Louisville- A Whore With Excessive Makeup

As someone who lived in the Louisville region from about 1981 to 2013 I can say that if you do some traveling you'll find places in many ways superior than Louisville. Louisville is a small town that has gotten too big for its britches so to speak because of the Kentucky inferiority complex. Not that there isn't truth to such. I didn't grow up in Louisville city proper but in an adjacent area not far from Louisville less than 30 miles. The first thing people as you is where did you go to school at. The second thing is that if its not Louisville is some smart alecky comment of where you are from in this case Indiana.

Not the best way for these people to come across by running down someplace they barely have ever been much less had the gas money to travel to and that includes in many cases the people have problems making it to iNDIANAPOLIS for crying out loud. Much less Chicago where I lived in the Chicagoland area for 6 years. Personally I find either of those cities far superior to Louisville when it comes to business opportunities, job creation, educational experiences and whatever else makes a stellar community. Louisville is well....just KCTCS, U of L and Bellarmine and U of KAY down the road burning couches.

Louisville has to brag about itself because it really doesn't have anything else to brag about. No real museums of national consequence, a middling zoo and planetarium and art museum of minor importance. If it wasn't for hole in the wall bars, getting drunk, Whiskey and such Louisville wouldn't have anything to offer.

By the way in six years or so, I lived in the East End (Middletown), South End (Okolona/Fern Creek) and SW Louisville (PRP/Shively and I've been all over and criss-crossed the city hundreds if not thousands of times. Its not all that special and I've been to Chicago, Toronto, NYC, Cincy, Columbus, Indy, Atlanta, Charlotte, Charleston SC, NOLA, etc. Dozens more as well. Louisville doesn't have anything that's really worth writing home about. A real estate agent guru or developer might be able to swoon people on the idea that Louisville aka Loubilly is a great place to people that don't know any better but for us that lived in S. Indiana and Kentucky and elsewhere over the years, well we know better.

The problem with Louisville is that it has a major league dose of narcissism along with various other schizophrenic personality disorders in that it wants to be all things to all people yet fails at doing even the most basic things. Its kind of like the JCPS being 127th out of 158 Kentucky school systems in a state that is 47th in educational attainment, 41st in university quality, and in the 40s on K to 12 education most years. Ouch.yikes.

Louisville is like the middle aged woman whose best years are behind her but tries to put on a pound of makeup to compensate for the fact she has wrinkles and been ridden hard and put up wet. It kind of reminds me of a woman we used to go to church with that forgot she was 40 years old and still thought she was 20 in 2008. She wore enough makeup that if you took a small ball pein hammer and touched her face it with it would all looked like plaster of Paris collapsing from her face to reveal her true face. That's the Louisville they don't want you to see because they're trying to trick enough people into being rubes and staying in provincial Louisville because otherwise it will become another Memphis or Detroit.

Louisville has a cultural sensitivity problem as well when someone makes intelligent and pointed comments about a certain issue that people get so bent out of shape about what the person says that they wall themselves off from common sense and reason and enter into immediate attack mode. The same could be said for the sordid shape of Louisville school which are horrendous in that half the kids can't even write and read in basic 12th grade English nor pass exams for math at a 10th grade level and the same for science. When only half the 12th graders can pass English language and composition exams it speaks of a serious problem. The same when the math passing rate is 40 percent and science at a 10th grade level is 36 percent. That's putting a whole lot of scientific and cultural illiterates into the job market and university systems where they have to receive remedial education either at colleges or someone else teaching them.

Add in the fact that Louisville is serious underwater when it comes to the Metropolitan Sewer District being about 4 billion dollars in debt plus needing billions in repairs that it currently doesn't have the money for and would need federal grants to upgrade the ailing sewer system along with the flood wall protection that has been seriously degraded over the past 25 years plus with little preventative maintenance done to upgrade or preserve the existing system. Of course, the Lousyville right to know media doesn't want to talk about that nor do they want to talk about ongoing police corruption scandals like the Explorer scandal not to mention all of the payouts of money of lawsuits that have been made by Louisville city government because of the corruption of the system.

Let's also talk about the monstrosity called the Yum Center which was supposedly to be built with funds extracted from LOCAL businesses through tax increment financing. The original cost of construction for the Yum Center was 350 million dollars of principal from construction and moving the LGE facility away from its place near the arena. The overall cost over 30 years was going to be about 1 billion dollars or approximately 35 million a year. The principal though was not to be paid until starting in 2020 which is next year at a amount of 17.5 million per year for 20 years to pay it off. Only problem was that the bill for the arena just on interest payments from 2010 when it opened to 2040 maturation of bonds and financials was about 18 million a year or thereabouts.

