the cost of doing quotes for all those fake hotmail accounts that people are explaining above?:)
Before Comdex exploded, conventioneers were complaining that the casinos were gouging them on room rates, which were higher than other times of year.
No, they weren't;t coughing. Aside from the fact that *every* hotel charges by demand for that day/week, in this case, the casinos were *not* trying to get higher room rates for them. Rather, they were trying to keep those folks away, as they (as a group) neither gambled nor tipped. Gamblers and repeat customers could get rooms at a much lower rate. (but who would want to come to Vegas while that was going on? It was the only time of year we had traffic congestion . ..)
It's a matter of getting each to pay its own way. They're *quite* happy to take a high-about customer, as long as premiums cover average losses.
Insurance compares (in general) don't actually make their money by charging more premiums the the claims cost, although they make a tiny bit there (something like 1 of premium,iirc).
Rather, they make their profits from having use of the money between pay-i and pay-out--and do quite nicely from investing this way.
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you want legal advice, pay my retainer first.
State laws vary significantly as to what constitutes DUI (or what DUI is called, for that matter).
In some states, operation of the vehicle is required, in others "dominion and control" (being in the driver's seat [or even the vehicle] with he keys is sufficient. Nevada and California used to be split on whether the vehicle has to move (although a couple of decades later and not practicing in that area, I forget which is which).
States also vary on what you have to be "driving" to be charged. I *think* a bicycle qualifies everywhere, but I've never had a reason to look. In some states, a horse qualifies, while in others it does not. (leaving aside the level of intoxication it takes to get noticed on the horse!).
I think some states still allow the use of of a field breathalyzer as evidence; Nevada no longer does (although refusing it can get your license revoked). There is a two-hour clock in Nevada; at two hours and a minute, it is too late to draw blood (which requires a warrant!).
The catch, of course, being that you have to deal with a walmart parking lot, go *into* a walmart, deal with a walmart parking lot again, and escape that parking lot . . .
At least you go to a separate counter than the occupationally challenged cashiers, or the long wait at "customer service" behind people trying to "return" assorted stuff from their cabinet, or that they've found, or . . .
The answer is in General Equilibrium, rather than limiting one's approach to Demand Side (i.e., Keynesian) or Supply Side thinking.
In competition, firms keep producing while marginal cost (the cost o making the next unit) is less than the marginal revenue (increased revenue from another unit [which is price in a purely competitive market, and somewhat less than price]).
Tax is one of the costs of production, as it is based on accounting profits. Produce and sell another unit, and it's a bit more tax.
If you decrease the "price" of any "input", including tax, the marginal cost of the next unit decreases by that amount--and suddenly it makes sense to produce more.
"Making sense to produce more" can be translated as "demand for all other inputs increases". The firm now wants more capital, and more labor.
This increased demand will increase both the price (i.e., wage) *and* the quantity demanded (number of workers or hours used) .
It has nothing to do with "corporations having more money". It all comes down to the changed costs of production. That is, it's not the total tax payed by the company, but rather what happens in producing the next unit that matters.
If a company simply received a lump sum grant of the same amount as its taxes go down, the behavior would be quite different, and production would not change, and therefore wages and hours would not change, etc.
All the interesting stuff in Economics happens at the margin:)
I'm a displaced Economics professor, not a corporate finance type, but, yes, there's a well known explanation: the "Efficiency Wage Hypothesis".
This hypothesis suggests that even in a fully competitive market, it could make sense to pay employees above the market wage, as this would
a) essentially give first pick of the better workers to that company
b) increase the cost to an employee of getting fired for "shirking", and improve output by the increased effort,
and, possibly most important at the moment,
c) reduce turnover and the training costs involved.
Unemployment has certainly dropped significantly, and by more than the "official" rate. (the regular rate doesn't make a lot of sense, anyway, if structural changes are happening, as it ignores those who have given up. Use U-4 or U-6 instead).
At the same time, we are seeing "normal" economic growth of 3% for the first time in a decade.
