Valuetainment - May 23, 2026


＂$30 Billion To $231 Billion＂ - California's High Speed Rail SCAM EXPOSED


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

162.19

Word count

1,476

Sentence count

93

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The California High Speed Rail Authority has a new $231 billion plan to build a high-speed train between San Francisco and Los Angeles, but is it actually going to happen? And is it even a plan at all?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00.000 Where do you stand with the, you know, the rail, the high-speed rail that he was supposed to build?
00:00:06.520 I was just there. I lost track of the days, two days ago.
00:00:11.580 We just stood in front of literally a bridge to nowhere.
00:00:16.440 I drive up and down the Central Valley all the time.
00:00:19.620 It's the 99 highway or the 5 freeway.
00:00:21.900 It's mostly in the middle, the 99.
00:00:24.900 And we haven't put it out yet, so you won't find this.
00:00:27.140 But the infrastructure they've built is just all, you can see up and down.
00:00:37.140 Here are the numbers.
00:00:38.300 So they said that it would be open by 2020, two and a half hours, San Francisco to LA,
00:00:43.660 and total cost of $30 billion.
00:00:46.040 Here's the latest, they laughably call it a business plan.
00:00:50.680 This was just published like two weeks ago by the High Speed Rail Authority.
00:00:53.400 Budget from $30 billion to $231 billion, the budget.
00:00:59.320 The plan is now from San Francisco to Merced, which is at the top of the center.
00:01:05.140 You go inland, top of the Central Valley.
00:01:07.260 That's on the existing trains, not high speed.
00:01:10.680 Then you get on the high speed train at Merced and you go down to Bakersfield, high speed train.
00:01:16.960 Then Bakersfield to L.A., bus.
00:01:22.500 Stop.
00:01:23.240 Bus.
00:01:24.760 That's the business plan.
00:01:25.880 Can you verify this?
00:01:27.080 There's no way that's what they're saying.
00:01:28.520 That's the plan.
00:01:29.080 For the $231 billion?
00:01:30.500 Yes.
00:01:31.080 So they went from the two and a half hours to me having to have multiple stops before I go to San Francisco?
00:01:34.980 And like I point out, the two and a half hours, sometimes you'll do that just from Bakersfield.
00:01:40.360 If you're driving, Bakersfield to L.A. can take that long.
00:01:43.600 There's no way that's what they're saying.
00:01:45.280 That is.
00:01:46.080 Rob, zoom in.
00:01:47.020 Let me see.
00:01:47.400 The revised draft plan outlines a commitment of full nonstop high-speed connection between LA and Bay Area by 2039.
00:01:54.780 Construction span, 190 miles.
00:01:56.740 No, go a little bit low because I'm trying to see.
00:01:58.700 Is there a stop?
00:01:59.860 Future long-term extensions connect North Sacramento, East Sacramento.
00:02:03.820 There is no way they're telling you to go, come back with a bus, and then go to.
00:02:08.780 That's the thing.
00:02:09.480 If you look up bus, there's a whole.
00:02:10.980 caltrans consider 140 mile an hour bus that's a different story rob if that is true that is 0.68
00:02:20.640 pathetic that is that is absolutely pathetic if that's what they're saying it was older this is 0.93
00:02:26.840 the business plan this is a couple of years a couple of weeks ago wow so it's insane what would 0.99
00:02:35.260 And also another thing, sorry, I mean, the things he says.
00:02:38.900 So he did a press conference, I don't know when it was, a couple of months ago.
00:02:47.100 He's trying to sort of, because obviously the only thing he cares about, Newsom, is running for president.
00:02:52.520 That's very obvious.
00:02:54.000 And so he's trying to clean it all up.
00:02:55.400 so they did a
00:02:57.240 event
00:02:59.960 there
00:03:00.960 where he stood in front of trains
00:03:03.480 just some engines to make it look
00:03:06.020 as if he was doing something
00:03:08.080 with actual trains
00:03:09.080 and he was trying to announce
00:03:11.420 that they were doing
00:03:13.120 laying of tracks because one of the
00:03:15.940 points that we make is that this is
00:03:18.080 you know like more than a decade into
00:03:20.080 it, two decades nearly
00:03:21.840 and there's no track been laid they've built a bunch of stuff but no tracks
00:03:30.820 and he was trying to announce that he was doing tracks but even then he actually if you look at
00:03:36.660 his words he didn't say we're laying tracks we are entering the track laying phase there's gas
00:03:44.000 lighting over this is just there we are look a critical step in the track laying stage they're
00:03:49.440 not actually laying in track.
00:03:51.200 This is how they do it.
00:03:52.280 And it's just, and by the way,
00:03:55.540 they're still pretending this is realistic
00:03:57.620 and going to happen.
00:03:58.500 And we are still paying for it.
00:04:00.420 So earlier I mentioned the cap and trade thing,
00:04:03.500 cap and trade scheme,
00:04:04.460 which is one big component of the high gas prices.
00:04:09.020 On top of the gas tax,
00:04:10.820 there's this thing called cap and invest,
00:04:13.480 which is the carbon trading,