The problem was that the arena wasn't even getting close to projections made by government, the mayor and the commission that oversaw its building. So the city of Louisville was having to shell out 7 to 10 million a year just to help pay the interest on the Yum Center and that's not including the principal that starts effectively in 2020.

So what did the city fathers of Louisville do along with all of the big financial backers. They did some more creative financing to where the general public is going to be paying for the Yum Center until 2054 another 14 years past the original date it was supposed to be paid off. Interesting, isn't it? So that would allow for less interest be paid per year although it would increase the interest payments over the long haul of the financing for another 15 years. So let's say that Lousyville was able to get less interest payments per year but then add years to the bill which effectively runs up more of a bill to get the finance charges off the front end of the payment scheme. All the while Louisville still ends up paying the principal for the Yum Center over the next few decades or at least until the arena is then 44 years old in 2054. Wonder how they are going to keep up the Yum Center will all of that maintenance that will be needed in the years from 2025 to 2054 since basketball arenas and public buildings need massive flows of capital expenditure and maintenance costs rise over the years as a structure becomes more in need of repair.

That's basically what Louisville is all about. Keep putting on lipstick and makeup on a pig and trying to make it look better than it really does. Oh and the funny thing about that woman is that she looks horrendous without the makeup and so does Louisville when you wash away the makeup and the mascara and lipstick.

Where I've Been

Of course, the haters were probably wondering where I have been but to tell you the truth it was mostly recuperating from a few minor health issues over the past year or so and I just simply got busy doing other things. It's going to be interesting over the next few months because I've got plenty of new Kentucky material that I am going to start posting on a daily basis that ought to make some Kentuckians brains have a major meltdown. The best part is that I see the blog statistics and they are growing quite a bit every month and with some of my new ideas to make this blog run efficiently and in timely order it should get much better in the next few months.

Are you ready Kentucky? Just remember to follow along because soon there will be not only video since I just invested a few hundred bucks in a new camera and a few hundred more in a new high definition camcorder just to watch people like you squirm and get upset over someone telling the truth about what a backwards and sordid state you live in. You would think that would upset you enough to start questioning what the local county nincompoops are doing in your name in the 120 personal fiefdoms of Kentucky along with the backwoods bubbas in Frankfort that represent your state government and constituency. If you need me to define constituency I can do that for you.

Here it is and make sure you read it closely.

con·stit·u·en·cy

/kənˈstiCHo͞oənsē/

Learn to pronounce

noun

1. a body of voters in a specified area who elect a representative to a legislative body.

   "the politician who wishes to remain in the good graces of his constituency"

   • BRITISH

     an area whose voters elect a representative to a legislative body.
   • a body of customers or supporters.

     "a constituency of racing fans"

Guess What Kentucky Trash? I'm Back and Ready To Piss You Off Some More

Kentuckians and by extensions Louisvillians or should they be more appropriately called Loubillyians since Lou Billy would be a more apt name for their city. A city which looks like a trash filled dump for 10 months out of the year where the local yokels throw their trash outside of their vehicles for someone else to pick up.

Louisville....a city that time forgot and pretty much the rest of the nation forgot long ago other than an inconsequential horse race that lasts two minutes. Where the local festival committee has to pay celebrities big bucks to the tune of 25k and 50k appearance fees to get people to show up to the sordid city of Louisville, Kentucky. Even better is the fact that LouBilly has to clean up their city every April to make it look presentable for the throngs of visitors for the famous gala at the beginning of May after which by June 15th the streets of Loubilly are littered with fast food bags, plastic waste, cups, household trash, beer cans and bottles, whiskey bottles and it looks like you've reached the seventh level of hell in just a month after that laughable event that goes for Kentucky culture.

Ironically a culture where being the biggest cheat and piece of filth carries on all the way from the governor of Kentucky or the Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky as the yokels and provincials will tell you all about. They're a Commonwealth which really has no bearing on anything else other than being a lifetime welfare state that mooches off of more productive states in the North, Northeast and West that actually produce something.

