Bullet boondoggle?
Both the numbers used to sell the project to voters and the current estimates are pure fantasy. California’s high-speed rail system is being increasingly advertised as an environmental project, not a transportation system, because it can’t come close to making its numbers.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration will keep spending on the bullet train until we stop it. Where is the ballot initiative to kill this boondoggle?
William Bradshaw
San Diego
A critic of the project, William Grindley, states that the bullet train will not break even. You would have to own a lot of stock in the oil companies to believe that one.
According to an article in the May 6 Times, California welcomed 251 million visitors in 2014. Tens of millions of those visitors came from Europe, Japan and China, where they already have bullet trains.
Do these tourists really want to fight California traffic that seems to worsen every year? Or would they rather ride in style to see Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Francisco?
Tourists would not need to rent a car to see Disneyland, take in a Lakers game or see the Golden Gate Bridge. The train would take them right there without any hassle, and Californians would not have to contend with millions of tourists clogging our roads.
Howard Morris
Rancho Cucamonga
This article, although comprehensive, ignored the elephant in the room.
Any accountant can tell you that operating profit is not net profit. For the latter figure, deductions are made for interest, depreciation, amortization and taxes, if any.
The rail system’s business plan projects that in 15 years, there will be an annual operating profit of $700 million. But interest starts accruing on borrowed money now, and it is not insignificant.
The first estimated cost of the project was $68 billion. There have been estimates of $100 billion and more. For sake of argument, let’s assume a cost of completion of $80 billion. If somehow subsidies and government contributions came to $30 billion, loans of $50 billion would be required for the balance.
At a rate of 2.5%, annual interest on the loan would be $1.25 billion. If the interest rate was 4%, every cent of revenue would be required to pay for it.
Where do the planners intend to get the funds for that expense?
Jim Lewis
Los Angeles exam and met the person next to me who had more than 20 years of experience, including as general counsel to one of the big TV networks. He had to retake the entire exam because he had moved to the business side at the network and had not “practiced” within the last five years.
In the age of the Internet, law increasingly transcends state and even national borders, so it is time we update the admission process to reflect the realities of our time.
Bennet Kelley
Santa Monica
Chemerinsky’s argument for a one-size-fits-all approach to bar exams tries to “indumbnify” California’s Bar by complaining that the pass rate is notoriously low.
Well, gee, maybe it’s because California is a holdout for high standards. Maybe we don’t want to dumb down our ethical standards for lawyers in order to blend in.
I’m glad our standards are high and tough. They’re supposed to be. They keep out the riff raff. That’s the whole point.
Lincoln Gable Riley
Culver City
Chemerinsky’s support for California to adopt the Uniform Bar Exam does not go far enough to make efficient client service and lawyer mobility a reality.
Why not have the law schools adopt and administer the exam as a condition of graduating? The law schools would remove a layer of cost, reduce delay and make preparation for the bar exam part of the curriculum.
Also, this would test the quality of each law school’s curriculum by showing how many students pass the exam, encourage law schools to focus on client needs rather than faculty course selection preferences, and advance the goal of a legal education to train competent lawyers to provide legal services at competitive prices so more people can afford such services.
David Laufer
Oxnard