Uh oh. If people realize that 700M in subsidies is the same amount of money as 700M in free buses, it’s all over. You’re supposed to act like one of them is cheap and the other is expensive. There’s not supposed to be math involved /s
To be fair, 700M in subsidies was supposed to have a return on investment. Though, it didn’t.
700M in free busses would not bring a return on investment except for just generally improving the quality of society. Which I still think is better, but we do have to consider that from their point of view.
Edit: please stop replying to this comment with counterarguments, I agree with all of you and was just trying to say how it might be seen. This is getting obnoxious. I wrote it wrong and now people think I’m a capitalist cuck lmao
I agree with all of you and was just trying to say how it might be seen.
This right here is the problem. We allow the GOP and the Murdochs to dictate the meaning of these things and gaslight the people into believing the fiction that some billionaire industrialist stooping to grace a city with their business is worth more than thousands of regular folks just getting to work, doing their jobs, living their lives, and making our society work. It needs to be plastered everywhere that not only do we not need billionaires or even multimillionaires but that they are quintessentially harmful to our country and our society.
P.S. if you aren’t prepared to deal with every Tom, Dick, and Jane replying to your comment to argue every little thing then you should give up commenting cause people are gonna argue no matter what. It’s how ideas get around.
Don’t forget, Cuomo was also ready to give Amazon $3 billion in incentives to build their sweatshop HQ in Queens, and AOC led the charge to kill the deal. Why should NYC pay such an exorbitant amount to a Sociopathic Oligarch for the privilege of exploiting their citizens? Let him use his own money to exploit his workers.
Short sighted ROI - only businesses create ROI? Residents do not? Would decreased accidents, decreased cars on the road, increased resident satisfaction not also create ROI although not as easy to measure as a business balance sheet?
Yes of course they would, please read the edit
If you want to be fair, you’ve got it completely backwards. Tesla wasn’t going to be bringing in much in the way of actually paying proper taxes or treating the residents well but we have actual real-life examples of free bus experiments boosting the local economy.
It’s not even about being nice for the residents, though that is obviously a major positive, it’s just the only smart thing to do. It’s literally stupid as hell to not at least try it from a financial perspective and the only thing that stops people is because it would be a kindness.
I don’t think we need to have an either or mentality. We need to break out of the idea that things need a perfect, direct ROI. That just reinforces financial overlords to do layoffs and to favor capital and the rich.
$700M in free busses could open up a world of happier people, access to better jobs and better Healthcare through better access.
There is more to ROI than direct financial returns, and we have to get out of the language of the venture capitalist. You say that it is “just generally improving the quality of a society”. That IS a return on investment. And it’s more important in my mind than a financial gain. We need to start treating happiness like it’s something worth pursuing. We say money can’t buy happiness, but then base all our decision making on money like it’s the key to everything.
There is more to life than ROI. People need to realize that. We can do so much better for everyone.
You aren’t wrong, but you need to remember that a lot of people don’t give a shit about helping other people. Any argument that uses “good for people” as the basis of argument is going to fail with them.
Who gives a fuck. If someone rejects the premise that good for people isn’t good policy, fuck em. I’m tired of pretending their opinion matters.
Sorry to be spicy but like… I just don’t think we need to validate them or pay attention. Let’s build something not placate them.
I’m tired of pretending their opinion matters.
Are you aware that their vote counts as much as yours? And many of them are in Congress, so their vote counts for a lot more than yours?
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to simply excise people without basic empathy from any role of leadership or influence. But until we do that, we have to deal with them.
I think I worded it wrong. I completely agree with you.
You’re just trying to be intellectually honest here, by recognizing that in theory subsidies are supposed to bring jobs and economic benefits to a region, whereas public transit is seen as a cost center. And I think you’ve been sufficiently rebuked on that point.
Anyway, upvoted because I appreciate the attempt to engage conservative fiscal policy on its own terms. It’s easy to frame it as “rich people good, poor people bad,” but occasionally we need to debate the internal logic of it so we can properly pull back the curtain and see it for what it really is, which is in fact “rich people good, poor people bad.” You started that debate, and as a result the consensus here feels more like a good-faith rebuttal and less like a sarcastic shot from the hip (which my original post definitely was).
please stop replying to this comment with counterarguments,
“I want to be anti-transit but not get pushback.”