Of course, Kentucky will tell you all about it how their mooching Senators get them all kinds of federal dole money while 1/4 of their citizens have never held a paying job in their lives and 500,000 plus Kentuckians are found to be functionally illiterate. In fact, people so stupid that they can't fill out a job application or do basic tasks that would be required of them at a workplace. A state where you can get a crazy check just by being found by some state board that you're a total nincompoop and incompetent without any real means testing just prove that you're a blithering idiot and they've got you taken care of.

Kentucky...a state where education is optional despite the fact that Kentucky in 1990 passed the Kentucky Educational Reform Act and proceeded to produce no real tangible results and improvements other than the fact that Kentucky in 2019 is 47th in educational attainment and generally in the 40s among the 50 states in educational quality assessments, college quality and overall educational best practices. Including a state that has been 44th or worse since 1939 over the last 80 years including being 44th or worse in per capita personal income as well as being 47th in family income and 47th in median income as of 2019.

Kentucky really hasn't changed over the years other than being a carbuncle on the rear end of humanity and it has been that for decades. Often so much that it pukes out tens and hundreds of thousands of its moronic citizens that drag down neighboring states such as Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, etc. Eventually no matter where you may live you'll eventually encounter one of these savage uneducated beasts incapable of basic common sense and basic humanity. Whereas they live in a cesspool in Kentucky and often move to their neighboring states in the Midwest and upper South to pollute the gene pool with generations of cultural stupidities, piss poor education and lack of basic sense that most people would at least attempt to try out.

For some inane and stupid reasoning Kentuckians somehow think that their state and society is innately superior to the other 50 states and their neighboring states despite the facts that their state as a whole ranks near the bottom of the US when it comes to all kinds of major socioeconomic categories. These categories are as far flung as incomes, family incomes, personal incomes, disease indicators, educational outcomes, educational attainment and learning abilities, etc. Not to mention that Kentucky ranks just about dead last in everything from efficiency of state government to health outcomes like highest heart disease and heart attack rate, #1 in smoking, #1 in diabetes, #1 in child abuse, #1 in elder abuse and worst laws for animal protection. A truly stinking state that is the laughingstock of America.

Even poverty stricken states like Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana at least have some level of pride and purpose to at least attempt to be good at something. In Kentucky, that would be basketball and that is about the only thing they can be proud of. Of course, when you live in a state of denial and that's no relation to The Nile in Egypt, its such that Kentucky is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to so many categories. Governance is a disaster with 120 local county chieftains most of whom could barely pass any college courses of consequence to do the job that they somehow get elected by the nincompoop infested population of Kentucky.

That's all for today but I'm sure my whining Kentucky critics will have something to whine about either with this blog or other forums.

Louisville: Truly Just A Subset of the White Trash Infested State of Kentucky

One of my comments of course deleted and banned by the censors of at City Data that can't handle the truth about what a festering carbuncle that Kentucky is on the rear end of humanity. I've got some news for them, I can post all day long stuff about Kentucky and just watch them have a total mental meltdown because they hate the facts and truths about their nincompoop infested state of Cousin Eddies that scratch their asses all day and pick their nose while producing nothing of value. That says it all about Kentucky. 

Louisville.......Not In My Backyard....and The NIMBY Mentality

Louisville suffers from the NIMBY mentality and has for years whether its the inconsequential overpriced area that Hurstbourne truly is or even in the Highlands and other areas around the city. That's why smart businesses don't waste their time on a fifth rate city like Louisville in a 4th rate state that is about 20 years behind the rest of the United States in economic development, job creation and common sense.

 

Louisville is a city that is living on its past rather than reinventing itself for the future and that's why no one outside of the Louisville area actually takes it seriously because people in the know realize that Louisville is severely backwards. Same with the local economy and job market in Louisville. Same with the fact that Louisville incomes and pay are 20 to 25 percent lower than the national average for the so called privilege of living in the ghetto known as Jefferson County.

Louisville suffers from the low mentality attitude that because we're Louisville you must kiss our feet and praise us for being a so called progressive city when cities the same size as the Louisville Metro area like Indianapolis, Nashville, KC, Charlotte and others have blown by and passed up Louisville not over just the past decade but the last couple of decades.

It won't get any better either when you have an education system in the JCPS producing high school graduates that after 13 years of school K-12 can only read at 54 percent of a 12th grade level of proficiency. Not to mention the 8th grade math and science scores are only about 36-38 percent which is why Louisville and largely Kentucky is doomed to a future of being a place of low wage jobs and less economic creation.

