Look At It This Way (#LAITW)

It’s all about choices. It’s being able to rationally weigh alternatives and pick the ones most helpful to the most people. Individuals can have a hard time doing this. Governments have a very hard time doing this.

For instance, what could California use most: 1. More airplanes that can scoop water and fight fires? 2. Desalination plants for freshwater? 3. Another way to get between LA and San Fran that doesn’t cost any less and doesn’t save any time (high-speed rail)?

#3 has cost California $11 billion so far, with not much to show for it. That same $11 billion could have bought 37 Super Scoopers (pictured) at $37 million a piece AND 25 desalination plants at $100 million a piece AND had about $7 billion left over.

Reminds me of some environmental horse crap in terms of clean air. When no medical evidence suggest harm below a certain level of exposure, the enviros say, “well if that’s safe, then we better keep it under 1/10th or 1/100th that exposure.” Problem is, the difference between meeting the real safe exposure level and the really-really-safe levels involves beaucoups bucks. Money that could have, and should have, been spent solving other real problems.