Only replying because of the edit.
If free busses get more people to more store to spend more money, that won’t provide an ROI?
$700M in free buses means better access to jobs and services, which has tangible economic benefits and results in tax money coming back to the government.
I… Err… I mean bus bad car good!
It’s also just good for people. Not everything needs an roi and the economy should work for people not the other way around.
Public transit, healthcare (including dental and mental), shelter, food, water, communication (mail, cellular, internet), social community events/activities, and yes even defense is where taxes should go. There’s enough to go around to cover all of it if greedy mother fuckers would get their grimy ass hands out of the cookie jar. I hope I see the day before my days are done.
I think free busses would have a return in investment (apart from quality of life).
A better connected city, transport wise, opens up new job opportunities or places to go for citizens, which can increase tax revenue.
More people using busses also means less cars (probably) and by extension, less pollution, which can save costs.
I’m not sure how much of a return those, and probably other stuff would give, but I think it’s more than nothing.
Maybe someone knows better.
Not just employment, but all sorts of things. For example, the NYPL runs all sorts of free classes at its various branches. People could also more easily access other services. Plus, if the buses are free and reliable, it could also provide incentive for people to just go out and do stuff that they might otherwise not. Even if you’re doing okay financially, something like the cost of gas and parking, in addition to the actual tickets, could discourage you from going to a concert or a baseball game. If there’s a convenient enough bus option for you that doesn’t cost anything, you might go out and spend some money you otherwise wouldn’t have.
Plus, I would argue it would also make a city more attractive to anyone looking to move to a new city, which could bring in more money to local businesses and expand the tax base for the city.
You have a good point. If money is no longer a barrier to transport, the entire city would be open to everyone. That would increase incentive to have outings.
You post on Lemmy, and expect to not get replied to?
Do you think this is a bubble echo chamber?
Wake up
But that’s not what they said…?
return on investment.
define investment, who was going to pay the state’s ROI? elon? lol. the jobs these companies outsource to other countries?
seriously spend two seconds critically thinking about your nonsense before you speak it.
Free buses would have a much larger return on investment.
- movement of the population is streamlined. meaning more people will go more places and spend their fares in a larger variety of locations without having to worry about cost.
- you save a shit ton of money because you no longer need all that infrastructure for charging people money for fares and the ongoing maintenance related to such.
- population increases due to QOL improvements. meaning more revenue for the state via property/income taxes.
- its durable. population based revenue is much more reliable than investment nonsense.
the only difference between the corpo subsidy and free transit is:
- the corpo can walk away for any reason leaving the state holding the bag.
- the corpo concept has a shorter chain of cause/effect: give money to corpo -> corpo fails | corpo gives roi -> $
- vs free buses -> increases desirability of the area & reduces on going costs of infra -> population increases -> more tax revenue.
in short: free buses absolutely would bring a return on investment it’d just be harder to measure the precise return because its part of a non-linear system.
…cuomo is an ass, he lost the primary, but more importantly, he was ousted through legal means, from the governorship…read a history book…
Zohran is a rapper. He knows how to roast people.
… the hero we need?
He has his ways with words better than most politicians do.
should be cross posted with “fuck billionaires”. Musk could end homelessness in the US and UK, and still have more than half his current worth left. But corrupt politicians are still lining up to give him money.
There is no amount of money that can permanently end all homelessness…
You don’t think giving someone a house makes them not homeless? Weird.
No they think giving free houses to someone makes it unfair to them as they think they are the only ones with suffering in life and the “poors” deserve poverty as they don’t work as hard as them.
I often wonder how miserable it must be to bear such ignorance, malice and unkind, distrustful thoughts in someone’s mind.
Well, they didn’t actually say that, it’s just a very common attitude. Given that they said “permanently end homelessness”, id imagine they meant closer to “cash can’t solve the structural issues that cause homelessness: if you give every homeless person a house, you’ll still have people falling through the cracks and ending up homeless”.
If they weren’t saying that, then I am. Obviously a bandaid is better than the “fuck all” currently being done, but let’s not pretend that a billionaire can just fix societal level problems.