00:04:15.460 ridiculous bureaucratic scheme.
00:04:17.680 It's basically a tax on energy production
00:04:19.340 and use one quarter of that goes to high-speed rail so we're still paying for it i mean the
00:04:27.860 federal bit has been ended good idea bad idea the high-speed rail yeah high-speed rail is in other
00:04:34.600 places works well in europe it works really well i've used it a lot it doesn't work it doesn't
00:04:40.840 make sense in california because of the way that we've developed in california because you could
00:04:46.840 take a train
00:04:48.780 from, let's say it all worked fine.
00:04:51.160 You're from San Francisco to LA.
00:04:52.440 When you get to LA, what do you do?
00:04:55.020 Let's say it's Union Station,
00:04:57.740 which is
00:04:58.900 downtown LA.
00:05:01.080 It's like another 45 minutes to get
00:05:02.920 to the west
00:05:04.880 side or whatever. So what do you do
00:05:06.740 then?
00:05:09.960 It's a really
00:05:10.860 good example of what's gone
00:05:12.860 wrong in California, which is they've been
00:05:14.780 trying to impose ideological
00:05:16.580 call blueprints on practical life as it's lived they they have this ideology which is they want
00:05:25.480 everyone in trains public transportation cycling walking let's be more like europe that's what
00:05:32.200 because of climate that's why i say the climate stuff is a real driver let's be more like europe
00:05:38.480 let's have density that's not how california was built and whether you like it or not the way that
00:05:44.900 california was developed was outwards and that's a part of the beauty of california life a single
00:05:51.400 family home you have a yard the kids can play outside enjoy the weather that's just how we grew
00:05:57.020 and so this doesn't what this model of public transit doesn't work in california you just have
00:06:04.440 to you'd have to sort of completely redo no it's certain cities san francisco very dense
00:06:09.140 you get it works there but even then how do people get around in san francisco i mean yeah
00:06:13.820 there's the Mooney and the but whatever but people now you've got Waymo and you've got so
00:06:19.500 many you know it just doesn't make sense in terms of of how people are going to even on their
00:06:24.900 original estimate I looked into it for my book when they actually sold high-speed rail they did
00:06:30.100 sell it as a getting cars off the road idea who's doing this drive I mean do people fly
00:06:38.100 that's crazy to even think about I mean I know Palmdale I know Bakersfield I know Fresno I know
00:06:42.960 All these streets, all these cities.
00:06:44.940 I've driven all over this place because I was selling insurance for 20 years.
00:06:48.180 Right.
00:06:48.820 And, you know, so.
00:06:50.860 Also, here's another thing, just really annoying.
00:06:52.780 So you look at that map there, the bit that goes down to Anaheim, which is a fantasy.
00:06:57.560 This is just insane.
00:06:58.740 They can't even build the.
00:06:59.580 Okay, if you look at that map, the easiest bit from Merced to Bakersfield through the central right, totally flat.
00:07:07.180 Nothing, you know, that's taken forever and nothing's happened.
00:07:12.900 Let alone in the city.
00:07:14.540 Right.
00:07:15.500 That's why they're doing the bus, because from Bakersfield to the other side, you've got big mountains there.
00:07:22.560 That's hard engineering-wise, which they haven't figured out.
00:07:25.820 And then the Anaheim bit, which is just a fantasy, the other week they published an environmental impact report.
00:07:35.480 Here's a really good example of the bloat and nonsense in California.
00:07:38.520 They published an environmental impact report for this leg of the thing from L.A. to Anaheim that no one thinks is going to happen.
00:07:47.660 The summary of the environmental impact report just for that was 100 pages.
00:07:53.080 Someone's paying for that, like some consultant.
00:07:55.800 Well, we're paying for it.
00:07:57.420 That's what I mean.
00:07:58.360 There's no check or control on this bloat in the government.
00:08:03.060 Because they don't have people who think like that.
00:08:05.500 They don't have business-minded people who look at all this and say, what are you doing?
00:08:10.860 Why are we commissioning an environmental impact report for something that everyone knows is never going to happen?
00:08:16.320 When we set out to create a shoe that blends comfort, function, and luxury,
00:08:21.980 we had the choice to make it fast.
00:08:24.240 We had the choice to make it cheap.
00:08:26.380 We chose neither.
00:08:27.920 Instead, we chose Tuscaneiro.
00:08:30.080 We chose true Italian craftsmanship.
00:08:32.560 Each pair touched by 50 skilled hands.
00:08:35.500 We chose patience, spending two years perfecting every detail,
00:08:39.460 and we chose the finest quality at every step.
00:08:43.100 Introducing the Future Looks Bright collection.
00:08:46.800 Not rushed, not disposable, not ordinary.
00:08:51.060 Rather intentional, luxurious, timeless.
00:09:00.240 If you enjoyed this video, you want to watch more videos like this, click here.
00:09:03.220 And if you want to watch the entire podcast, click here.