Superheat, I stand by my label of "profuse". "Eloquently" may have been a bit much~ perhaps "flowery" would be a more apropos descriptor?




I would hazard a guess that it was Not the party of Lincoln.

In my political discussions, when the person ends up saying "both sides are bad, we need term limits", what they're saying is "if we could only get rid of Nancy and Chuck, the democrats would control nothing and the GOP would hold the reigns of power unobstructed."

Brother Bad Order, I'm not saying what you seem to think I am, BUT, I don't want to get into politics here unless it's strictly train related. As an independent, I find myself voting AGAINST the candidates that I would least like to see in power, rather than FOR any of them. In this case I make sure to vote against those candidates that voted against the trainmen, and, like you, I think our brothers and sisters should also do that because it's in our self interest.

As a practical matter; we select officeholders from a predetermined slate, we don't choose them, but the real power over railroads is vested in the FRA (and the STB, but the FRA deals more with engineers and conductors. Unless the thesis of the late Gabriel Kolko that the ICC was in a state of "regulatory capture" by the regulated entities was true and devolved to the FRA/STB.

Looking over the past three FRA administrators; we see Amit Bose, an Ivy credentialed lawyer with tangential non-operating experience with railroads; Ron Batory, who had extensive railroad experience, both in operations and in management and Sarah Feinberg, who had a degree in politics and no railroad experience prior to appointment as Acting FRA administrator-and is now President of the NY TA.

Many railroad executives are the product of the same elite schools that produce political appointees.

The hard reality for the T&E crafts is that while most people in the world deal with a monopsonist (sole buyer) of their their services; creating asymmetric bargaining power; the situation is worse than normal for railroad operating crafts than for other occupations, because while their talents may be innate, their skills and proficiencies can only be gained through years of experience-and they don't translate to equivalent pay in other industries.

There's a deep reservoir of "industry specific human capital" which has also been described as "a mile deep, but an inch wide". As an accountant, I could (or could have, as I expect to retire from my current job) I could move around. My wife is an RN and every week our mailbox is filled with recruiting literature.

A little over 21 years ago, I accepted a position as a financial manager with a "sanitary processing company". My boss told me, my first week would be spent on the road with our service/delivery guys.

Their job was part pick-up, part delivery, part customer service and part sales. After three days of riding with a "regular", picking up dirty floor mats and greasy auto shop clothes; I got to spend the day with a "jumper" who was essentially a new employee on a call board without a regular trick.

Part of the job was becoming familiar with the route. Knowing the route meant an eight hour day. Not knowing it meant not knowing the shortcuts or even what door to go into-and the navigation, pre-GPS was cassette tape-and by the end of the day, the batteries were losing it and it was turnnnn attt mainnn streeeeet...

Friday I was back on the regular route and when I got back, my boss was waiting for me with a question "so, what did you learn". I told him, you ain't paying these guys nearly enough for the crap they put up with". The response was "perfect, the exact thing you were supposed to learn-we don't have a business without these guys-so always treat them with respect". This is why I think every manager/executive needs to spend time in the cab.

One other thing I learned there was a Harvard MBA didn't mean you were dealing with an upstanding citizen. Imagine my surprise years later seeing the COO of that now absorbed by Cintas company, one Mark Mangelsdorf on a cold case show, busted for murdering his friend in gruesomely violent manner befitting a Halloween slasher flick.

In short, if you think a party, platform or a politician is going to bat for you, you're wrong. They're in the party box, on the fifty yard line, enjoying an arugula salad.

I really have tried to stay away from the partisan part of this, but just remember who the one U. S. Senator is who has consistently stood with rail (and all other) labor for his entire career, someone whom most here would probably call a "commie", but is not, the Senator from the Green Mountain State who is not retiring at the end of this year. He has said more than once this year that he stands with the train crews in speeches.

Well, Mr Superheater, I mostly agree with you... much as I might like to have some say so about who runs the FRA, I don't.

