Few problems are as costly as traffic congestion. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, it costs commuters more than $100 billion per year. Studies in a number of cities suggest that costs to businesses are roughly equal to that, for a total annual cost of around $200 billion. Yet it is hard to persuade people that the only effective solution–variable tolls aimed at preventing ttraffic from reaching congested levels–should be implemented.
Atlantic Cities may have found the literal poster-children that could do it: premature babies. According to research reported in an article by Brooklyn resident Sarah Goodyear, tolls that reduce congestion also reduce air pollution (a fact the Antiplanner has often pointed out) which in turn reduces the number of babies born prematurely.
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Because a quarter of all U.S. housing is located near congested highways, ending that congestion and the resulting pollution “could reduce preterm births by as many as 8,600 annually, for a cost savings of at least $444 million per year,” estimates a MacArthur Foundation policy brief. Now, $444 million is only 0.2 percent of the total cost of congestion, but it might be the 0.2 percent that will get people to accept that they should pay more to use roads during peak periods of the day just as they pay more to use airlines, hotels, telephones, and other services during peak periods–and that would benefit everyone except for the people who enjoy watching other people sit in traffic.
The kind of planners you’re talking about don’t give a shit about premature babies or anything else. All they care about is their fanatical smart growth agenda and their hysterical war on suburbia. Implementing variable tolls isn’t something that will be resisted so much by drivers, as by planners, who are afraid that uncongested roads will lure traffic away from their already underutilized pet rail boondoggles.
The last thing in the world that planners want to do is to improve the facilities used by over 90% of all people. It’s much more important to pour billions of dollars into the boondoggles used by 2% of the population.
The Antiplanner is buying into all these sociology and urban planning fallacies with this post. He needs to learn statistics, especially how when you combine 3 studies like this you end up with a 10% or less chance of the correlation being statistically significant.
According to the EPA, the Clean Air Act alone should have the average American living to age 130, and a third of Americans never dying.
I second what Sandy has said. Also, housing in close proximity to highways?!?!?! I fell like Mr. O’Toole is aligning himself with planners today.
I also get that congestion has it’s costs, but how does tolling eliminate those costs without replacing it with another cost (i.e. tolls)? For those that still have to move their goods or who still have to be at work by 8 or 9, is there really any cost savings? Congestion tolling is great at relieving congestion, by reserving the road for those that can afford the new costs while everybody else has to just figure something else out. Wouldn’t this idea create a ground swell of support for public transit spending?
I’m intrigued by congestion tolling, but intuitively it just seems like a way to price people out of driving. Please opponents, tell me why I’m wrong.
I appreciate that Randal likes a report that recommends traffic calming strategies as a solution (but it also recommends zoning, so there’s that). Bravo.
However, it is well-known that notrich people live proximate to highways, so there is little hope for solutions in the current political economy.
DS
Bennett, as the tolls rise, those who can’t afford them switch to carpooling or other types of mass transit. With sufficiently high tolls carpooling and mass transit become the only modes which can both absorb and spread the costs.
So, congestion tolling does price people out of driving and will result in a groundswell of support for increased public transit spending. Okay, so where are the cost savings again?
I still haven’t decided if I like the idea or not. I like the idea of congestion free highways and increased functional transit. I suppose what I’m having a hard time understanding is the Antiplanner argument that it’s going to reduce costs. It’s seems that it is merely redistributing costs. To me it’s akin to the planner argument that light-rail line X is going to mitigate highway congestion.
Bennett,
Roads, like water, gasoline, electricity, et al. are a finite resource. The best way to waste a finite resource is too hand it out to all comers free of charge. The reason to toll roads is not to price people out of roads but to ration the resource to those who will make the most cost effective use of it. If a resource is priced according to demand there is less waste than if it is not priced at all. It is more cost effective for half a dozen commuters to ride a van to work that drive five cars, whether measured in road wear, gas, or air pollution. There is your cost savings.
Mass transit is not the same as public transit spending. Mass transit runs the spectrum from carpooling, to taxis, to Uber, to van pooling, to Jitneys(not the same as vanpooling), to big buses, and to trains. Mass transit does not have to be publicly funded. In fact, if alternative private mass transit were not wholly illegal in communities with public mass transit, and roads were tolled, we would have all of those alternatives in much greater quantities.
