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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   12096 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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Comparing this to UBI seems weird to me. My understanding is the point of UBI is that it's approximately unconditional. You get the money whatever your income or whether you have a job. By contrast, according to your budget link, the WMATA provided something like 268 million trips for its budget. Maybe you think the $19 or so per trip that works out to is not a good use of money, but it seems pretty far from the "nothing" the government gets in return for UBI! Maybe a better comparison would be some kind of guaranteed job program? No idea what the economic efficiency of programs like that work out to.

The thing you have to understand is the WMATA jobs aren't real jobs. They are UBI. Nobody there actually works. There was a major accident maybe 10 years ago. When they went over the inspection logs, they discovered that the same log had been photocopied for decades. I don't think they even updated the dates on the forms. It was shameless, haphazard, and nobody caught it, nobody cared, even after there was an accident and people died, nothing changed. A few people immediately responsible got fired. But then, bafflingly, they sued and got their jobs back.

If The System Is What It Does, WMATA is UBI with a rotting piece of infrastructure from the 70's attached as a hostage.

Well, I suppose it also lets criminals from DC spread throughout the countryside and victimize more people.

I mean, some of them presumably do their jobs. If I go to a WMATA operated stop a bus or train will come. With an operator who is a WMATA employee.

Based on reading your two links I don't think this characterizes the situation accurately? According to the second link:

1. Not updating measurements when the new measurement was within 1/8 of an inch was standard practice going all the way back to the 1970's.

Yet the panel found Metro had never rooted out a practice begun as official policy when the system opened in the 1970s that had inspectors only update measurements on monthly switch inspection forms if the new measurements were at least 1/8 inch different. If not, the same numbers were simply carried over from month to month and year to year.

“It’s understood by everyone that that’s how we do things. Otherwise, we would have gotten accused of falsification prior to this,” Bell told the arbitration panel. “It was understood that each inspector’s eyes are different, and 1/8 of an inch is negligible.”

2. The issue that ultimately lead to the train derailment was flagged by inspectors and had been for years.

In Metro management’s initial response to the derailment, they noted 12-14 buttery ties that had allowed tracks to slip too far apart — right where the inspection reports had reported 15 defective ties month after month, year after year.

Bell’s termination letter acknowledged the problem had been reported over and over.

“The records reflect there was a recorded defect on the Defect Database that was at the ‘Point of Derailment’ and another entry that was allowed to remain on the database since 2012,” the letter said.

3. They did change their training and practices after the derailment to improve them.

After the summer 2016 derailment, Metro changed inspection procedures to no longer provide the previous measurements pre-typed in on switch inspection forms, and retrained track inspectors to record the actual measurements they took.

But then, bafflingly, they sued and got their jobs back.

If you read your link it explains that measurements did not have to be updated if they were within 1/8 inch, so copying the old measurements is permissible.

That's their side of it.

What actually happened was a railroad tie was ignored until it was completely rotted out, and then a train derailed and people died.

"Within 1/8 inch" my ass. Just because that's the preposterous excuse they offer doesn't mean you have to believe it. Too much charity.

UBI is definitionally giving income to people without conditions. Requiring them to work an (even fake) job is a very different thing, proponents of which (a "Job Guarantee") have a long history of feuding with UBI advocates. You might as well say any form of redistribution is a UBI.

I think a fake job that you never work and are entitled to no matter what and UBI are the same thing. What possible difference can you point to? They are both entitled to your money, do no work, and the right can seemingly never be revoked. The only difference is that one is a fiction to trick you into it, and the other is just straight forward. But since nobody can agree to UBI, the liars version gets rolled out instead.

That sound more like a standard Communist job than a UBI

The "U" in "UBI" is Universal. Not everyone can become a no-show WMATA employee.

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