Hopefully Topgolf and a lot of other businesses will begin to see what an economic and educational cesspool that Louisville is and start pulling their operations out of the city and state and start looking at other locations north and south where they don't have to deal with a bunch of old geezers that think that their city should be living back in the sixties. In Louisville its questionable whether that is the 1860s or 1960s with the type of backwoods mentality that exists in the so called as of a few years ago 16th largest city. Which was nothing more than a ruse because Louisville hasn't been a top city for almost a century as other Southern cities passed it up a long time ago.

That's why other cities have long ago passed up Louisville when it comes to economic creation, job creation, educational issues and socioeconomic qualities of life standards. All you have to do is put some gas in your buggy and leave Louisville for a couple of weeks or even bother to live elsewhere than the Possum Billy City aka Possibility City and see for yourself. Much less bother to read and learn something other than basketball or getting drunk on Saturday night.

Way to go Louisville, you're increasingly becoming irrelevant and the Detroit of the Ohio Valley or maybe even the New Orleans of the area without the cultural charms and history that at least New Orleans exhibits.

Louisville should consider a name change to LouBilly or maybe Possum Billy City because it sure isn't a Possibility City unless you want to get robbed, killed or hit by drunks along the roadways.

Louisville, Kentucky: Impossibility City Part Four

With all of the national angst about the issues that police are having in policing their communities one would think that all officers would heed such issues very carefully and show discretion towards law enforcement issues and not participate in scandalous behavior.

However, in Louisville, Kentucky the police of the Louisville Metro Police Department have a program called the Explorers where local youth explore a career in police work including the various jobs and tasks that a law enforcement officer must do in his daily duties.

Which all seems fine and good and should be encouraged but with one major problem.

Some of the officers in Louisville have been involved in a sexual abuse scandal and cover up with the Louisville Metro Police Department Explorer program. Not only the criminal activity of said officers who were involved in sexual abuse of minors aged 14 to 19 including a young woman who was coerced and forced into having sexual activity with an officer.

Meanwhile the vile scum and villainy that occurs in the Louisville Metro Police Department is not a new occurred as there have been many officers over the years who have been been terminated, fired, disciplined, and even prosecuted for such criminal behavior.

This all goes back to the corruption and dishonesty of the last two or three mayors of Louisville, Kentucky reaching back to the 1980s and 1990s when this type of criminal corrupt behavior has been tolerated by the local officials. Maybe not to the extent of such blatant violation of minors but a system of corrupt local officials who cover up said abuses and political favors.

Or as one local writer in Louisville, Kentucky called it and correctly so, a pay for play system. In that sense where local businesses and local developers in the community ended up paying the local government with favors and other inducements to allow their businesses and companies to develop land and projects, etc. Just as long as those developers and businessmen paid the proper government officials and those in the political sphere their dues and made sure that it was done off the books and therefore outside of public scrutiny.

This sort of corrupt behavior is nothing new to Kentucky going back for generations even back in the late 1800s when corrupt business interests and Confederates ran the Kentucky State Government after the Civil War. It has continued in places like Louisville in the way of machine politics and corrupt government practices. All the while Louisville, KY is the 4th highest taxed city in the United States of America. Amazing isn't it that Louisville is the 4th highest taxed city in the whole country. Right up there with cities like Chicago, New York, Boston, San Francisco, and others. But near the top of the food chain in a state that is known for its extensive poverty and poor educational system.

Meanwhile the LMPD and its current and previous chiefs try to cover up their misdeeds, malfeasance, and known corruption and no one does anything about it. All the while Mayor Greg Fischer continues to cover up for the same bunch of crooks and trying to talk all the same time about Transparency.

Meanwhile, in Louisville, they could care less about transparent governmental behavior and actually representing the citizens and taxpayers instead continuing their notable governmental corruption. If its not the shenanigans that occur regularly at the University of Louisville in both the university and the athletic department, its in city and or state government in Kentucky.

These occurrences are not one time missteps but a pattern of systematic corruption and government malfeasance. All the while the Mayor of Louisville shouts about being a compassionate city and acting in governmental matters with transparency and uprightness.

Which is nothing more than a sordid joke to talk about such behavior but to have a police department, city works, and other governmental bodies such as city government offices proceed with corrupt practices and then act hypocritically by saying you are transparent. Laughable at best but criminal at the worst which is something that Kentucky should be number one in and that's government corruption on a scale that would rank right up there with Chicago, New York and other model big cities where public corruption scandals are daily news. In the case of Chicago with Rahm Emanuel and previously Richard Daley along with the convictions of several Illinois governors like Rod Blagojevich and George Ryan as well as the conviction of Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the US House of Representatives.