Congestion pricing is made possible with today’s computers that can change the price as needed. It is a needed tool.
However, before we get to congestion pricing, let’s use those same computers to improve the current haphazard traffic patterns forced upon us by our government planners and administrators. Every city and state has people in departments who, ostensibly, are the traffic experts.
Yet, every day people waste huge amounts of gasoline and create pollution because “don’t care” administrators do nothing to improve traffic congestion caused by uncoordinated traffic signals, haphazardly determined one-way streets, poor entrance/exit designs, failure to communicate problems to commuters (improving in some areas), etc.
None of these will solve all problems, but they would help a lot as is shown in the few places they are done. As Metrosucks indicates, a lot of those in charge simply do not want or care to solve these problems.
So, in a theoretical vacuum where everything works as Anne Rand intended, tolling saves lots money. Within the socio-political context of the real world we live in, not so much.
I suppose that “smart”/congestion tolling is a step in the right direction. Also, with so much commuter traffic being intercity these days I can see how privately funded transit can work (as intercity transit is really the only viable privately funded transit option in today’s socio-political context).
Okay, I’m leaning toward pro-congestion pricing. Any of my planner cohorts want to bring me back to the other side?
“Yet, every day people waste huge amounts of gasoline and create pollution because “don’t care” administrators do nothing to improve traffic congestion caused by uncoordinated traffic signals, haphazardly determined one-way streets, poor entrance/exit designs, failure to communicate problems to commuters (improving in some areas), etc.”
These administrators at the DOTs are often at odds with the planners that are arguing, verbatim, with what is referenced above. That is, for the gazillionth time on this blog, planners and Antiplanners being in lock-step in their intentions and goals. And for the gazillionth time on this blog, once again DOT administrators, traffic engineers and political leaders getting labeled as “planners.”
I recall several years ago reading a FHWA report that put the uncompensated, e.g., not covered by motor vehicle insurance, direct and indirect impacts of motor vehicle accidents was somewhere north of $200 billion per year. Litman has a recent summary of this and related studies at http://www.vtpi.org/tca/tca0503.pdf.
For those who don’t want to remain intellectually lazy within their ideological blinders, or aren’t too lazy to do a bit of reading, Litman also presents his results from years of research on total transportation costs at http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm66.htm. This is one of the strong foundations of the facts that (in 2014 dollars), total direct and indirect subsidies to the act of driving are somewhere between $50 and $100 trillion over the past century.
For those of you who (foolishly) dismiss Litman, many of his references are to a highly credible source, Mark Delucchi, a UC Davis researcher who has literally spent decades investigating the costs of automobile transportation (much funded by that anti-driving organization, the FHWA…): http://www.its.ucdavis.edu/research/publications/publications-search-results/?pubauthor%5B0%5D=delucchi&title&refnum&abstract_keywords=cost%20of%20automobiles&download=true&program=all&pubyear=all&order=year&Submit=Search.
The point is that congestion is just one of many costs of motor vehicle use, and not by any stretch the largest, even it gets the most attention from the likes of The Antiplanner.
Bennett,
We aren’t discussing a theoretical vacuum. We are discussing real world options which range from awful, to less awful, to better, to better still and on and on. Our roadway administration is currently at the awful side of the continuum, by any measure, be it funding equity, usage efficiency, congestion, safety, whatever. Tolling roads would move it from Awful to better.
msetty,
Something to consider in terms of indirect impacts is the legal principle of sovereign immunity. When a roadway is badly designed or traffic control devices are poorly implemented, people are more often killed and maimed on them and the person responsible, the sovereign, is completely immune from civil action, for his faults. This problem is especially acute in small communities where traffic control is largely the result of various grievance groups applying pressure to councils.
The solution is to make municipal and state governments liable for their errors or privatizing roads, making the private operator of the road civilly liable.
I’m actually in agreement with Jardinero (please, no one heap opprobrium on him) – pricing signals can change behavior if you don’t want regulation to change behavior. Roads are clearly a finite resource, as is water, air, soil, etc. Paying full cost for using a resource should mean that resource is used less.
DS
Also this would make more room on the road for the Antiplanner’s preferred transit mode of mega-bus
his is one of the strong foundations of the facts that (in 2014 dollars), total direct and indirect subsidies to the act of driving are somewhere between $50 and $100 trillion over the past century.
