Posted on 08/20/2016 7:06:48 AM PDT by expat_panama
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.
“Discussing infrastructure nationally obscures the issue. Our infrastructure issues are sporadic, but are much worse in some states than others. “
Very true, sometimes crossing a state line is eye opening. The road immediately looks crappy or twice as good.
and that’s part of the problem, because of state-to-state differences in priority allocations, liberals take this as a sign that federal intervention is needed. In fact what is needed is dismantling of the federal bureaucracy, de-regulation, and returning more authority and money to the states who know their local needs best. In the absence of such meddling, if one state has a superior infrastructure that encourages growth and development, other states will notice and act to close the gap. But when the feds are involved, limited resources are peanut-buttered across all areas without regard to local needs. If you’ve ever had any involvement with a project and been told “we can’t do anything about it, that’s determined by federal standards” you will know what I mean.
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.
Washington is in terrible shape, too. Bad roads, unsafe bridges, insufficient transportation or highways for the population, lead in the old pipes, aging IT infrastructure, a single overcrowded, terrible airport that can’t support the population of the western half of the state...
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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?
Most of the places with state-of-the-art airports don't have to deal with this kind of bureaucratic nonsense.
Here's something that the U.S. does exceptionally well, to the point where we are the envy of the world: railroads -- freight railroads in particular. You can travel from one end of the globe to another and you will never see a mile-long coal train of 280k-lb. rail cars running over steep grades like the Rocky Mountains, or a double-stack intermodal train making a 3,000-mile trip from Los Angeles to New York City in less than a week. Civil engineers and railroad officials from some of the most advanced countries in Asia and Europe are awed at how easily North American railroads move trains like this.
Here in the U.S. we do this sort of thing very well because this is much more important to our economy than airports are.
much is skimmed off by the union then of course the government has a field day ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Before I retired, about 17 years ago, union dues were typically two hours pay per month. I understand that it has gone to 2.5 hours pay per month now.
I owned Union and non Union compaines over various periods of time in Calif.
The union employee does have a direct pay to the union as dues but medical, vacation and retirement are also paid indirectly. The union then provides those benefits but are part of the payroll package paid by the employer.
I have never had a gripe w the working man just the Gov and unions .
Hope if you’ve retired you’re getting what was promised to you and if your wife survives you she his covered too. Have seen many ugly things over the years w unions and of course gov.
The purpose of my post was to illustrate the wage cost vs normal private wage scales and then the burden placed on the taxpayer.
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