We don't know that. In fact, I would consider it highly likely that if someone tried to unload 650,000 bitcoins at once, the value of the bitcoin would quickly drop enough so that those 650,000 wouldn't be worth $370m anymore.

One correction: the move to pure fiat currencies globally was forced by Nixon's dissolution of the Bretton Woods system, which had a lot to do with the US overspending on the Vietnam War, among other things.

That's a pretty wild view of economics you have there, not something that's supported by conventional views of capitalism. I mean, you could just be speaking about the 1800s and the gold rushes and imperialism therein, but then you use the present tense: "It's a complete myth that currency has to expand with the economy." And then that talk about "before modern fiat currencies" while still talking about wages as a normal way of earning income (I assume?) leads me to believe that you're not talking about working completely within the bounds of capitalism in doing your analysis. So what system are you describing, then?

I know you're being facetious, but there are people in the real world working on maximum safety without compromising our ability to get shit done: see the article "Why Sweden Has So Few Road Deaths". While of course expecting zero traffic deaths is not particularly reasonable as an actual expectation (some idiot will always try hard to spoil your stats...), it's worth noting that they've been successful at making their roads the world's safest, and lower speed limits are part of the formula.

It's precisely at intersections that pedestrians (and cyclists) have the most to worry about. Someone driving up on the sidewalk is rare, but people plowing through a crosswalk while making a turn, without signaling or looking for people they might hit in the process, are frighteningly common in the US cities I've lived in.

Ah, yes. If it runs counter to traditional orthodoxy about anything related to society, it must be Marxism! What else could it be? And why bother citing sources; it's self-evident if you believe the right things!

In contrast, there's no ideology present in the parent comment whatsoever.

Man, you remind me why I don't comment on the Internet more often. Too many people who don't seem to think they need to show respect to people they disagree with. I'd love to debate the issue with you, come up with new counterarguments to respond to what you have to say, pull up data and the like, but you look like you're more content to pound the table. Are you trying to get me to agree with you, or is this just dick-waving?

Precisely why LA should be putting train lines in tunnels and in place of lanes on roads that are already wide. Trains are insanely expensive, but I think you vastly underestimate how many people can fit on one narrow two-track line, especially where the trains are long, the control is automated, and there are no level crossings.

I'd also gander than you don't need to go all the way to Long Beach from the SFV on that particular line. Who the hell does that commute, anyway? Traffic only starts getting really bad north of the 105 or thereabouts.

I agree with your conclusion, but not with some of your premises: the demand is created primarily by the destinations, not the mode of transport. People don't generally drive on freeways to nowhere for fun. And I don't think it's a question of making roads shitty, it's about not spending money to polish a turd (i.e. clogged already wide urban freeways that won't get unclogged, no increased life satisfaction if that's the route we choose) and instead putting those funds toward the awesome public trans that you describe.

The metro is nice, but at the moment it barely goes anywhere compared to the massive size of the city of LA alone, never mind the urbanized area of the whole county. That means for the most part you have to rely on buses, and wherever the freeways are clogged, the surface streets are clogged, too, and the buses are even slower than a car stuck in that traffic. No complaints, though, about the reach of the bus lines — that's the sort of thing a lot of American cities could learn from.

That said, I'm glad to not have to be dealing with that anymore. The main problem is that so many different things worth going to are so far apart, regardless of how you choose to travel. It's not like, say, Chicago, where most of the jobs and all the fun parts are concentrated within a few miles of the city center and the rest is largely residential. The layout is impractical no matter how you try to use it.

Sure, but that's a particular case, and not even about limited-access freeways that already exist, as they wouldn't be only 2-lane or 3-lane roads. It's certainly not the issue with the 405 in LA. The road-widening you're talking about isn't usually the issue in urban areas in general, even, unless you're talking about dense neighborhoods where the land values and walkability concerns make it prohibitive to expand roads. Where that's the case, it's almost definitely an issue of inadequate mass transit, since the greater the density, the more inappropriate it is for large numbers of people to be driving in and out of such an area.

No, that was the point, expanding freeways doesn't remove traffic jams. I don't know where you're getting it from that it works that way.

(Also, if this is about your freedom to travel by car, why would you care about whether other people think it's a great thing or not, so long as the roads go where you need them to go? I hate driving in urban areas precisely because the traffic makes it feel like the opposite of freedom. Different strokes for different folks and all that, but I'm not getting the sense that you respect alternative viewpoints on this matter — e.g. that freeways make life worse when you're not driving on them.)

Ah, I see, I never made it up there much — I lived in the South Bay and going east of downtown was quite a drive.

Widening freeways doesn't solve traffic problems. Short version on Wikipedia, longer version on Wired.

The problem in LA is more accurately described as too many people in one place, all having places they want to go. Other less dysfunctional cities either have better mass transit or a lot fewer people wanting to go a non-trivial distance. Hell, all you have to do is look north to San Francisco and Oakland, where BART siphons off enough demand from the freeways to keep them flowing much more cleanly than in LA, the only real exceptions being the choke points where trains are at maximum capacity at rush hour (the Bay Bridge and Transbay Tube) or where the BART line ends where there's still a lot of commuter traffic on the parallel freeway (I-80 in Richmond).

Not saying that NIMBY isn't a problem — it's ridiculous how it keeps many cities/regions on the West Coast from having coherent plans that work for the benefit of the public at large — just that wider urban freeways aren't part of the solution. They were the panacea of the 1950s, but with the population of metro areas now and the much higher percentage of people who have the option to drive, that approach is obsolete.

I lived in LA a few years ago, and I remember there being plenty of places to walk in LA (few roads without sidewalks), so long as you don't mind the stares you inevitably get for not being in a car. I don't know where you're thinking of. Biking, on the other hand, I agree can be a blood sport.