Just cause people prefer to use something you DON’T, doesn’t magically make all of society’s investments in that modality asubsidy. And guess what, you flaming hypocrite, you drive everywhere too, pretty sure there is no light rail or bus (for that matter) that stops anywhere near your downright rural (forget suburban) ranch. What a lying piece of work.
If you buy into the notion that congestion is the problem, then by all means continue to look to enact punitive tolls on the public and limit markets, and individual opportunity. The issue to seems to be latent demand, and that is trade that isn’t happening, markets not expanding, and opportunity lost because there are so many competing to use the limited road capacity that economic expansion isn’t happening, and opportunity is lost. Road capacity needs to be increased, to facilitate the movement of goods, services, and labor to where it is needed, and the individual can be in charge of his transportation. We are to far behind fo any solution to work until that happens. The issue is the amount spent on public transit, like light rail, costs – all the time, and NEVER provides a measurable benefit. Buses serve the need, and can change their route based upon demand – just like business. We simply need more, and higher capacity road infrastructure.
We simply need more, and higher capacity road infrastructure.
Yes, we do, but there needs to be a rational way of charging for it so that people don’t just clog the apparently free freeway for 6 hours every day. By applying a variable toll based on congestion levels, drivers can schedule less important trips for off-peak hours and leave additional capacity there for those whose trip is important enough to pay the toll. I use the HOT lanes in Seattle all the time, and love them. I am also looking forward to the HOT lanes being built on 405 between Lynnwood and Bellevue. Tolled lanes are a perfect way to increase capacity when the local government otherwise doesn’t want to, or can’t, allocate additional funds to highway expansion.
The important caveat is that toll funds be used only for highway maintenance and upgrades, and not siphoned off to build useless transit boondoggles.
Tombdragon,
Markets involve the exchange of goods and services. Don’t roads fit the definition of a good that should be priced. Currently, roads are given freely to all comers, regardless of need or necessity. At what level are tolls punitive?
A 27000 dollar car with a useful life of 120,000 miles which gets eighteen miles per gallon costs 41 cents per mile to drive, excluding insurance and repairs and routine maintenance. The vehicle operator is expected to front all those costs. Why should the vehicle operator not pay his per mile share of road use. Why should the vehicle operator not pay more for road use at peak demand hours in the name of keeping commerce flowing to its intended destination?
If you think the vehicle operator shouldn’t pay his pro rata share of road use, then do you believe that he shouldn’t have to pay for his vehicle, his gas, his maintenance, his insurance?
From a cost perspective, one problem about building more roads in developed countries that already have a lot of roads is that they are going to be pretty empty most of the time. Even in Los Angeles most freeways are not congested during off-peak hours. By diverting traffic that can operate at non-peak times to those times, congestion pricing make more efficient use of the existing road network. After congestion pricing is initiated, if certain roads are crowded during off peak times and you are of the road persuasion than perhaps additional supply could be covered. The same benefits of congestion pricing for roads would apply to peak hour surcharges for transit usage. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few cities political pressure prevents higher fares during peak periods.
Spending some of the toll proceeds to improve transit service, which would be by default bus service on HOT lanes, is a way to counter the argument that HOT lanes are “Lexus lanes”. Even if HOT lanes were “Lexus Lanes”, which research has shown to be untrue, it makes no sense why people would be angry that rich people can have a faster commute but are not angry that rich people can have better health care, housing, education, etc.
But the gas tax is equitable! Raise it – If you use more fuel, you pay more tax. Mass Transit can share the road, commercial trucks need to be taxed also, as long as the bureaucracy that regulate the collection doesn’t cost more than the cost of collection. The system needs adjustments, not to be scrapped for something else An electric car can be taxed when they are tagged.
Hey Metrosucks, when you start attacking the personal circumstances of an opponent, that is known as the “ad hominem” fallacy, a complete sign of intellectual laziness. I conclude you have no plausible response to the various facts and piles of references (including the references in the sources I cite) that I’ve put out there.
A more plausible response is the “automobiles have so many benefits, they are well worth the subsidies and other indirect support expenses” (if thoroughly debunked by Litman and others) argument of James R. Dunn and similar authors, e.g., as linked here: Driving Forces: The Automobile, Its Enemies, and the Politics of Mobility, available at http://www.amazon.com/Driving-Forces-Automobile-Politics-Mobility/dp/0815719639. If you had actually made an argument, I’d have a bit of respect for your intellectual abilities, but to date, seem only to be of the non-thinking “angry tirade against those who disagree with me” variety.