Wonder when the Louisville right to know media is going to actually start spilling the beans on the city of Louisville and its right to screw its citizens Kentucky style. All the while the Kentucky country boys and provincials don't even realize how much they are being screwed to death by the system. A system that has spent generations keeping Kentucky a backward cesspool of corruption and crime instead of capitalizing on the natural resources, scenic beauty, and possibilities.

All in a city such as Louisville which laughingly calls itself "Possibility City" despite being economically impoverished in many areas of the city and having a crime rate multiple times that of its state and being a problematic area considered a no-go area even for many locals in Indiana and Kentucky that won't go to Louisville unless they absolutely have to go do Louisville. A compassionate city as called by Mayor Greg Fischer all the while having a huge homeless population of thousands despite being the largest city in the commonwealth. Supposedly an economic beacon and engine yet having a collapsing and falling apart infrastructure that looks like it should be such as in a third world nation.

A city that is economically unsound and has to rely on government assistance and big programs to feed so many of its citizens and even to house a large percentage of these people. While the muckety mucks spend all kinds of time during March, April and early May cleaning up the city for its signature horse race. While the rest of the city by June and July looks like someone dumped the trash on the streets and emptied out their trash cans and left their garbage on city streets.

A city that has a budget nearly 1 billion dollars (903 million in 2016) and (849 billion for 2018) yet cannot properly fix its streets and infrastructure properly. Instead having to spend several million dollars from the city fund for the maintenance of the Yum Center (which was supposed be paid by tax increment financing by the local downtown tax district). Instead the city of Louisville is raiding the general fund that should be going to maintain the streets and infrastructure which is horrid despite being the 4th highest taxed city in the United States.

Something is wrong here when you have a city with the 4th highest taxes yet cannot fix your infrastructure, roadways, and byways. Instead paying out money to settle all of the lawsuits that have been incurred by the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department as well as the Louisville Metro Government over the years.

All the while talking about being a "Possibility City" and a "Compassionate City" while the local law enforcement violates young people and violates the law in so many ways its plain astounding.

But remember, its Kentucky and its very provincial and thinking small is why Kentucky still ranks in the bottom 5 states in just about every category and has for decades.

Louisville, Kentucky: Impossibility City Part Three

Louisville likes to brag about how much of an economic progressive and improving place that it truly is. Nothing could be farther from the truth about Louisville which is why companies in the know such as Amazon are staying away from places like Louisville which is economically backwards and suffering from lack of investment in quality education and quality job opportunities. So now after decades of this rot and stupidity, Louisville's so called leadership is going to get on the ball and start doing something about it. The only problem though is that they've had decades to try to reform Louisville in their image and they've failed. All because they didn't want to give up the reins of power to people with more talent and ambition and less old world monetary influence. 

Which is why over the last 100 years or so, Louisville has went from being probably the predominant city of the Southern United States along with New Orleans to an economic basketcase with little to offer its remaining citizens and keep them there. At one time Louisville was a much larger city than other Southern cities like Atlanta, Nashville, Memphis, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, etc. The leadership of Louisville or what was called leadership never wanted the city to progress beyond the 600k to 700k level that it is currently at because that would have meant that they would have had to share power with the citizens and others in the community that wanted equality and an equal piece of the pie. 

The old world money folks of Louisville and you can guess the longstanding community names and icons of the community wanted it to remain under their ownership and control that way they could remain the prominent and prestigious families in the city despite any wishes of new money and smaller people to attain economic and political control. So over the years, the money people in Louisville desperate to retain their status decided that it would be best to control and stymie economic growth to some extent that otherwise Louisville would grow too large and outside of their control. It explains a lot of ways why Louisville, Kentucky is behind the times as well the as the fact that the old money Louisvillians didn't want change and a prime example of that was the Ohio River Bridges Project. Which was originally started during the 1960s when the Interstate system was being built through Louisville. 

The amazing thing is that they spent decades holding back economic and social progress in Louisville to hold control over the community. Same with how the West End and the Chestnut Street black business district was allowed to be red lined into poverty and turning what used to be a functional part of Louisville in the West End prior to the 1970s into a black ghetto. They succeeded in that quest because the well to do owned the land and was able to force the closure of those black businesses which were middle class but didn't own the land in Louisville's downtown area. So the message was sent out and then over a period of years the black business district ceased to exist and poverty increased greatly. Following the push of the upper crust to force blacks into the formerly White West End, the whites eventually left the West End and settled in Shively, PRP, Valley Station and the like. 