Schmoes like me have only a choice about elected officials once in a while. In those cases, if I have to choose between two people that I don't much care for, I'll vote for the one with the best record on railroad labor. It doesn't mean that I like or trust this person, it just means I'm using my vote against the one with the worst record. In my state, that choice is pretty clear cut. I suspect it might also be in others.

You are missing the point. Politicians of all stripes say a lot of things that are designed to be pleasing to various conspicuous and cohesive consistencies. Mostly they say nothing of substance and pass noble-sounding, but largely incomplete bills.

When the Railroad Safety Act of 2008 was passed, it was 124 pages long. Just one part of Sec. 402 became the 52 pages of 49CFR Part 242. Just imagine the alienated morass of one of those 3,000 page omnibus or comprehensive bills.

When I think of politicians and rail; I'm always reminded of Connecticut Senator Dick (of stolen valor infamy) looking for a little camera time for "railroad safety" and almost turning his face time into a snuff film because he couldn't observe the simple instruction of where to stand. Maybe they think safety rules are like insider trading restrictions: only for little people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5tvRl7nUdE

It can be worse: Sometimes, their public policy prerogatives nakedly serve private interest in concealed ways.

In the late 1960s, Otis Elevator pushed for an increase in the minimum wage in New York state because it had begun to special to market automatic elevators and wanted an increase in demand for its services, by pricing out the old "elevator men" (Generally older men without options-so labor friendly, right?). Politicians weren't going say "look dudes, Otis will donate to my campaign if we help them sell new 'vators"-they'd give windy speeches about a "living wage" or some other slogan.

I see you're unfamiliar with similarly corrupt long term political squatters like Mitch McConnell.

I learned that railroading was a giant clown show over 20 years ago. I tried to get hired out after the CR split. I missed a NS test by about 10 minutes because then Yahoo maps couldn't find the strange location some 20 miles east of Binghamton (a country resort in the hills) and I wasn't familiar with the place being from out of town. I took the CSX test and watched the guy pick two people who had previous experience - with Penn Central over 25 years previous. That made no sense to me, PC was almost an entire different world and why would you pick guys that even if they did stay on would be retirement age that much sooner.

Then my one friend got hurt on CSX due to their faulty equipment and where Conrail would have taken care of him, CSX screwed him. Carbon monoxide poisoning, damn near died, due to exhaust leak in the company vehicle. Could not be around the smell again without headaches.

Then someone else I knew on NS also got screwed after he stepped on a rail he could not see in the snow, fell, and busted his knee pretty good. They blamed him for the safety mistake and fired him.

About that time I also heard horror stories of CP guys on the former D&H being worked 30 days straight because they were short of people. And there's a now retired former Conrail engineer I still talk to who told of because he was not quite the top of the seniority roster, he could never hold a good job for very long, someone else would bump him out of it. By good I mean a local out of his home terminal that typically worked a set number of hours in a day.

My interest in a railroad career pretty much left at that point. If they're having trouble finding people maybe they should run trains around the idea that crews are human beings, not cattle or slaves.

Today I received another lesson about the curious nature of the intererests of our lords and masters, courtesy of a CPE tax class. It seems there's a question about the ball hit by Aaron Judge for his 62nd home run. Keep in mind, this issue came up before with Bonds, McGwire and Sosa's big home runs, but the IRS never addressed it formally.

Is it a gift from the Yankees to the person who caught it and the Yankees owe a gift tax?

Is it taxable upon acquisition or upon sale?

If taxable on sale, is it eligible for (long term, if over a year) capital gains or is it a collectible

If the person gives the ball to Judge; does that trigger a taxable event to the fan AND a gift tax liability as well (worst of all worlds).

What would the consequences be if the fan donated the ball to the Hall of Fame, taxable income with deduction for charity (not good, no cash to pay the income tax bill).

Or "stepped up basis" in donation?

https://www.schwabcharitable.org/public/file/P-11779801

Could the person have disclaimed the ball by immediately throwing it back?