And I’m not assuming anything. The sources I cite are rather comprehensive. For the record, Delucchi is no flaming opponent of automobiles. He also points out the benefits to individuals, which almost no transit advocate actually disputes–though people like you deceptively try to claim that we do make such arguments.
“The same benefits of congestion pricing for roads would apply to peak hour surcharges for transit usage. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few cities political pressure prevents higher fares during peak periods.”
It would only make sense where transit is near, at or above capacity during peak times.
“…it makes no sense why people would be angry that rich people can have a faster commute but are not angry that rich people can have better health care, housing, education, etc.”
According to every major news network, minor news network, print news, online news, blog, etc. etc. etc people are upset about these factors. I would say (right or wrong) it makes perfect sense that people are upset about HOT lanes, because they are also upset about the lack of healthcare, housing and education choices afforded to the poor and working class.
the personal circumstances of an opponent,
Like the “personal circumstances” of all the other smart growth proponents, right?
Do As We Say, Not As We Do, Smart growth’s biggest boosters still love suburban living
Something completely out of their control forces them to NOT live in the dense urban environment they espouse, but instead in the suburban environment they vilify.
And don’t pretend for a moment that you are not ferociously attacking the automobile around which Americans have willingly built their lifestyle. When you spout lies such as counting all infrastructure EVER made for cars and calling it a “subsidy” (what about all those gas taxes, idiot?), but conveniently ignore that rail users don’t pay ANYTHING towards the capital cost of their choo choo’s, you are nothing more than an ignorant, selfish, imbecile. But then again, you are a so-called “consultant”, meaning you get paid to promote boondoggles using lies and made-up statistics.
I can just see you conveniently calling for $100 trillion to be invested in rail boondoggles to “even” out what you falsely consider to be subsidies to the auto. That figure would bankrupt the world, not to mention the US. But what do you care about little inconvenient facts like that?
Metrosuks sez:
“…And don’t pretend for a moment that you are not ferociously attacking the automobile around which Americans have willingly built their lifestyle….”
BECAUSE IT WAS SUBSIDIZED FROM THE GET GO, regardless of gasoline taxes.
Bugger off, wanker. Wah! Wah!
Gas taxes? Gas taxes? Oh, pulleeze…right now gasoline taxes and other motor vehicle “user fees” only cover 51% of CURRENT road expenditures by gummit. According to one source, the shortfall in user fees in covering gummit road costs is something close to $1 trillion since 1948, when they started keeping track.
Ever heard of snob zoning, off-street parking mandates, and other structural factors forced onto the private sector–or demanded by some affluent homeowners with snob zoning regardless of the impact on everyone else?? Thought not.
Actually, the entire U.S. suburban misallocation of resources over the past century proves to be a technocratic exercise by “big gummit” favored by giant corporations, various kinds of do-gooders beginning with the 1910’s and 1920’s mostly Republican “Progressive” movement, as exemplified by the work completed by Herbert Hoover in the 1920’s, who was a technocrat well before the New Deal ever was in anyone’s mind.
For the record, a concise history of sprawl (and the associated worship of motor vehicles) can be purchased at http://www.amazon.com/Dead-End-Suburban-American-Urbanism-ebook/dp/B00IYIDX2W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399330791&sr=8-1&keywords=dead+end+sprawl. This book also includes a rather effective debunking of The Antiplanner and his “think-tank” funded friends at CATO, Reason, et al (and also notes how Paul Weyrich was effectively drummed out of the Heritage Foundation and ALEC, probably among others, because his support of rail transit went against the house orthodoxy, though he was a founder of a number of these “think tanks”).
Asking an activity to gradually pay most of its way is hardly a “vicious attack.”
I’d say its the transit advocates who bother to post here who are always under “vicious attack” by (here it comes, an ad hominem attack since you started it!) mindless auto apologists dipshits like you, Metrosukky. Hope your head won’t explode…would leave a smellier mess than the goat products I cleaned up yesterday. Here’s a refresher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem.
Asking an activity to gradually pay most of its way is hardly a “vicious attack.”