Meanwhile, the former residents of Smoketown and Chestnut Streets and other black corridors were forced and red lined into getting housing in the former West End white controlled areas which were promptly abandoned by whites due to white flight and racial issues. 

This has been repeated in Louisville over the decades including for years when the East End upper crust did everything in their power to keep jobs and economics from growing in Louisville including other businesses wanting to come in. One prime example is their opposition to the East End bridge which would finally link the area together when it opened in 2016. Despite the fact that the Interstate System in Louisville including I-265 was to have had a East End bridge planned as early as the 1960s and 1970s. 

So now, its 2018 and the Louisville so called leaders and power brokers are at it again proving they are still clueless about Louisville and what the city needs to move forward. They no longer hold all the levers of power but they still have great clout especially in the political machine, business community, and the like. Which is why this is even more laughable that they have formed their own steering committees for the power brokers and their pawns in city government, local business, and other organizations. All the while the people are again being ignored or are in some cases so chronically stupid that they enjoy being screwed over time and time again. This nice piece in the Courier Journal talks about the power brokers and their unannounced and planned committees. 

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2018/02/08/scala-louisville-powerbrokers-secrecy/310710002/

As usual, Louisville ends up proving that its not a major US city even though it probably does have the potential to be such. Its just that the local yokels end up finding ways to stub their toe and remain economically and educationally backwards. Almost to the point that Louisville and its residents and its resident power brokers aren't capable of maintaining some level of competence that would allow Louisville to advance from being now the 11th poorest city in the nation. A city that is economically backwards and increasingly unable to be competitive not only on in the world but also within its region in the United States. Add in a regressive tax structure in Kentucky which makes Louisville and the rest of the state suffer from 1950s era tax laws and the fact that many laws in Kentucky haven't been changed since the 1970s. 

However, the real blame goes to the so called upper crust of Louisville which has spent a generation mismanaging a city that should be a crown jewel in a state that really needs a lot of help economically, educationally and socially. They've spent years trying to keep Louisville backwards and the rot and disrepair is finally showing in the last several years. Especially considering that Louisville hasn't kept up with the times. Louisville in many areas looks like a post industrial economic apocalypse hit somewhere in the past few decades. As one well traveled gentleman told me once, he couldn't believe how bombed out Louisville actually looked and he had been to dozens of other cities that looked a whole lot better than Louisville. 

Louisville's so called leaders have spent decades keeping Louisville and the region from fulfilling its true potential which should be a massive economic jewel in the region. All because they couldn't get past their egotistical ways and lack of gumption to make the city and general area a much better place. Nowadays the rot is starting to be very evident as one can see the declining quality of life in the region and city as a whole. Evidence of this could be just going through the various neighborhoods of Louisville and looking at the degradation of the quality of life and economic conditions. Not only that but the increasingly rotting infrastructure and lack of development that is evident in Louisville. 

All the while the city tries to dress itself up for the famous May horse race it spends the other 10 months of the year not giving a single solitary damn about making its city look better. Trashy roadways, garbage everywhere, one of the highest rat infestation problems among US cities, bedbugs galore which indicates nasty conditions, etc. Add in the general disrepair of many areas of Louisville and the general economic disincentives such as high taxes and being the 4th highest taxed city in the nation. All the while remaining to be one of the poorest cities in the country now coming in at 11th place in the United States. 

Meanwhile, the power brokers continue to do what they've done for the past 100 years in Louisville which is why what used to be one of the largest cities in the South has been passed greatly by over the last 100 years by other regional cities as far as Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and other former Confederate states. Louisville has continually went backwards compared even to other cities in its local regions of the United States. At one time, Louisville was larger than Atlanta which now is the largest metro area in the whole Southeast. Louisville continued to go backwards because of the lack of intellect in its general population as well as the fact that the powers that be conspired to keep Louisville smaller and without other amenities and businesses that a thriving metro area would have. Add in the fact, that jobs in Louisville pay about 20 percent less than the US average and its not hard to see why Louisville now has so many economic and social problems despite the lower cost of living. 