I used to enjoy this sort of theoretical argument; I now think its evidence that the ruling and chattering classes aren't only disconnected from the people that raise the pigs so they can arguable about the slaughter and "bringing home the bacon", but from reality itself.

I'm waiting to see somebody receive a steam locomotive in a testamentary bequest; now that would raise some interesting issues.

[quote="Bad Order"]Superheat, I stand by my label of "profuse". "Eloquently" may have been a bit much~ perhaps "flowery" would be a more apropos descriptor?

The word you are attempting to use in your thinly veiled passive aggression is "florid". We describe flora as "flowery" but language as florid.

It's not my fault you are not better read, perhaps you might begin with some rudimentary economics?

Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt is renowned for its understandability. I Pencil by Reed, a short monograph written in the format of a story book might be a less challenging work, and it doesn't even have to be read at all, since it is available as an audio download.

I tried to make this short and direct, as to avoid offending your tender sensibilities.

I also recommend Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell, and Free to Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman.

Superheat...yes, you are using flowery language...why, I don't know.

You take up space with your circumlocutory, garrulous monologues.

Why not give us the Readers Digest condensed version and just get to the point.

Do you talk like that in real life?

Who to, lmfao?

A machinist group I belong to has one member who writes just like you do. Why he feels the need to write 8 verbose paragraphs to explain the reason why 2+2=4, I don't know.

For all I know, you may actually making a point I agree with....but your writing style has me all "DRTL".... didn't read, too long.

I'm not sure how you are in a position to judge my writing, since you skipped over the correction that we use the adjective florid and not "flowery" in connection with complaints about perceived excesses in language.

To answer to your revealing incredulous inquiry:

Yes I talk like this in real life.

"Who to, lmfao?"

Well, a short list: my family, coworkers and others whose association I voluntarily seek and who are all erudite and literate.

Now what's more important is who I'm not addressing-people who are limited to dated internet acronyms preferred by teenage girls of the AOL era.

Do YOU talk like THAT in "real life" (you mean in person; digital communication is "real life")?

Yes, there are/were people, even in rail enthusiasm/history, who talk like that in real life. I've been privileged to meet some of them, and know/knew a few of them on a first-name basis.

Among them in the rail hobby: Lucius Beebe, Rogers E.M. Whittaker, David P. Morgan, George Drury, John White Jr., Bill Withuhn, and several authors.

Jim Boyd, by contrast, cut his teeth early in his career in radio--and if you read his writing, it showed.

The point to remember is that:
1) Writing, even when using voice dictation, allows the composer the time to think about what to say and find the "right" words for the occasion, a luxury not afforded to live speaking (where too many people have been taught by osmosis to pad out their thinking time with expletives, "you know," "like," etc.).
2) People with training in linguistics learn to adapt their speech quickly and readily to the environment. One has to speak differently to the president of a short line or Amtrak than they do to a crew member of the local train if they want things done, even if the objective is the same: Getting that car before you to a rail museum.

If life in the USA was as simple as choosing between good and bad, oh what as easy life it would be.

The reality is that we must choose between BAD and WORSE. Figuring out which is which can be difficult in the extreme - especially if you listen to 'campaign promises'; promises that the individual office is not able to bring to fruition of their own authority.

I can concur, having volunteered & dined with and shared an adjacent lock to Bill W, that he had an extensive vocabulary and could use it.

While I don't have a linguistics background; I have a degree in economics and like Bill Withuhn, an MBA (originally the degree was created by Dartmouth to create trained railroad accountants to meet Henry Carter Adams' incessant demands) in both degrees you learn that you have to be able to express abstract concepts in a way that is exact. It might be preferable to Bad Order to say "broke"; I will either say impecunious or impoverished, because there is a difference and it matters.

I was also an auditor; and audit reports demand detail, precision and completion. One has to remember audits can be litigated; so as a practical matter; reading final drafts like they are being addressed to a judge or jury is helpful.

Of course, I think arguing about the paint on somebody else's house is a way to divert attention from the structural deficiencies of one's own.