Let’s start with transit boondoggles, then. For example, how many thousands of years would it take the PMLR riders to pay off the 1.5 billion dollar boondoggle??
It is hilarious how you want auto users to “pay their way” (they already do), but transit boondoggles are conveniently ignored. All your “arguments” in favor of rail fall flat on their face when faced with the reality of the endless parade of rail failures around the country. People simply DON’T really want these boondoggles, they just fall for the lie that everyone else will ride them.
I understand this is hard for you to understand and accept, because you have a personal and financial interest in the outcome, but rail is obsolete. As you will be in another decade or so.
If an entire neighborhood swore off automobiles, the city would still have to build and maintain some sort of road in the neighborhood for police, fire, water, sewer, electricity, cable, phone, and gas access. You could even say a road is necessary for school buses, which in most states is a constitutional responsibility.
Those roads are not a “subsidy” to automobiles.
“…it is hard to persuade people that the only effective solution–variable tolls aimed at preventing traffic from reaching congested levels–should be implemented.”
Ya think? What about a market-driven solution that is privately funded and operated and will increase capacity by ten times?
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/third%20generation.htm
Finally had a chance to check in today, and it’s like I flipped the channel to an episode of Jerry Springer.
So entertaining. Particularly love the explanation of ad hominem by someone who regularly uses them on opponents while overlooking blatant errors of allies.
But. My two cents:
While roads are a finite resource, they don’t need to be used less. They just need to be used by fewer people during peak hours. It’s kinda like how movie theaters reduce the price for matinees to entice people to go when demand is lower to fill empty seats. Same for roads. Yeah, there are only so many lanes, but from 7:00 pm to 6:00 am, they are virtually deserted
According to several studies I perused, the most highly educated and affluent—those least affected by congestion pricing—are the ones with the most flexible schedules. Meaning the poor would be more affected by congestion pricing.
Does the circadian clock dictate our work schedules, or are our work schedules simply cultural, an artifact? On a side note, why do people commute from North Bend to the Magnolia neighborhood in Seattle? (That’s a 35-mile commute and one hour in current traffic at 6 pm.) Perhaps more cultural baggage that people assume they can’t find employment where they live or can’t live where they find employment. Learned helplessness?
Certainly these problems will not be resolved in comments of this blog. But food for thought.
Stay thirsty my friends.
Sandy Teal made a reasonable argument:
If an entire neighborhood swore off automobiles, the city would still have to build and maintain some sort of road in the neighborhood for police, fire, water, sewer, electricity, cable, phone, and gas access. You could even say a road is necessary for school buses, which in most states is a constitutional responsibility.
Those roads are not a “subsidy” to automobiles.
Yes, but if only tiny percentages of local residents drive, like in Manhattan or some parts of San Francisco, the streets also can be much narrower than otherwise “required” for the level of auto traffic that prevails in most US cities. In fact, repaving local streets could go 25-30 years or more with only the traffic you mention.
But such costs pale in comparison with the ongoing hundreds of billions of dollars each spent on “free” parking, wider streets, motor vehicle accident costs not covered by auto insurance, etc. What percentage of the costs of a typical 36 or 42-foot wide street would you assign to utilities, police, fire, etc. if only a 30-foot wide right of way were needed, only 8-10 feet for a travel lane, the rest sidewalks, etc.?
Metrosukks speweth forth:
I understand this is hard for you to understand and accept, because you have a personal and financial interest in the outcome, but rail is obsolete. As you will be in another decade or so.
Are you referring to robocars? That’s a good one!
From a died-in-the-wool motorhead who didn’t drink the technocratic kool-aid: http://blog.hillcrestvw.com/driving-delusion/delusion-driverless-cars.html.
Also ?http://www.vtpi.org/avip.pdf, where Litman estimates that driverless cars begin to be adopted in several decades after all the technical, sociological, liability and economic issues are ever worked out,.e.g., in your lifetime if you’re under 30.
The Jerry Springer ad hominem show continues! Pure entertainment!
We don’t need robocars to make rail obsolete; it’s obsolete regardless.
