Yglesias figures it out

He has been speaking out more on E Traffic opportunities and less on Bullet Train opportunities:

If you look at it in strict dollars and cents terms, the policy ;E Traffic]looks great. A relatively small fee can eliminate large economic losses due to congestion, and then the fee can finance useful public services or reductions in other taxes. But when you add in the fact that commuting time makes people miserable, you can see that the social gains from congestion pricing in our most-trafficked metro areas would be extremely large.

Mind you, Yglesias has, like Oberstar, been an iron and concrete advocate of Bullet Trains for years. This brings to mind DeLong's insistence that central planning should guarantee large transportation projects. Unfortunately, the only thing the government has guaranteed with its Bullet Train advocacy is malinvestment.


This happens every depression, the government jumps out and guarantees the old technology, and this can only be construed as the last push before the Minsky Moment as the economy moves on to new technology.