) This is money that T. Boone Pickens tried to raise in equity markets 12 years ago, and failed. For a very good reason, the markets know a boondoggle when it comes along. So this money has to be forced out of us by the so-called "unregulated" system in Texas, that cause for the disaster, the cause you've been hearing about on NPR, absence of regulation.

Of course "we" did. "We" went along with the dream. The dream of a future with no heat engines. That's why we're down to 20% coal fired from 33% in 2014, you know, the ballyhooed "green economy" and all that. At the cost of lives. quote: Texas produces more electricity than any other state, generating almost twice as much as Florida, the second-highest electricity-producing state.101 Natural gas-fired power plants supplied more than half of the state's electricity net generation in 2019.102 About 5,000 megawatts of Texas coal-fired generating capacity have been retired since 2016.103 As a result, coal-fired power plants supplied less than one-fifth of state generation in 2019, down from about one-third as recently as 2014.104 Wind-powered generation in Texas has rapidly increased during the past two decades.105 In 2019, wind energy provided more than one-sixth of Texas' generation.106 link: Texas - State Energy Profile Analysis - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

This leaves out one big elephant in the room. Not only has $billions and billions been spent on wind and solar in Texas, with a good proportion coming from taxes to cover subsidies and tax credits, but $billions and $billions have been spent on transmission lines to carry that "renewable" energy across hundreds and hundreds of miles from the the Panhandle and West Texas to the big metros PAID FOR by all rate payers in Texas as a surcharge on our electric bills. I've been paying it, and got to depend on my own generator last week for the privilege. Not only were solar panels covered in snow, there was no unobscured solar flux on Monday the 15th when it was most needed AND aggregate wind velocity across those turbines was significantly lower than average on all the days power was most needed. Including the turbines disabled by ice. The point being that those many $billions could have been spent on normal power sources with ability to respond quickly to demand. AND not to mention the accelerated depreciation schedule put in place during the Obama years with the required accelerated decommissioning in Texas of several functional coal fired plants in the last 10 years. So that we could be privileged to feel so good about ourselves with our newish fanciful interruptible power sources. To save the planet or something.

Since I lived through this receding disaster, how about this take: "Like Austin, but without dependence on undependable and fashionable power schemes."

I was shopping at that ^^^ location mid '70's when I was living on Brightwood near Belmont BL. Harris Teeter was not a thing then. Does anyone know if it was a Kroger at that time? Here's how HEB does it, they put cafe seating along one row of windows, and escalators along another row from 2nd story parking at this Houston site: The above and one other multilevel HEB are < 2 miles of my house. The other 2 multilevel HEB stores are single use, have parking down and shopping up, and all 3 being urban sites, display artwork from local artists. The largest grocery in the Houston region is the HEB in suburban Cinco Ranch, 1 level. Take a look at this 2 level monster in somewhat dense suburban Bellaire to see how windows are utilized: New Two - Story HEB .... - Bing video BTW the intense competition between Kroger and HEB in Houston drove out Albertsons and Safeway and has almost obliterated local chains Randall's and Rice Epicurean. If you have never seen Boris Yeltsin's first experience of an American grocery, you should look up the video with translation of his amazement; that was a modest Randall's near NASA in Clear Lake.

According to the below piece, Tennessee net Uhaul inbound traffic for the first time outgrew the same for all other states in 2020. https://www.oann.com/more-americans-moving-to-conservative-states-during-pandemic/ To try and understand what this measure actually is, it seems that this is the growth, in numbers, year over year, of net Uhaul traffic into a state. Here is how they explain it: https://www.uhaul.com/Articles/About/22746/2020-Migration-Trends-U-Haul-Ranks-50-States-By-Migration-Growth/

Can u folks comment on the collapsed building that national news orgs report on?

I suppose my dollars helped on that. No more, my $500 annual gifts stopped when the snowflakes decided to get all offended/butt hurt at the statue of boy scout Sam Davis.

I know this would be of limited interest, but yesterday Alice Dietz, 90, got her first visit to Nashville handled off her late life bucket list. She's a Chicago gal who's lived in two states, now living alone near Orlando in a single family home & still driving, in fabulous health. My brother's mother-in-law, she may have passed thru on I-65/24 decades ago. Probably future Tennessean when she moves in with my brother and sister-in -law in Chattanooga when the time comes. I had to laugh - brother said her eyes nearly popped out, as they hit the District by car on Saturday afternoon. He says there are now things looking like barges filled with revelers and I guess pulled by fifth wheel equipped trucks? Bachelorette parties? They stayed overnight in Franklin.

Tennessee in the headline and Nashville, Memphis in the body of this Fox Business report on migration out of high tax D states. Quote: "Meanwhile, Paul Singer is the latest Wall Street big wig to reportedly relocate his $41 billion hedge fund from New York City to Florida. Peebles believes 'Democratic-socialistic leadership' and 'the tremendous turn to the left' are to blame." https://www.foxbusiness.com/real-estate/texas-florida-tennessee-nyc-entrepreneurs

We have a lot of goofy growth in Houston since no one can tell you where you can or can't establish honky tonkin business or any business. Except the city when it's too close to a school, or the civic association or commercial district, if you are building and they don't approve it. In fact Houston has no zoning and never had zoning. Making it one gigantic urban goof ball. It's what goofy growth does, other than gigantism of the pro-business variety.

Impressive that Belmont is taking that step, for the 3rd med school in Nashville. Dont know if yall know this but Austin just got its 1st med school a few years ago when Michael Dell, billionaire, put up most of the money for the UT school. The city hospital, Brackenridge, had a long relationship with UT various life science and engineering programs, and I took a class at Brackenridge as part of the biomedical engineering block at UT (from Austin's first cardiologist Tom Runge). The city just tore it down and transferred operations to the new Dell-Seton medical center across the street, so UT is not managing the med center, Seton does. The healthcare footprint in Austin has been pretty lightweight and I have always mentioned this on the blogs over the years when ppl are deciding between Austin and Nashville for relocation. I don't know if there are any transplants done there; as of 5 years ago you had to go to San Antonio for a transplant.

I'm from Houston too and schools there may be worse than ever, just like in the rest of the country, but schools there are not worse than in Houston, trust me and have a look at our built environment. What you have there is a seeming aversion to tall buildings, among the neighbors, in the general populace, and codified in the zoning (the latter of which doesn't exist here). I hope the developers of that Murphy road project read this, they should look at how the developer of the Ashby highrise in Houston handled neighborhood opposition. Just put up a dreary fence, let it sit there a year, growing weeds on it, protest the valuation because of reduced value from the delays, and let the opposition wither on the vine, and funding for a lawsuit dry up. More floors on a project equals more tax revenue for those schools. Fewer floors because of mob behavior is a taking of assets by the mob. And it's amazing that the liberal populace of Nashville does not get that more vertical space outside the CBD translates into less commute time for workers, thus less fuel burn and less global warming, such being at the top of liberal concerns otherwise, but not on this topic seemingly.