Put these together, and it means more workers being hired--including hiring them away. So a bonus, especially if repeated, makes staying put instead of jumping jobs make sense--and the bonus costs the company less than training new workers.
Adding fuel to this fire, the reduced tax rate is a reduced cost of doing business, meaning that the optimal level of production increases for a firm--meaning even more hiring/labor demand.
Whether firms like it or not, all of these factors mean the cost of labor *will* go up, and those that don't pay higher wages are going to lose workers (and therefore production).
Bonuses and raises *before* losing workers makes sense, and cost less than finding and training new workers.
It doesn't take any benevolent motive or political alignment to explain the firm behavior, just the old profit motive (aka "greed")
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons
From Article I, section 2.
For this reason, the USSC struck down the income tax. as a direct tax.
Subsequently, the the XVIth amendment created an *exception* to this limit, not a reversal. Save for the income tax, direct taxes remain banned without apportionment.
No, you missed everything. That is simply what the law is right now, despite your attempt to impose your own structure on it.
>but your word game is about something different than what I said.
My "word game" is explaining that what you wrote just isn't the issue here, but rather a common misconception.
Texas cannot pass a tax on a New York Merchant.
But no such tax is involved when Texas imposes a use tax on a Texan for a purchase from a New York merchant. The issue is that it can only look to the Texan, not the yorker.
(Actually, at *some* level of sales, the yorker would have sufficient contacts with Texas that Texas could assert jurisdiction under International Shoe and its progeny, but that would only make money for lawyers, and the costs of litigating these would drive what happened).
>Congress is welcome to pass a law requiring states who do collect a sales or use tax to require >reciprocal reporting with other states that also require it,
There are issues about mandating the state participation. Again, states probably have to opt in
>but you're going to need some very new rulings from the Court before you manage to put >requirements on people in states like Oregon that have neither of those things.
No, not if you are actually familiar with the past rulings. USSC has made it clear that they are interpreting in the absence of legislation, no mandating. This is properly Congress' domain, not the courts. However, when Congress doesn't act, the courts still have to handle disputes.
As I wrote, it would be difficult to force states in, but Congress can also regulate the shipments themselves if it comes to it. Even if it can't force a state in (that could go either way at the USSC), it can impose requirements on the shippers.
And as a practical matter, states without sales taxes have nothing to collect, so might want not to opt in (again, assuming their Constitutional issue is decided in their favor), so as to give their merchants an edge in other states. For better or worse (and I'd argue worse), Congress has been quite effective in using road construction and other issues to trample on state prerogatives in the past (55,.08, and so forth). Or different postal rates for states that opt in. Or (more practically) regulating the large sites that most sellers use to get found. Or an excise tax on the act of shipping (rather than the goods themselves) out of that state. Or . . .
>Sales by zip code will not work, because zip codes do not follow municipal lines.
That's just too bad.
Zip code already exists in all transactions.
The five digit sips can be changed, or the localities or states can solve the division for the zip code.
Using zip is the least burdensome way to deal with distribution, and those jurisdictions unwilling to accept that can just not opt in and try to collect the tax themselves . . .
I am a lawyer, but this isn't legal advice. I charge for that.
No, it isn't comparable to that at all.
All or nearly all states have a "use tax" in the same amount as their "sales tax." Almost everywhere, both of these taxes are on on the purchaser, not the seller. In the sales tax case, the vendor is required to collect that tax on the buyer for the state and hold it in trust. (The only exception I know is California, for which the tax is on the seller. The only practical difference is if the merchant late files bankruptcy, making California's dischargeable after a time if the returns were filed).
Anyway, the taxes already exist, and are on the buyer, not the seller. The questions is not whether the tax exists, but whether the seller can be compelled to collect the taxes on behalf of fifty states, a few territories, and the zillions of subdivisions.
If every city could require its own tax return, it would be so burdensome as to take out every seller other than amazon (and maybe walmart). In fact, the compliance costs would exceed the taxes for most sellers. (sidenote: prior to last month's changes, compliance cost for the US corporate tax were twice the revenue raised).
