The Clinton Bank will be the next step in getting rid of the now useless Congress who refuse to stop the evil of the left as many are making lots of money supporting the left wing tyranny in DC.
This is whistling through the graveyard. We do indeed have lots of roads and bridges but the roads are like rubble piles instead of pavement.
Our airports look like slums in many places. They have not even been remodeled in decades in many places. There are a few new ones.
No, our infrastructure is in a shambles because we spend most of our money on benefits that discourage work. If we spent less more people might actually look for and produce on a job.
A little fear of starvation is good for the soul and motivation.
Discussing infrastructure nationally obscures the issue. Our infrastructure issues are sporadic, but are much worse in some states than others. I have lived in eight different states. Texas and Kentucky had the best roads by far, well built and generally well maintained.
My current state of South Caroline is by far the worst. They underfunded roads for years and now have a back log of repairs and required upgrades screaming for attention. I have replaced one windshield, have to replace another, and the replacement windshield just took another rock two weeks ago. My route to work (rural two and four lane US highways) is littered with patched potholes and decaying pavement.
The interstates are marginally better, but the interchange between I-26 and I-20 was dubbed “malfunction junction” as it simply cannot handle the daily traffic load. The legislature finally passed a road bill, but we shall see if they can finally address all the accumulated problems, let alone expand and improve the system.
The items cited as made in the 21st century are bogus - they were made in the last century with the exception on one or two UAE airports.
Left out of the article .....
Prevailing Wage labor costs table.... More commonly known as Union labor cost.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/oprl/pwd/Southern.html
ALL Tax dollars Must be spent at Prevaling wage for the area of the country you live in ... This chart is Southern Calif.
For fun click on Laborer (flag an w college degree s/) to start .... Base Hourly rate $50.48
Operating Engineer .. Group 1 ( see further down group 1 includes Forklift Operator) base hourly rate $64.94
Traditionally Union n workers vote about 40% conservative.
And in their defense they don’t get the full sum of money in their check ...much is skimmed off by the union then of course the government has a field day ...
Bottom line the costs of projects get inflated and you could hire 4 guys at $16 per hour to run a forklift and have many qualified applicants trying to get that job
Can’t be.
We spent $800 billion on infrastructure in 2009.
Everything was fixed.
No, our infrastructure is not number one. The Airports in DC, NYC, LA, and Florida are national embarrassments. Visit almost any city in Germany, Japan, etc and you’ll see infrastructure.
I’ve had the experience several times of foreigners visiting amazed in some ways at how cool America is, and then stunned at the lack of transportation, the crappy internet, and other things they take for granted.
“McKinsey, however, recommends that virtually all of the increased infrastructure spending go to those poor countries with alarming infrastructure deficits”
He just mentions the McKinsey report like we should all know who that is. But last I checked, infrastructure spending isn’t coming from some world fund to be allocated as needed worldwide.
American spending has ZERO to do with world spending.
If the author ever dared set forth past the DC beltline the state of roads, bridges, electrical power grid, water/wastewater, and transportation infrastructure in rural America is such that he would be ashamed to put his name on such tripe.
Just because we’re number 1 doesn’t mean we don’t need work. That’s the thing with grading on a curve, somebody HAS to be #1 no matter how many bridges are falling apart.
In terms of a continental scale infrastructure the US is far ahead. Singapore and Hong Kong are miniatures with, respectively, the best airport in the world and one of the newest with an incredibly efficient and inexpensive (as opposed to the $60-100 car ride in many major airports) rail link into the city. And Germany is just one country on a continent that includes Greece and Romania (no offense intended to either, but we’ve got good roads everywhere). But on a city by city scale (I submit Buffalo and Detroit as my exhibits) or country by country and I’m kind of surprised we beat out Switzerland, Canada, and Japan.
Bookmark
I never trust these types of rankings (for almost anything), but none of the sources list the US as #1. Why just make it up?
We do have adequate infrastructure in most of the country. Though we do logically require more infrastructure than places like HK or Japan to generate the same amount of wealth per capita. Our population is much more spread out, so we need more roads for goods and people than they do. I will say that roads in and around some metro areas are congested to the point that it’s hindering commerce, and the free market isn’t really offering much in the way of solutions there.
One other area that needs improvement is internet connectivity in rural areas. It’s hindering productivity, and making it more difficult for people here to take part in the information economy. The private sector doesn’t really have any financial incentives to bring it up to standards.
We have plenty of universities, too. Though most of the ones we have are dysfunctional because the faculties are populated by ideologues and cynical opportunists who couldn’t care less what happens to their students once they graduate. We probably need to stop subsidizing things like gender/ethnic grievance departments and wannabe social justice crusaders. The sixties were a long time ago, and they haven’t gotten the memo yet.