Meirl
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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Lots of money goes into infrastructure, but a disproportionately large portion of that is profit for private companies, rather than necessary improvement. Whether a job is on time, late or abandoned, a few select people get richer on tax payer’s money while the people who rely on the infrastructure lose out. That’s the issue with the model. Just look at HS2.
But being fiscally conservative and bootstrapping is working so well.
You’d be shocked to see how much goes into maintaining our infrastructure. Yes, we need more investment, but claiming it’s negligible is just uninformed—coming from a municipal engineer whose job depends on that funding.
If you are under the impression that roads and infrastructure were better in the 70s than they are now, you are sorely mistaken.
As someone Dutch with probably some of the best roads in the world due to us fixing a road when a snowflake falls on it.. I gotta say; I was pretty impressed by the U.S roads in several states. No issues whatsoever.
Who knew?
Everyone who warned about this as it happened. That’s who.
I was too young to understand what was happening at the time, but my dad’s rants make sense now.
yeah that’s backwards. free market doesn’t make roads. hasn’t for a long time
“literally nothing works and you cannot go anywhere or do anything”
Is this some kind of mental illness? This dude seems to have hallucinated a whole world for himself. Too bad it is a shitty one.
Neither country allow private companies to build or maintain roads.
The free market had nothing to do with it. The fact that the government is the one that is supposed to be maintaining everything is the real problem.
What is up with this reference to the 36 chambers? I think it’s from a line from WuTang. But I don’t get it.
In all fairness, the red tape involved doesn’t make it easy. Probably need a 10m retainer just to read the initial paperwork
If a bridge starts crumbling it will open a business and make enough money to fix itself. All without impeding on my free use of it, of course. That’s just econ 101
It is funny how we can all start blaming our problems on Reagan and Thatcher.
Interestingly, Solomon’s wealth was equal to $1,586,028,125 according to the modern value of his gold, which is equal to the richest 6 men (in the US) combined.
But rest assured the trickle will start coming down any day now
/s
the US peaked with steel use in the 60s
I’ve seen private initiatives rebuild bridges in a month, while the government’s plan was to finish it in 5 years. Stfu. Not every problem in the world is caused by companies doing their thing
Nationalise everything.
hey member when tesla straight up admitted that they never really intended to bore a single mile of hyperloop track, they just wanted to prevent state funding of HSR (i.e. intentionally defrauded hundreds of investors) and literally nobody cared or did anything?
Also a lot of facets of that old infrastructure are crumbling and maintenance systems are either compromised or ignored. There are so many industrial accidents there are these days from people getting locked in freezers, because the emergency release was 65 years old and quit working a decade ago and nobody noticed/cared. How many sprinkler systems probably don’t work right now? Won’t be long before elevators are falling regularly. Kids toys will start burning down houses far more often. We reached a greed/corruption tipping point, and its all down hill from here. Nothing will be safe anymore.
“funny” certainly is a word
We just approved 4 trillion dollars in infrastructure spending, which is higher than the entire gdp of the UK
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_Jobs_Act#:~:text=Background,-Further%20information%3A%20Build&text=On%20March%2031%2C%202021%2C%20President,to%20overhaul%20the%20nation’s%20economy%22](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_Jobs_Act#:~:text=Background,-Further%20information%3A%20Build&text=On%20March%2031%2C%202021%2C%20President,to%20overhaul%20the%20nation's%20economy%22)
TIL I can’t go anywhere or do anything.
thats just not true
While China is dumping insane amounts into infrastructure and in most ways has matched the West and is rapidly going to leave us in the dust. It’s time to learn Mandarin.
Hey, but we have loads of super rich assholes in our oligarchy, so there’s that at least.
Seriously though, watch something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUFep0oJB2U and challenge y our prior notions about China.
Canada, too, but the climate, in many places, does destroy roads pretty quick
Bruh… I worked for the energy company, they claimed it would cost 1 million per block to bury power lines so we don’t lose power during every storm.
Cost was all regulation and time it took to get approval.
Why would the free market pay to maintain the government’s property?
I know Reddit is economic illiterates, but this doesnt even make the slightest bit of sense
I guess he’s never heard of the big dig
I don’t know what this person is talking about. Infrastructure in the US is constantly being maintained, updated and built. There just happens to be a lot of it.
It’s an oversimplification from someone from a clear agenda, but they should really be making the argument that privatisation is not working more vocally
The free market had nothing to do with it. The fact that the government is the one that is supposed to be maintaining everything is the real problem.
Yay Free market!!!!! Fuck now Im starving in a shit hole surrounded by a crumbling society.
Mental that this has been posted considering the UK has turned into a hell hole due to left wing economic policies.
Why sound like a victim. Go and sell something.