Now, at some level of sales volume, the burden becomes relatively small compared to the profits, and it stops being unreasonable, at least in principle.
Note that the prior law is *NOT* that the taxes cannot be assessed, or even that states can't require them, but rather that in the absence of Congressional action, the states can only look to their residents, not the out of state vendors.
I really don't expect that to change (in fact, it is really hard to argue the position that Wyoming can constitutionally impose an obligation on the Wyoming vendor).
Rather, there will be some rulings reached along the way to a similar result, which serve to clarify that this is Congress' job.
Twenty years ago, the sane thing to do was leave the infant internet alone and see what happened; maybe these small vendors would change the world or something.
Today, the sane Congressional solution would be to require a single monthly report and payment, with the report broken down by zip code. (and for those jurisdictions that have multiple rates within a zip code, that's just too bad. Get your act together).
To be clear, states would have to opt in to this federal program (but those that didn't would be stuck trying to collect from their own residents).
A threshold on sales for having to file would be appropriate. Given that, as the world has worked out, most sales of very small merchants occur through amazon, eBay, etc., tacking this on to their system would be a minimal cost (in fact, they could take care of it entirely, leaving no burden on the seller).
For that matter, there's not a compelling reason not to simply apply this to *all* sales for such aggregators that collect the funds; it would even be simpler.
The rise of the parliament as legislating came from the demands of the English parliament that the king address their grievances before awarding revenue. In time this power of the purse became supreme. It was essentially the case that the king was asking those who would be taxed for payments in excess of their feudal obligations.
It really wasn't so much land *ownership* as the *taxes* from it that led to this. I think even fairly early English usage enfranchised large personal property tax payers, such as merchants.
This system spread to most/all former English possessions, such as the US. Universal franchise is a fairly modern notion.
One of my own pet schemes is to expand the constitutional guarantee of a republican form of state government such that each state must have a legislative chamber in which *only* net taxpayers vote (and, yes, there's a lot of room to quibble about who that is [personally, I wouldn't include a government salary as a transfer to be deducted]), repeal the idiotic 17th amendment (the worst mistake in the history of the republic, and the proximate cause of the modern centralization of power), and require that the US senators be appointed by the tax-paying chamber of the state legislature--to the point that the Senate would refuse to seat any person who had been chosen in a shadow election and rubber-stamped by that house.
>You know what we should do to prevent terrorism? >Stop pissing off the terrorists.
This is why Neville Chamberlain received the Nobel Peace Prize for preventing a second Great War. A little rough on Poland but that was one of England's business . . .
I've lived hear nearly 30 yards, and the monorail was a stupid idea from the start.
The *only* way it would have or ever will make sense is if it went to the airport. The taxi companies have raised a ruckus whenever that has been suggested.
The stupid thing goes to the convention center and half a dozen participating hotels; it is nothing more than an attempt to lockin conventioneers to that set of hotels. Any expansion will just be more of the same.
Now, if you built something that went to the airport, the length of the strip, and downtown, it would be useful. But that's just not in the cards.
AFAIK, the only thing its ever done right is to escrow demolition funds when it was first built.
And now similar geniuses want to build a high speed train from Vegas to . . . Victorville. OK, other dumb ends have been proposed, but anything other than San Diego, LA, or *maybe* someplace in Orange county is back to just plain dumb. LA or San Diego without stops could actually make sense, as a 200mph run would take less time than dealing with two airports. But drive 100 miles to Victorville to catch a train to vegas??? Or take a train from vegas and, what, walk to LA
>You conveniently left out the 'if that speed is lower than the posted speed limit' part.
No, I didn't.
"Slower traffic keep right" has always been the law at the same level as a posted speed. I don't think that this law has that as a defense, either. (and, let's face it, the legislature is well aware that the de facto speed limit has long been 75 on in town freeways and 85 on the interstate).
Quite seriously, *most* vehicles are going 75 (not 74, not 77) on the freeway during normal periods here, save for out of staters and DUIs and illegals hoping not to be noticed for speeding in the right lane.
