Is Traffic Congestion Growing Three Times As Fast As Economy? 187
cartechboy writes "Math watch time: For many traffic analysts, INRIX is considered the gold-standard. This week the company says traffic congestion surged in 2013 and grew over three times as fast as the American economy. The bad news: If true, this reverses two consecutive years of traffic declines with a six percent increase in 2013. (GDP, by comparison, grew 1.9 percent last year.) The analysts then theorize links between economic growth and traffic congestion, which makes sense on the surface. (As the economy improves, more jobs are created, so more commuters on the roads) But INRIX's theory creates as many questions as it answers. For example, the U.S. GDP has been steadily growing since 2009. So why did congestion decline in 2011 and 2012?"
Re:Work from home (Score:5, Interesting)
companies are starting to get smart and letting their employees work from home.
Yes. Why should I hire someone to commute from across town, when I can reduce congestion and hire someone to work from their home in Bangalore.
It's true -- if it's easy to do your job from home because you don't need regular interaction with your coworkers, it's probably also easy to offshore it.
Re:Obama (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually... remember his "Shovel Ready projects"? How much you want to bet road construction is up this year due to those stimulus programs? I know the main clover leaf near me is getting torn up this year due to stimulus so at least that bit is Obamas fault. :-)
Ok, what do I win?
Re:Traffic? (Score:5, Interesting)
So why did congestion decline in 2011 and 2012?
Because the DOW doesn't determine if people are driving to work, unemployment does. One follows the other. The economy isn't a unified thing, and the rich can be making loads of money while the rest of don't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... [wikipedia.org]
Interestingly, the last time we had a "jobless recovery" of significant size was around 1935, during the Great Depression... which was caused by a bunch of bankers... including Goldman... Sachs...
Hey, am I the only one seeing a pattern here?
Re:GDP and employment (Score:5, Interesting)
No it says you don't understand the tax code. I see you learned the phrase "double taxation" from econ 101 which is where I first heard about it but you seemed to have missed that they willingly pay that double taxation for the priveledge of limited liability. They have the option to avoid the double taxation, but they never seem to take it. Apparently that option is more than worth the double taxation since the free market chooses it over and over again.
The company makes a lot of money and pays the corporate tax rate on those profits, you have this correct. These taxes that they pay however are on their _profits_. Profits are money you earn _after_ you pay your employees, specifically the employee called the CEO who takes a salary of millions of dollars per year. This is the whole point of my argument, if the top income tax was 90% they would not pay the CEO millions, but instead would either reinvest that money back into the company (and not pay tax because business investment is tax deductable) or they would pay it out to the shareholders as dividends (who would then pay the 15% capital gains tax on it). This second option (paying dividends) is what they are supposed to be doing with that money instead of giving it to the CEO, the shareholders own the company, so why shouldn't they get that money. If the CEO really is such a brilliant leader of the company, he would be more than happy to take his pay as stock and let the increased dividends be his pay.
Once again another pro-corporate, pro 1% anaonymous coward trying to muddy the waters. Go back and tell your pay masters we aren't buying your bullshit anymore and they will have to feed you some new proapaganda to try out on the masses.
-AndrewBuck