Look at all of the other cities in the Southeastern US that used to be smaller than Louisville and have less opportunities and now are larger and more prosperous than Louisville. Not to mention those in the Ohio Valley like Pittsburgh and Cincinnati which are now much larger than Louisville. Or how other regional cities like Columbus, Nashville, Indianapolis, and Kansas City have long outpaced Louisville. Decades ago, Louisville was far the superior size of many of those cities but the backwards mentality of the local yokels and the political and economic kingmakers kept Louisville backwards and that way they could have an economically captive population. 

You would think that the citizens of Louisville would get tired of this shtick but they seem to be dumbed down to the point they can't mount an effective resistance to the power brokers control over their community. Its like they've lost all sense of right and desire to stand up for right. However, that somehow doesn't surprise me being that it is Louisville where mediocrity and being low mentality is readily acceptable.

Louisville, Kentucky: Bomb Cratered Streets Part Two

In my first installment, I discussed the Louisville issue of bomb cratered streets and infrastructure issues including that of the public screwing the the taxpayers of Louisville, Kentucky, and Southern Indiana are getting via increased tolls on the Kennedy and Lincoln bridges as well as the East End Bridge.

Now I think its time to pay attention to various Louisville streets that might as well be pockmarked like the moon with the various road issues and lack of attention that has been paid to the Louisville streets over the years.

Dixie Highway comes to mind of being the biggest clusterf--k around when it comes to Louisville roadways. Bumpy through about 20 miles of its existence from downtown all the way to the Jefferson Hardin County line. For years this road was a main thoroughfare from Louisville across the southern states. Yet after the interstate system was built in the 1960s and 1970s, it entered a rapid period of decline.

Why is it that its taken the better part of a generation of 20 years to figure out how to configure Dixie Highway to be a safe, efficient, and high traffic thoroughfare through the populated areas of Southwestern Louisville including Shively, Pleasure Ridge Park, Valley Station, and Kosmosdale, etc. All the while the road has been bumpy and uneven for years due to lack of maintenance and lack of engineering standards to keep the road as a major roadway safe and efficient. Add in the fact that the drivers of Dixie make it more dangerous with their lack of driving skills and lack of common sense. That should be strictly enforced by Louisville Metro and the Kentucky State Police but they are too busy solving other crimes and problems in the city nowadays to do much traffic enforcement.

However, they used to regularly hand out tickets on Dixie Highway back in the 90s and 2000s era on a regular basis and didn't shy away from pulling people over. The only place you might find them sitting now is south of the Gene Snyder Freeway because their traffic enforcement is lax between Valley Station and downtown at best. All the while residents are regularly in accidents because of lane switching, tailgaters, stop light running and various other bad driving practices.

Add in the fact that the road is poorly lit and poorly maintained as well as tremendously bumpy in many sections with the roadway having raised surfaces and falling apart lends to the problems as well. Too many businesses and entry ways to cause issues as well and an overbearing traffic load on the highway system.

Why Louisville can't get its public works system correct to get that road fixed properly is beyond me despite years of planning and community discussions that even though some work has been done, not much progress has been made. It shouldn't take an act of Congress or a military action to get something done to fix a roadway that carries so much of the traffic load for the Southwest Louisville area.

Why the people of Louisville continue to put up with this crap?

There are plenty of downtown surface streets in Louisville that could use some TLC as well especially in the Downtown and Old Louisville as well as Butchertown and Smoketown areas. Too numerous to mention here I would love to video all of the bombed out streets of Louisville and show the public what a mess they truly are. Maybe that might get the attention of the Metro Government that instead of polishing their nails and having a manicure could actually do some work and get roads fixed which is an essential function of government.

Also, who in the hell is the idiot in Louisville in charge of the traffic light system? They should be fired and forced to dig ditches for the rest of their days instead of trying to unsuccessfully manage traffic lights so that people aren't spending an eternity sitting at lights because of lack of synchronization.

I remember back in 2009 that there was to be total sychronization of the traffic signals in Louisville, KY since the city under Jerry Abramson was supposed to be fixing that problem. Yet its 8 years later and that still hasn't occurred under the Greg Fischer administration. They've did nothing except waste the last eight years in getting someone to do their job and fix the problems that cause people to have to sit wastefully for hours at the lights every year when there is no traffic or very little traffic running. Its mind bogglingly stupid to have such a system that could be used to save on gas costs, wear and tear on cars, and time and yet not use it efficiently.