Stopping the bleeding is typically the first step. If that’s all we do it’s better than nothing
Agree on point #1, but on point #2 I lean toward “yes they can”. Billionaires’ constant PR campaigns that they conduct to avoid having their heads chopped off are what normalizes a society where people are okay with looking the other way when confronted with such unimaginable wealth disparities. There are limited resources, and the ones that are being hoarded are what will help. Obviously we the people have to do better, but intrinsic in the discussion of why we suck so much at helping one another is the fact that this culture was crafted and nurtured by the people it benefits.
Hmm, that’s a good point. I’m not sure I’d entirely agree. I think the influence of individuals on the course of history is often exaggerated because it gives a greater sense of control to the affairs of the world.
The theme of society not giving a damn about poor people goes on well before we had anything like the modern billionaire. People were building the notion that they must deserve it into their religion before then. I think people largely have a bias towards the notion of justice in the world, so if you’ve been treated unjustly you must have done something to deserve it, and vice versa.
The people who have benefitted from the notion certainly have done what they can to resist the idea that we can be better, but protecting money is so much smaller than changing societal trends. Keeping yourself balanced on top of the crest of disfunction is trivial compared to changing the wave.Oh agreed. I think we’re talking past each other to a certain extent. I certainly don’t think that we can expect billionaires to ever be the ones to help. Andrew Carnegie’s act of giving most of his stolen money back under very specific directions on how to use it, after repressing wages and worker actions and literally having people killed his whole adult life, is considered a high bar for them. They have an addiction of some sort. I think it’s obvious if you read Carnegie’s journal—he talks early in his career about how his success has been beyond expectations and he’ll only need to work a few more years and then he can just travel the world on that nest egg and be a business consultant. Lol.
But still some disagreements. Religions have been around for a long time, but they’ve come in quite a few varieties. Christianity in most implementations is very top-down authoritarian in nature. I don’t think that’s something “the people” decided on and then elected to hand over autonomy to meritocratic leaders, and I think this is evidenced by the many other religions that do not work the same way, like Earth Lodge religion, Malagasy spiritualism and spiritual warfare, Mahayana Buddhism, or even subsets of Christianity like Quakers that eschewed hierarchy. Unless there is something in our blood that makes certain “races” of people think differently, then it’s cultural. If it’s cultural, then the loudest voices shape it the most.
No, I think within Christianity and Christian territories people established themselves as rulers by co-opting the desires of humans to have some greater story such as religion that helps explain their lives. Likewise, I think senses of entitlement and beliefs in justice were co-opted. Reinforcing the notions of justice by constantly emphasizing its importance in your culture explains away many of your despotic actions. It provides a shield that slows the tide of revolt. Your political enemies are simply getting what they deserved; the people starving must be unrepentant sinners. In the U.S., the people who are directly responsible for so many people having less than what’s needed for a comfortable life are able to avoid scrutiny precisely by focusing on how those people deserve so much more. They do! It’s true! They know it, and hearing someone admit it feels very liberating! But listening to those voices allows billionaires and their mouthpieces to coax people into believing in their twisted idea of what society should look like—that instead of being entitled to live a good life, people should be entitled to pursue a great one.
I think the proliferation of billionaires points to a cultural problem, but not a grassroots groundswell of belief in billionaires. Too much of culture is asserted surreptitiously through native advertising in the news and PR in our newsfeeds. We haven’t adapted quickly enough—we still think these voices are our peers. We don’t realize how few voices there are, or how many parrots repeating them.
End homelessness = buy everyone a home.
But the point was more about the fact that he could buy every single homeless person in two countries a house, and still have more than half his current wealth. In your desire to be contrarian, you miss the actual point.
Send like a cool thing to attempt.
Like even if someone still wants to sleep outside, a safe place to store your shit so it stays dry seems pretty dope. A place you can show up to when the temperature drops and your shivering and just sleep at with no strings attached…
Shelter is one of our basic needs, kind of like food and water… Seems like our basics shouldn’t be driven by profit.
Friendly reminder that there are far more unused homes in the US than homeless people
Also a friendly reminder that if every US church were to house 2 homeless people, homelessness would be ended.