Yes, but if only tiny percentages of local residents drive, like in Manhattan or some parts of San Francisco,
According to Wikipedia, 24% of Manhattan workers commute to work alone in a car. Almost half of Manhattan residents own a car, which they presumably drive at some point. I realize that these are “tiny percentages” to msetty, but if transit (rail, really, who cares about buses right?) were to have a 24% share in any city outside of New York, msetty would be masturbating on the steps of his Napa Valley house 24/7.
Msetty wants all of the US to be remade into Manhattan to prove his stupid ideology right, and to line his pockets by being a “consultant” for all the transit boondoggles a hundred Manhattans would bring forth. Nice work if you can get it, right? Of course, he and 90% of the other smart growth boosters would be allowed to continue living in suburbia, exurbia, or just pure rural areas, you know, cause of “personal circumstances”.
Since I am assuming msetty’s “personal circumstances” aren’t being sexually dysfunctional, I bet they are being a loser who can’t make enough money to buy his dream dense urban living nirvana in San Francisco. Sad state of affairs when you’re so pathetic you can’t even make bucks at telling planning authorities what they want to hear, like 99% of “consultants” out there.
msetty – thanks for an intelligent reply.
I agree that without cars used by residents, the street could be smaller and that would make a big difference in dense NYC or SF. You correctly point out that my point is a little overblown. But I think you agree that local roads are multi-purpose and the city has many non-transit responsibilities that rely upon local roads, so that cars are clearly not responsible for the entire cost of local roads.
My main point is that local roads serve many purposes and that is why they are probably best paid for by general local tax funds. Planners seem enthralled with the idea that if you pack people into high density, that it will save local cities some costs. There is some truth in that, but I argue that is puting the cart before the horse and making people live to serve the government instead of the government serving the people.
msetty – I think your points about local parking along side streets merits a much bigger discussion. I think it is land that is bought by the homeowner and deeded to the city with the purpose of parking, but I would like to see a good discussion of the issue.
My points are more based on assuming a suburban setting, but it would be good to debate how they apply in a high density area and the spectrum inbetween.
Metrosukks, did you ever consider work as a circus sideshow geek, or as a sex worker in kinky movies starring goats, donkeys, pigs and sheep? You have the right attitude, but you’re only a pale shadow of The Rude Pundit (http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/), someone much better at creating colorful and entertaining sexual innuendos against his enemies.
I see you still don’t have any real facts to back up your tirade. BTW, you’re sorta right but you also greatly exaggerate, which undermines your credibility. The traditional somewhat higher density “streetcar suburb” pattern dense enough to support frequent transit but not so dense that a reasonably large percentage of single family houses can be provided along with the number of apartments, condos and other domiciles that the market is clearly demanding.
The funny thing, msetty, is that anything you say is water off a duck’s back. You’re like the dog shit I scrape off my shoe after accidentally stepping in it; it’s an unfortunate interaction that no one is in a hurry to repeat.
Now, I know who you are, what you look like (a angry, sad little troll of a man), and I know you’re a loser (loose translation of “personal circumstances), who can’t even make enough money as a professional liar (ie, transit consultant) to buy into the lifestyle you promote so much. Or maybe you’re just a hypocrite who has no intention of living in the dense nightmare you want the rest of us to “enjoy”. Most smart growth promoters are like that. Do as I say, not as I do, right?
And if the demand for apartments and condos was so very high, as you keep insisting, government wouldn’t have to fling money & incentives like there was no tomorrow to get developers to build them in places like Portland. I am sure you have a wonderful explanation, blaming the $100 trillion in auto “subsidies” for that.
Metrosukky, you still convince me that you don’t have any real answers to my points. The $50-$100 trillions subsidies to driving over the past 100 years are exactly why some projects require “subsidies” to offset this, the largest mis-allocation of resources in history, put consistently if often crudely by James Howard Kunstler or eloquently by Chuck Marohn, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efgURk6w8LE. I’d like to see you or one of the other auto apologists here watch the whole thing, and come up with an intelligent response to Marohn’s key points–which I don’t think you can.
Also, you now seem to be obsessed by dogshit and other kinds of shit. Do you happen to be related to Divine, the doggy poo eater from John Water’s 1972 epic of filth, Pink Flamingos?.
Also please spare me the projections of yourself (“a angry, sad little troll of a man”), you obsessive little punk-ass shit. For the record, 2014 so far is much better than last year in terms of my work than the depths of the Great Recession, thank you very much. Details of course are none of your f—-ing business.