I really don't know whether NHP is refraining from issuing tickets to those going exactly the posted speed (something rarely ordered here, anyway), but to deal with a legalist position like that, I suppose he could issue the ticket for *both* 66 in a 65 and obstructing . . .
And for those pontificating about the "passing lane"--note that that is *NOT* traffic law thorough the entire US. In some state (e.g., , most of the midwest, I believe) the left lane is for passing, while in others (most or all of the southwest) it is a traffic lane, subject to slower traffic keep right.
>1) get left lane laggards to drive properly and not slow down faster traffic
With new legislation effective las October 1, the Nevada Highway Patrol is now issuing "obstruction of traffic" tickets to cars in the left lane that "know or reasonably should know" that their slow speed is obstructing traffic.
the key is "nominal"--a 2x4, for example, is the size of the wood *before* cutting; no american wood sizing is the full stated length.
I would not be surprised at all to find that that 1200x2400 was *exactly* the same size as the board it "replaced", or at least that the shipped sizes within the accepted tolerances of the old size.
(In fact, I'd be mildly surprised if it wasn't within the old tolerance range). hawk
Slashdot Mirror
the cost of doing quotes for all those fake hotmail accounts that people are explaining above? :)
Before Comdex exploded, conventioneers were complaining that the casinos were gouging them on room rates, which were higher than other times of year.
No, they weren't;t coughing. Aside from the fact that *every* hotel charges by demand for that day/week, in this case, the casinos were *not* trying to get higher room rates for them. Rather, they were trying to keep those folks away, as they (as a group) neither gambled nor tipped. Gamblers and repeat customers could get rooms at a much lower rate. (but who would want to come to Vegas while that was going on? It was the only time of year we had traffic congestion . . .)
hawk
close, but not quite.
It's a matter of getting each to pay its own way. They're *quite* happy to take a high-about customer, as long as premiums cover average losses.
Insurance compares (in general) don't actually make their money by charging more premiums the the claims cost, although they make a tiny bit there (something like 1 of premium,iirc).
Rather, they make their profits from having use of the money between pay-i and pay-out--and do quite nicely from investing this way.
hawk
Fourth books bolted onto trilogies (as opposed to fourth books in a series) are rarely, if ever, a good idea.
*cough*asimov*cough*cash-in*cough*
hawk
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you want legal advice, pay my retainer first.
State laws vary significantly as to what constitutes DUI (or what DUI is called, for that matter).
In some states, operation of the vehicle is required, in others "dominion and control" (being in the driver's seat [or even the vehicle] with he keys is sufficient. Nevada and California used to be split on whether the vehicle has to move (although a couple of decades later and not practicing in that area, I forget which is which).
States also vary on what you have to be "driving" to be charged. I *think* a bicycle qualifies everywhere, but I've never had a reason to look. In some states, a horse qualifies, while in others it does not. (leaving aside the level of intoxication it takes to get noticed on the horse!).
I think some states still allow the use of of a field breathalyzer as evidence; Nevada no longer does (although refusing it can get your license revoked). There is a two-hour clock in Nevada; at two hours and a minute, it is too late to draw blood (which requires a warrant!).
hawk, esq.
Texas *had* the right to split when it was admitted.
After it seceded, it was militarily conquered and is a subject territory, which happens to have been admitted.
hawk
A timeline to switch over before the first successful prototypes been demonstrated . . .
hawk
The catch, of course, being that you have to deal with a walmart parking lot, go *into* a walmart, deal with a walmart parking lot again, and escape that parking lot . . .
At least you go to a separate counter than the occupationally challenged cashiers, or the long wait at "customer service" behind people trying to "return" assorted stuff from their cabinet, or that they've found, or . . .
hawk
Why?
The answer is in General Equilibrium, rather than limiting one's approach to Demand Side (i.e., Keynesian) or Supply Side thinking.