The Dems are so far right now that a leftist candidate is a breath of fresh air
The chair of the DNC, who has complete and total control of the party…
Has literally been saying for 3 months now that Mamdani is the future of the party, and we need to run more campaigns like his not just the outreach, but actually and specifically running on things that will actually help.people.
If all you hear about “the Dems” comes from billionaire owned media.
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You’re gonna think when the party’s at it’s best, it’s at it’s worst.
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The oligarchs are going to make you a useful idiot in the hopes you depress turnout enough a neoliberal wins.
Please put some more thought into politics. It’s important and we can’t allow both parties to throw basic logic out the window. The average American should have been able to easily see all this, but they obviously can’t.
We can’t afford to be ignorant right now
Good thing I’m not an American then. If I would be an American “I’d be a vote blue no matter who” but also make sure I vote in any primaries I’m able to so I could vote “less corruption” and “left leaning”.
As a European I see politics in the US being a choice between “Classic EU Conservative party” and “Far right populism + authoritarian” but then you manage somehow to get Mamdani, AOC, Gavin Newsom and Bernice which actually look decent. I like that, Trump shit is affecting Europe and shifting the overton window left instead of right would help I think.
Yeah even after seeing how the Republicans were pulled to the far right by a dedicated minority within the party, leftists in the US just scratch their heads about how to move the Democrats to the left. I dunno complain on social media and don’t vote? That’s sure to make a difference!
Meanwhile the right continues to vote Republican every election and the dedicated far right votes in the primaries to control the party.
I think Hakeem Jeffries being a piece a shit is part of the problem where prominent democrats keep trying to punish people even an iota to the left of their donors while treating republicans like reasonable people even as the republican media is pushing people to go door to door killing democrats
Thank you for posting that. First, I think a celebratory, sharing attitude of “Look what I found” is much better for continuing engagement than using your knowledge as a cudgel to insult the less aware.
Secondly, I’m not sure how you pulled a lot of hope from this Ken fella, he spent most of the interview arguing against the interviewer and dancing around her questions. We like Zorhan because he doesn’t do that, he answers questions straight on, making eye contact and smiling because he is sure of his moral high ground and amused by the gamesmanship.
Decent read
Not one leader of the Dems wanted to endorse Mamdani in June
Well yeah, in a few months the far left will probably turn against him like they turn against all politicians. Or he’ll actually do what the far left wants and it’ll be a disaster.
The far left is like asbestos, it can be useful for specific purposes but you want to avoid direct contact with it or you’ll get cancer.
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The Atlantic did a wonderful job writing up the union of the progressive and populist movements during the early 19th century. Would be nice to see that alignment occur again.
Oh no did he just beat the corrupt crypt keepers with logic/s
Cuomo is the definition of an empty suit.
Not empty but rather full of shit.
Giggity.
No wonder the leadership of the party that was so ecstatic about record oil production under biden is so reluctant to endorse.
Tbf that was an Obama thing
If they eliminate fares, it’ll actually be less than 700 million because collecting fares costs money.
It’s a bit disingenuous to compare an annual cost with a one-time expenditure, isn’t it?
One time cost of pissing down 900m the drain is worth the mention
I didn’t say the mention was disingenuous, I said the comparison was.
Happy I live on this small island. Free busses! But I can also just kinda walk everywhere anyway. Another good thing is I get to skip the dangers of sidewalks and crosswalks. I just walk on the beach, no cars.
I mean, Manhattan is an island!
I’ve never been to New York but according to the book “power broker” Robert mosses blocked off a lot of beach access in New York by building roads designed purposefully to make it inconvenient for busses and pedestrians to access… anything nice really.
Did the same to lots of places. The expressway that bears his name in Niagara Falls is a prime example. Just needs to be ripped out.
AOC & Mamdani should team up for the 2028 or 2032 Presidential elections. They would smash the Government of Putin candidate during the debates.
Clutches pearls…Think of the poor South African Apartheid Nazi who is trying to destabilize all of the democracies in the world with our tax dollars /s
You give Elon too much credit. He just tapped into the existing American lust for segregation, he didn’t even enhance it.
BURRRRRN
