According to this contemporary article he thought it was too expensive and could result in inflation and higher taxes [1]
My take: Arguments never change in politics. I'll never understand why spending lots of money on military or company profits (aka the economy) is always prudent but improving the live of ordinary joe through quite cheap measures needs to be evaluated in great detail to not waste a single cent.
One of the really interesting things is how people can personally see the benefits but still repeat those arguments. I have some relatives who are classic Orange County Republicans. They personally remember when the air quality in Los Angeles was so bad that they couldn’t see their neighbors’ houses across the street, and they definitely were around for all of the people arguing that emissions laws were going to destroy California’s economy.
You can have these surreal conversations where they acknowledge that the opposite happened, but any further improvements will definitely destroy the economy. This is especially weird when it comes to fire prevention which is the actual biggest threat to property values where they live.
It's quite sad that people (including me obviously) everywhere tend to be very set in their ways because every once in a while we, as a society, achieve amazing things in some areas due to the circumstances being really bad or because the political machine is focusing elsewhere.
Not every problem can be solved this way (sometimes the 'big discussions' are really needed) but many smaller, more technical issues, can be attacked successfully if there is no immediate political gain.
Should be noted the 1970s were marred with economic turmoil and inflation shocks. This would have been essentially just before the 1973 oil crisis.
The United States in general and New York City in particular wasn't doing too hot in the 1970s. I think it's hard to understate quite how bad things were[1].
Well, I guess he was sorta right. Inflation in the 70’s averaged around 8% per year. A big chunk of it was energy prices starting with the Oil embargo.
Inflation last year wasn’t evenly distributed: it affected things like new cars and fuel especially badly so it affected middle class households more than poor people using transit who’d never been able to lock themselves into a gas-dependent lifestyle or afford inefficient vanity vehicles.
A surprising percentage of these arguments go like that where something is billed as uneconomical because it reduces waste, and the people pushing against it are backed the industries which benefit from that waste.
We shouldn’t be cavalier about inflation but we really have to keep in mind that pollution is often related to highly-profitable externalities which might be the most cheapest option because under true cost is being subsidized by everyone else (for example, reducing emissions has usually correlated with huge reductions in healthcare costs).
Food costs have increased dramatically for a number of people, so the idea that car-free people were largely unaffected doesn’t really play out. While you could blame a lot of this on externalities like an ‘inefficient’ food supply, or people just not being happy enough with beans and rice, the situation is a real challenge for lower income earners.
Also, dismissing cars as ‘vanity’ items is likely not to resonate broadly. While self-branding is a thing, some people just genuinely like the cars they can and aspire to buy. I love the inefficient cars I own, and the vast majority of people who know me have no idea or interest that I own them. If anything, vanity dictates humility in my circles. I also get negative responses on HN for owning ~500hp ICE cars (although my cumulative emissions are lower than ever due to reduced driving.)
> Food costs have increased dramatically for a number of people, so the idea that car-free people were largely unaffected doesn’t really play out.
This not a claim I made. Fuel costs are obviously going to affect most of the economy but note that I said “especially badly” — that’s because many Americans live in areas which were designed only for car travel, and if you live in one of those areas you don’t have a choice about buying a car when your current one dies because you can’t function without one. When cars are selling way above the previous market rates, that means your costs are either unaffected (driving a car with plenty of life left) or massively inflated (when the dealer is telling you it’ll be 18 months unless you’re paying 20% over).
This shows up in other areas but with different outcomes: for example, beef production is dependent on fuel costs. When that goes up, many people will switch to a different protein because there’s almost no cost to doing so. Same underlying problem, completely different level of impact.
> Also, dismissing cars as ‘vanity’ items is likely not to resonate broadly. While self-branding is a thing, some people just genuinely like the cars they can and aspire to buy.
I grew up in Southern California suburbs, you don’t need to explain car culture to me. If you note, however, my comment referred to “inefficient vanity vehicles”. If you really like having a sports car, that’s fine as long as you treat it like a hobby and can afford it (a friend of mine joked that he had a BMW M3 habit and should’ve saved money by switching to illegal drugs).
I was referring to the much larger group of people who make financial stretches to have a late model SUV or luxury sedan because that’s the image they’re aiming for, even if they’re leasing it to make the numbers work at all. If you remember over the summer when the local TV News couldn’t run enough stories about gas prices, notice how it was always some dude putting 20 gallons of premium into a huge truck or SUV. People who are actually poor don’t buy those because everything about them costs more than they can spend, which is why I mentioned that distinction.
I don't think you realize how many people who you'd consider "poor" drive a car including in the periphery of urban areas that are theoretically served by good transit but in practice almost every trip at the periphery comes with an additional bus transfer that adds a ton of time and is a huge drag on your employment prospects, for example the I95 area around Boston or the I495 area around DC.
If you are starting from scratch a personal car is literally the 3rd thing you seek out (shelter and employment are tied for #1) because of the massive freedom it affords you to be more selective in your choices of shelter and employment letting you "level up" from there.
These people who are just on/over the cusp of the transition between those two living standards got kneecapped by inflation (mostly food/fuel initially and then kicked while down by the rent a little later) way harder than the middle class who's got more room to trim fat.
Oh, I’m aware of that - but how many of those people are driving the gas guzzlers I mentioned? Paying a premium for a large vehicle which costs more to operate is a middle class habit.
"Nixon won by just 1 percent of the popular vote. “Once in office he escalated the war into Laos and Cambodia, with the loss of an additional 22,000 American lives, before finally settling for a peace agreement in 1973 that was within grasp in 1968,” says the BBC."
The South didn't need any help walking away from a peace deal in '68. Hell, they walked away from the peace deal in '72 and only signed because Nixon told them the US was leaving regardless.
And there was no peace deal in '68 with the North. The North wasn't even interested in negotiating until a couple years after Nixon got into office.
And funny how Nixon gets blamed for "prolonging" a war he never started. How about blame JFK and LBJ for starting and escalating it into a massive conflict?
Perhaps it's easier to believe this about Nixon given his other documented crimes. Or you can just browse the transcripts here to get an idea of what he was willing to do and what his motivations were for making decisions. https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/watergate-trial-tapes
> Nixon did tell the South that he could get them a better deal if they waited until after the election
So whether a more immediate peace deal was likely or not, he made an effort to postpone it. And he had specific personal reasons for wanting it postponed.
Given the other actions he took for personal gain, why should we believe this was any different?
But at this point, we're way outside HN boundaries. So I'll leave it alone.
While that's true for some bills, it's a strange comment on an article showing how the "Clean Water Act" has apparently been wildly successful cleaning up waterways around New York and causing a huge improvement in the health of these ecosystems and a massive resurgence in marine life...
Not sure what displeased him about this law, but last I checked, he was one of the most environment-minded US presidents, famously creating the Environment Protection Agency ?
What’s the big deal about 10 feet of poop in the East River? How many chemical workers should lose their livelihood for some oysters? Coastal elites eat oysters, real men eat steak.