In competition, firms keep producing while marginal cost (the cost o making the next unit) is less than the marginal revenue (increased revenue from another unit [which is price in a purely competitive market, and somewhat less than price]).
Tax is one of the costs of production, as it is based on accounting profits. Produce and sell another unit, and it's a bit more tax.
If you decrease the "price" of any "input", including tax, the marginal cost of the next unit decreases by that amount--and suddenly it makes sense to produce more.
"Making sense to produce more" can be translated as "demand for all other inputs increases". The firm now wants more capital, and more labor.
This increased demand will increase both the price (i.e., wage) *and* the quantity demanded (number of workers or hours used) .
It has nothing to do with "corporations having more money". It all comes down to the changed costs of production. That is, it's not the total tax payed by the company, but rather what happens in producing the next unit that matters.
If a company simply received a lump sum grant of the same amount as its taxes go down, the behavior would be quite different, and production would not change, and therefore wages and hours would not change, etc.
All the interesting stuff in Economics happens at the margin :)
doc hawk
I'm a displaced Economics professor, not a corporate finance type, but, yes, there's a well known explanation: the "Efficiency Wage Hypothesis".
This hypothesis suggests that even in a fully competitive market, it could make sense to pay employees above the market wage, as this would
a) essentially give first pick of the better workers to that company
b) increase the cost to an employee of getting fired for "shirking", and improve output by the increased effort,
and, possibly most important at the moment,
c) reduce turnover and the training costs involved.
Unemployment has certainly dropped significantly, and by more than the "official" rate. (the regular rate doesn't make a lot of sense, anyway, if structural changes are happening, as it ignores those who have given up. Use U-4 or U-6 instead).
At the same time, we are seeing "normal" economic growth of 3% for the first time in a decade.
Put these together, and it means more workers being hired--including hiring them away. So a bonus, especially if repeated, makes staying put instead of jumping jobs make sense--and the bonus costs the company less than training new workers.
Adding fuel to this fire, the reduced tax rate is a reduced cost of doing business, meaning that the optimal level of production increases for a firm--meaning even more hiring/labor demand.
Whether firms like it or not, all of these factors mean the cost of labor *will* go up, and those that don't pay higher wages are going to lose workers (and therefore production).
Bonuses and raises *before* losing workers makes sense, and cost less than finding and training new workers.
It doesn't take any benevolent motive or political alignment to explain the firm behavior, just the old profit motive (aka "greed")
doc hawk
Why, buying at this stage of the moon would be simple lunacy. Lunacy, I say! :)
hawk
yep. needed because it *is* a direct tax.
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons
From Article I, section 2.
For this reason, the USSC struck down the income tax. as a direct tax.
Subsequently, the the XVIth amendment created an *exception* to this limit, not a reversal. Save for the income tax, direct taxes remain banned without apportionment.
hawk
> That isn't self-consistent.
No, you missed everything. That is simply what the law is right now, despite your attempt to impose your own structure on it.
>but your word game is about something different than what I said.
My "word game" is explaining that what you wrote just isn't the issue here, but rather a common misconception.
Texas cannot pass a tax on a New York Merchant.
But no such tax is involved when Texas imposes a use tax on a Texan for a purchase from a New York merchant. The issue is that it can only look to the Texan, not the yorker.
(Actually, at *some* level of sales, the yorker would have sufficient contacts with Texas that Texas could assert jurisdiction under International Shoe and its progeny, but that would only make money for lawyers, and the costs of litigating these would drive what happened).
>Congress is welcome to pass a law requiring states who do collect a sales or use tax to require
>reciprocal reporting with other states that also require it,
There are issues about mandating the state participation. Again, states probably have to opt in
>but you're going to need some very new rulings from the Court before you manage to put
>requirements on people in states like Oregon that have neither of those things.
No, not if you are actually familiar with the past rulings. USSC has made it clear that they are interpreting in the absence of legislation, no mandating. This is properly Congress' domain, not the courts. However, when Congress doesn't act, the courts still have to handle disputes.
