Free Republic

scooter ratings...looking for something showing cost per mile to own/operate various scooters (50-125cc) IIRC, MCN (Motorcycle Consumer News) had/has something like this for cycles,but none for scooters that I could recall.

Spanish voters on Sunday are expected to dismiss the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and usher in the conservative People's Party (PP) and its leader, Mariano Rajoy. Mr. Zapatero’s Socialist party (PSOE), which has been in power for eight years, has borne the brunt of public blame for Spain’s increasingly perilous economic situation, which has tainted the party’s leadership candidate, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba. Meanwhile, Mr. Rajoy has been coasting toward an expected landslide victory without saying much about how he plans to reverse Spain’s economic course... The situation is bleak for the eurozone’s fourth-largest...

Voters approved the project in 2003, to replace a freeway damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Back then, the cost was $647 million. Today, the price tag is $1.6 billion, with the lion's share of the funding still to come from the federal government. In July, San Francisco's Civil Grand Jury concluded the project was poorly designed, won't meet projected ridership levels, and, as the scathing title of its report says, costs "too much money for too little benefit." At about $1 billion per mile, the Central Subway has become a driving force in Tuesday's mayoral election.

The productivity of U.S. businesses climbed 3.1% in the third quarter...Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected productivity to increase by 3.7% in the third quarter... ...real output, grew at an annual rate of 3.8%...Hours worked, however, rose a much smaller 0.6%, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. As a result, unit-labor costs fell 2.4%...

When first proposed to taxpayers in 2008, the high-speed rail project in California that would eventually link Los Angeles and San Francisco had a projected cost of $33.6 billion and a delivery date of twelve years. By May of this year, after the Obama administration tossed in $3.5 billion in stimulus money to get the project started, the cost estimate ballooned to $43 billion, the most expensive public-works project in American history. But that now looks like a bargain in contrast to the latest estimate for the bullet train, as reported by the Mercury News: Faster than a speeding bullet...

Employees may not realize it, but they are getting more expensive. It isn't that their paychecks have suddenly started bulging. It's that other employment costs—like health and retirement benefits—continue to rise. Benefit costs in the private sector were up 4% year-on-year in the second quarter, more than double the 1.7% increase in wages and salaries. On Friday, the Labor Department's employment-cost index for the third quarter is likely to show this trend continuing. The trouble is, this means employers are paying more for workers without actually paying their workers more. Higher benefit costs eat into profits without directly raising a...

UND officials have estimated the cost of retiring the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo at nearly $750,000, not counting the cost of changes that may occur at the privately-held Ralph Engelstad Arena. University President Robert Kelley sent the estimates last week to a budget analyst and auditor with the North Dakota Legislative Council, in response to a request made by Rep. Mike Schatz, R-New England. Schatz, who has declared that he will not support an attempt in next month's special legislative session to clear the way for retirement of the name and logo, said he asked for the cost information...

Minnesota ranks as the fifth least affordable state for prekindergarten child care, after New York, Montana, Massachusetts and Wisconsin. Minnesota is among the most expensive for child care partly because the industry is highly regulated by the state, according to Ann McCully, executive director of Minnesota Child Care. For example, Minnesota requires a lower ratio of staff to children than other states, which requires centers to spend more money on personnel. McCully said it can be difficult for centers to make a profit or simply break even.

The cost of health insurance for many Americans this year climbed more sharply than in previous years, outstripping any growth in workers’ wages and adding more uncertainty about the pace of rising medical costs. A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group that tracks employer-sponsored health insurance on a yearly basis, shows that the average annual premium for family coverage through an employer reached $15,073 in 2011, an increase of 9 percent over the previous year. “The open question is whether that’s a one-time spike or the start of a period of higher increases,” said Drew...