You're telling me that Louisville Public Works can't do its job and actually commit to fix the traffic light issues. Despite the fact that in 2009, the Mayor of Louisville, Jerry Abramson chose to take over the maintenance of the system from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet which included maintenance on all state roads and numbered roads within the jurisdiction of Louisville Metro. Of which now the city of Louisville ie Louisville Metro now is responsible for the upkeep, snow removal, and roadway improvements on all former state routes.

Yet under the incompetent and clueless Greg Fischer administration, the road network has been increasingly falling into disrepair and lack of upkeep despite the promises of a clueless and incompetent mayor that refuses to take public safety seriously by fixing roadways. Instead he's more worried about liberal agenda items such as having more bike lanes and more sustainability ideas which add very little to the city other than more waste and more inefficiency rather than fixing what needs to be fixed.

Louisville, thinks as itself as a world class city, but its a delusion with the political and business leaders in Louisville being largely ineffectual and incompetent to promoting change, progress and improvement. All the while playing the usual constituent games to get re-elected while the overglorified trailer park burns down around them. With crime and murders spiking through the roof, these political games are jeopardizing the future of the region and taxpayers. Too bad most people are too ignorant or self absorbed to actually know or care about anything that doesn't hit them in the face.

Louisville, Kentucky: Bomb Cratered Streets Part One

Louisville being a city of 750,000 people that swells to a larger city with the influx of traffic and job seekers has some of the most jacked up and horrid infrastructure of any major US city I have been to. That includes by trips to places like Indianapolis, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Nashville, Memphis, Columbus, etc. Not to mention farther more far flung locales in the Eastern United States.

I can easily understand and sympathize with the difficulty that local road crews have with continuing to upkeep roadways and surface streets in a place that has so much cold weather from November to March on a yearly basis. However, I can't understand how a city with a ridiculously high rate of taxes on its residents cannot fix its city streets and infrastructure. Not to mention to add in high sewer bills and high water bills that are run by the city government and the MSD and Water Company which regulary sticks it to the consuming public. All the while the public officials at those agencies are appointees of the Mayor of Louisville. They stink and reek of incompetence, favortism, nepotism, and good old boy corruption on a grand scale that would make Boss Tweed look like a moral and decent man.

Louisville seems to be a city always under construction but nothing really substantive gets done unless the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet takes the lead and even with their blatant stupidity gets very little done. Just enough to keep the roadways running and clear and other than that, they find a way to regularly spend more money and mismanagement is rife in their ranks. Which is partially why Louisville and Southern Indiana commuters and other passers by have to pay ridiculous tolling charges on a bridge system that could have been built in a publicly funded way with existing tax revenues and gas taxes. Instead of being screwed to death with more tolls that equate to a monthly cable TV bill just for the privilege of having to go to work to earn a living on either side of the river.

A system that cannot even get its crap straight to where people are being sent late fees via invoices for bills that they never received in the first place. A system that couldn't be ran by the Commonwealth of Kentucky or State of Indiana or local governmental agency but instead by a faceless, nameless, company based out of Texas that is doing the billings. Why is it that Kentucky and Indiana couldn't at least come up with a system where billing and collections were at least done locally instead of being farmed out to Texas where company in question continues to screw the general public and taxpayers.

Will this be like the 2006 to 2014 Indiana Toll Road debacle where Indiana got several billion dollars in money for exchange for a 75 year toll road concession? Only to find out in 2014 and 2015 that the company that was running the tolling system went bankrupt so the state had to operate it until a new consortium took over the management and fiscal operations of the Indiana Toll Road.

How many years will the taxpayers continue to be fleeced by the company that Kentucky in its infinite wisdom chose to screw the ratepayers with? How much money will be wasted on inefficient company practices and billing mistakes made by this faceless and corrupt outfit? How much will the taxpayers have to be soaked with in tolls because the Commonwealth of Kentucky cannot manage its own economy, education system, government and the like to where the drivers had to be tolled.
There were plenty of opportunities over the years to get this done if the Commonwealth of Kentucky had not been an economic and social basketcase with a socialistic government that wasted billions of dollars of a 20 to 30 year period and couldn't even manage a state pension fund. All the while racking up a 60 billion dollar deficit to said pension fund with the help of various governors and state legislators always kicking the can down the road. Why is it that the people of Kentucky continue to elect these various morons including the current governor Matt Bevin? A guy that mentally isn't fit to run a lemonade state. More on Bomb Cratered Streets Louisville Style Part II