As I wrote, it would be difficult to force states in, but Congress can also regulate the shipments themselves if it comes to it. Even if it can't force a state in (that could go either way at the USSC), it can impose requirements on the shippers.
And as a practical matter, states without sales taxes have nothing to collect, so might want not to opt in (again, assuming their Constitutional issue is decided in their favor), so as to give their merchants an edge in other states. For better or worse (and I'd argue worse), Congress has been quite effective in using road construction and other issues to trample on state prerogatives in the past (55, .08, and so forth). Or different postal rates for states that opt in. Or (more practically) regulating the large sites that most sellers use to get found. Or an excise tax on the act of shipping (rather than the goods themselves) out of that state. Or . . .
But in the end, this is for Congress.
"Wait a minute--that's not the cheese leaking; it's gear oil!" :)
When I was a small child in the 70s, my parents had me call POP-CORN to get the time.
The lady told me the time, and I of course replied with "thank you."
After they finished laughing, my parents explained that "she" was a recording . . .
hawk
>Sales by zip code will not work, because zip codes do not follow municipal lines.
That's just too bad.
Zip code already exists in all transactions.
The five digit sips can be changed, or the localities or states can solve the division for the zip code.
Using zip is the least burdensome way to deal with distribution, and those jurisdictions unwilling to accept that can just not opt in and try to collect the tax themselves . . .
hawk
That would require a constitutional amendment for the same reason as the income tax did: its a direct federal tax not allocated by population.
hawk, esq.
I am a lawyer, but this isn't legal advice. I charge for that.
No, it isn't comparable to that at all.
All or nearly all states have a "use tax" in the same amount as their "sales tax." Almost everywhere, both of these taxes are on on the purchaser, not the seller. In the sales tax case, the vendor is required to collect that tax on the buyer for the state and hold it in trust. (The only exception I know is California, for which the tax is on the seller. The only practical difference is if the merchant late files bankruptcy, making California's dischargeable after a time if the returns were filed).
Anyway, the taxes already exist, and are on the buyer, not the seller. The questions is not whether the tax exists, but whether the seller can be compelled to collect the taxes on behalf of fifty states, a few territories, and the zillions of subdivisions.
If every city could require its own tax return, it would be so burdensome as to take out every seller other than amazon (and maybe walmart). In fact, the compliance costs would exceed the taxes for most sellers. (sidenote: prior to last month's changes, compliance cost for the US corporate tax were twice the revenue raised).
Now, at some level of sales volume, the burden becomes relatively small compared to the profits, and it stops being unreasonable, at least in principle.
Note that the prior law is *NOT* that the taxes cannot be assessed, or even that states can't require them, but rather that in the absence of Congressional action, the states can only look to their residents, not the out of state vendors.
I really don't expect that to change (in fact, it is really hard to argue the position that Wyoming can constitutionally impose an obligation on the Wyoming vendor).
Rather, there will be some rulings reached along the way to a similar result, which serve to clarify that this is Congress' job.
Twenty years ago, the sane thing to do was leave the infant internet alone and see what happened; maybe these small vendors would change the world or something.
Today, the sane Congressional solution would be to require a single monthly report and payment, with the report broken down by zip code. (and for those jurisdictions that have multiple rates within a zip code, that's just too bad. Get your act together).
To be clear, states would have to opt in to this federal program (but those that didn't would be stuck trying to collect from their own residents).
A threshold on sales for having to file would be appropriate. Given that, as the world has worked out, most sales of very small merchants occur through amazon, eBay, etc., tacking this on to their system would be a minimal cost (in fact, they could take care of it entirely, leaving no burden on the seller).
For that matter, there's not a compelling reason not to simply apply this to *all* sales for such aggregators that collect the funds; it would even be simpler.
hawk
Nevada actually has a None of the Above choice for all statewide offices, including presidential electors.
unfortunately, it does't actually mean anything, and is just a null vote. I"d *love* to have it force a new election banning the current candidates.
In practice, it and the third parties tend to pick up a larger combined share than the margin of victory.