Mitt Romney has tried to accomplish two tasks in his debate performances — defend his health-care overhaul in Massachusetts known as MassCare but often called RomneyCare, and tout his record as a governor whose policies fostered job creation in the state. A new study by a conservative think tank at Suffolk University will complicate both strategies. According to the Boston Herald, the study shows that MassCare cost the state more than 18,000 jobs since its enactment: The Bay State’s controversial 2006 universal health-care plan — also known as “Romneycare” — has cost Massachusetts more than 18,000 jobs, according to an...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry has asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for nearly $350 million to cover the costs incurred detaining illegal immigrants in state prisons and county jails. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Perry criticized the federal government hasn't been doing enough to secure the border with Mexico, thereby allowing illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. and use taxpayer-funded resources, including prisons and jails. It's a claim the Republican governor has made many times before. The letter was dated Aug. 10, three days before Perry formally announced he is running...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry has asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to reimburse the state $350 million to cover costs of imprisoning illegal immigrants. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the top-tier Republican presidential candidate blamed the federal government for not securing the border with Mexico, allowing illegal immigrants to cross over and use taxpayer-funded resources.

osts for holding the recall election for state Sen. Sheila Harsdorf's 10th Senate District seat totaled at least $113,500 for the five counties in her district, according to county clerks. The total cost of the recall is even higher, given that the reported figure counts only the cost to the counties and not the amount each municipality with a polling location spent during Tuesday's recall election and the July 12 primary. Harsdorf, R-River Falls, retained her seat Tuesday by defeating Ellsworth schoolteacher Shelly Moore, a River Falls Democrat, tallying 58 percent of the vote compared with 42 percent for Moore....

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- The estimated cost of California's high-speed rail project is rising by billions of dollars. Environmental impact studies released Tuesday and obtained in advance by The Associated Press put the cost of building the initial segment at anywhere from $10 billion to $13.9 billion. That's sharply higher than the $7.1 billion estimate from 2009 for the Merced-to-Bakersfield section. Rail board executives say the higher costs include more elevated tracks in the Central Valley and more specific data about property values. Construction is scheduled to start next year. ...

Ten Republican Senators have signed on to a letter asking FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the FCC's network neutrality rules. The 10, which includes Kay Bailey Hutchison (Tex.), the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees the FCC, were putting their collective muscle behind a second request by Sen. Dean Heller, who says the FCC did not respond to a July 12 letter following President Barack Obama's executive order asking independent agencies to "join executive agencies in reducing regulations that place unnecessary burdens on American businesses and the American people," as the senators...

Back in April I wrote about a person near and dear to me — yes, my husband — who needed two new crowns for $3,442. I published his experience in a post, Is Your Dentist Ripping You Off? Dentists howled in protest at the provocative headline, though most agreed with the content of the story.

A new report out of Brown University estimates that the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq--together with the counterinsurgency efforts in Pakistan--will, all told, cost $4 trillion and leave 225,000 dead, both civilians and soldiers. The Congressional Budget Office, meanwhile, has assessed the federal price tag for the wars at $1.8 trillion through 2021. The report says that is a gross underestimate, predicting that the government has already paid $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion. Perhaps the most sobering conclusion of the researchers is that it's unclear whether the human and economic costs are worth it. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin...

When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America's wars. Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released Wednesday. The final bill will reach at least $3.7 trillion and could be as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. In the 10 years since...

The CBO has a problem with the Office of Management and Budget’s calculation on the cost of the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bailouts, and it’s no small calculation error. OMB has calculated the costs of the bailout at $130 billion, a number repeated on occasion by the Obama administration. By the CBO’s calculation, the cost of the bailouts reaches $317 billion, more than twice the White House estimate: In a report delivered to the House Budget Committee on June 2, the CBO said a “fair value” accounting of guaranteeing the two defunct mortgage companies – known as Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs)...

Have you noticed that the economy is slowing down once again? The data of late has been pretty unequivocal on that front. In the last few weeks, we've seen monthly reports from Fed regional banks that show local economic growth stalling. Industrial production for April was flat. The housing market is in a double dip, despite the fact that mortgage rates are at bargain basement levels. Weekly jobless claims have bounced back up. And while the top-line number of April's unemployment report showed somewhat good news, though it also revealed clear signs that wages are not keeping pace with inflation,...