News and notes from around the interweb:
- Why you should be booking 2024 leisure trips now (WSJ)
- California’s high speed rail is a 20 year, $100 billion joke Nearly $10 billion has been spent without a single track being laid. It’s a great example of what’s wrong with America’s ability to build infrastructure.
California’s High-Speed Rail project was originally estimated to cost $33 Billion.
Now they’ve spent $9.8 Billion, no track has been laid, and they estimate it will cost another $100B+ to complete.
For a single system that will be about 800 miles long.
Honestly impressive. https://t.co/LnwG6uxqMU pic.twitter.com/K7Ol5YCUBq
— Austen Allred (@Austen) June 21, 2023
- $10 off and Alaska Airlines bonus miles for CLEAR signup which of course pairs with Amex statement credits for joining.
- Idiot. If you do the fraud, don’t go on TikTok to explain that you are doing the fraud.
And by the way a bunch of even dumber people are going to go open small business credit cards, where they are personally liable, and not even do the fraud correctly. Oy vey.
Ah yes, fraud for beginners. pic.twitter.com/SU6JEAVeXH
— TTI (@TikTokInvestors) June 21, 2023
- Startup Northern Pacific Airlines has completed its $6 million lounge in Anchorage despite having no current plans to fly there. The airline acquired 757 and planned one-stop flights between the mainland U.S. and Asia via Anchorage. However, even with ETOPS certification, they’d need Russian overflight to make that plan work and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dashed that business plan. Meanwhile their inaugural flight between Ontario, California and Las Vegas keeps getting pushed back.
- New lawsuit over scam worker protection surcharges at LAX Marriotts
The US is built politically and for the most part culturally not to have expansive public transportation.
Anyways outside the major cities , have you seen the people that ride the bus
What will be a bigger joke is if they ever actually complete it, only to realize nobody wants to take a train for 4 hours @ $300, when you can fly in 1 hr for $100.
You know what’s not green and climate friendly? Wasting a hundred billion dollars on an asset that is unnecessary and uneconomical, as all but myopic activists knew from the beginning.
I was intrigued by the “fraud for beginners” lead so I watched it…HORRIFIED, and ANGRY was the result. These are the grifting scumbags who make life more expensive and difficult for the rest of us, I believe, because THEIR fraud “trickles down” in higher costs for the rest of us. Since he was stupid enough to put it on TT, I hope someone tracks him down and prosecutes him for the fraud of which he is so proud.
Priority Pass lounge for ANC then maybe?
Democracy doesn’t work when it comes to building infrastructure. That’s why authoritarian countries have excellent infra. If we need to build something, we need:
— One decision maker.
— No input from affected parties. This track runs behind your home? Too bad. You live in Fresno and you want a stop there? In your dreams!
Concerning the Marriott fee: “…while making its upfront prices appear lower.”. I’m sure we all know that Marriott agreed to NOT hide fees but put everything “upfront”. So is this another thing to hit them with now, or is the “Worker Protection Fee” exempt from the “everything upfront” agreement?
To be fair, if this is the business model of the the twice impeached, twice indicted, twice arrested, serial rapist xPOTUS, you can’t blame a dumb kid for hawking this on TikTok.
Democracy and infrastructure go together fine- look at Japan, or Switzerland, Germany, France or even Singapore (yes, it’s a democracy) if you want examples of democratic countries with good infrastructure.
It’s the citizen democracy in the US that’s the problem. Well-intended laws like environmental review requirements are being used to block projects that have little environmental impact and the large majority of citizens want. It’s a symptom of Americans feeling like they have the right to block anything they don’t like. It’s actually anti-democratic- rule by the minority by referendum and paperwork.