That really came, though, as a taxation issue.
The rise of the parliament as legislating came from the demands of the English parliament that the king address their grievances before awarding revenue. In time this power of the purse became supreme. It was essentially the case that the king was asking those who would be taxed for payments in excess of their feudal obligations.
It really wasn't so much land *ownership* as the *taxes* from it that led to this. I think even fairly early English usage enfranchised large personal property tax payers, such as merchants.
This system spread to most/all former English possessions, such as the US.
Universal franchise is a fairly modern notion.
One of my own pet schemes is to expand the constitutional guarantee of a republican form of state government such that each state must have a legislative chamber in which *only* net taxpayers vote (and, yes, there's a lot of room to quibble about who that is [personally, I wouldn't include a government salary as a transfer to be deducted]), repeal the idiotic 17th amendment (the worst mistake in the history of the republic, and the proximate cause of the modern centralization of power), and require that the US senators be appointed by the tax-paying chamber of the state legislature--to the point that the Senate would refuse to seat any person who had been chosen in a shadow election and rubber-stamped by that house.
hawk, not a small-d democrat
>You know what we should do to prevent terrorism?
>Stop pissing off the terrorists.
This is why Neville Chamberlain received the Nobel Peace Prize for preventing a second Great War. A little rough on Poland but that was one of England's business . . .
hawk
those could also describe the number of stops. . . :)
hawk
I've lived hear nearly 30 yards, and the monorail was a stupid idea from the start.
The *only* way it would have or ever will make sense is if it went to the airport. The taxi companies have raised a ruckus whenever that has been suggested.
The stupid thing goes to the convention center and half a dozen participating hotels; it is nothing more than an attempt to lockin conventioneers to that set of hotels. Any expansion will just be more of the same.
Now, if you built something that went to the airport, the length of the strip, and downtown, it would be useful. But that's just not in the cards.
AFAIK, the only thing its ever done right is to escrow demolition funds when it was first built.
And now similar geniuses want to build a high speed train from Vegas to . . . Victorville. OK, other dumb ends have been proposed, but anything other than San Diego, LA, or *maybe* someplace in Orange county is back to just plain dumb. LA or San Diego without stops could actually make sense, as a 200mph run would take less time than dealing with two airports. But drive 100 miles to Victorville to catch a train to vegas??? Or take a train from vegas and, what, walk to LA
hawk
>You conveniently left out the 'if that speed is lower than the posted speed limit' part.
No, I didn't.
"Slower traffic keep right" has always been the law at the same level as a posted speed. I don't think that this law has that as a defense, either. (and, let's face it, the legislature is well aware that the de facto speed limit has long been 75 on in town freeways and 85 on the interstate).
Quite seriously, *most* vehicles are going 75 (not 74, not 77) on the freeway during normal periods here, save for out of staters and DUIs and illegals hoping not to be noticed for speeding in the right lane.
I really don't know whether NHP is refraining from issuing tickets to those going exactly the posted speed (something rarely ordered here, anyway), but to deal with a legalist position like that, I suppose he could issue the ticket for *both* 66 in a 65 and obstructing . . .
And for those pontificating about the "passing lane"--note that that is *NOT* traffic law thorough the entire US. In some state (e.g., , most of the midwest, I believe) the left lane is for passing, while in others (most or all of the southwest) it is a traffic lane, subject to slower traffic keep right.
hawk
>1) get left lane laggards to drive properly and not slow down faster traffic
With new legislation effective las October 1, the Nevada Highway Patrol is now issuing "obstruction of traffic" tickets to cars in the left lane that "know or reasonably should know" that their slow speed is obstructing traffic.
hawk
the key is "nominal"--a 2x4, for example, is the size of the wood *before* cutting; no american wood sizing is the full stated length.
I would not be surprised at all to find that that 1200x2400 was *exactly* the same size as the board it "replaced", or at least that the shipped sizes within the accepted tolerances of the old size.
(In fact, I'd be mildly surprised if it wasn't within the old tolerance range).
hawk