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buswolley writes:
"Is the United States or the EU really too poor to afford to build the things each needs to maintain prosperous nations? Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) posits that America is not too poor in real resources to do the things it needs to do, and now proponents of the theory have adapted the rules of the classic board game Monopoly to demonstrate their case. For those that do not know what modern monetary theory is about, a suitable primer on the topic might be Warren Mosler's Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economy Policy or Diagrams and Dollars, either as a book on Amazon or on-line for free at NewEconomicsPerspectives.org.
While the Modern Monetary Theory perspective tends to elicit disbelief and even rage, I think it is important for any scientist and geek to weigh the evidence carefully, and by doing so understand better about how and why money is created and destroyed."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 01 2014, @08:55PM
President Obama recently announced an initiative to pump $300,000,000.00 into our nations roads and railways. I hope that works out; the Skagit River Bridge on Interstate 5 between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia dropped into the drink a while back when a truck swerved and hit a week spot. Just a week or two ago, the I-5 bridge over the Columbia River between Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon failed to lower all the way down after being raised to allow the passage of a ship.
One of the two spans is almost a hundred years old. I walked over the bridge a few months ago; it was pretty obvious, on getting a close look, that it is at the end of its lifetime.
A few years ago, a bridge on the Internet between Minneapolis and St. Paul collapsed, killing I think eleven people, or maybe it was thirteen.
The authorities requested the public to turn in any photographs they might possess of the bridge, from before the collapse, for use in the post-mortem investigation.
Some of those photos quite clearly showed bolt heads stretched way out of place FIVE FUCKING YEARS before the collapse.
I mentioned that to a close friend who is a civil engineer. He specializes in highway overpasses, assisted with the repair of the Oakland Bay Bridge after part of it collapsed during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, and makes a bit of coin on the side testifying as a paid expert witness.
If you get someone killed by fucking up on the job, then Tom will swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so as to show you what for.
So when I told Tom about those five year-old stretched boltheads?
"That's impossible. Every bridge gets inspected every two years."
Nevertheless: the bridge collapsed, and killed a bunch of people.
The last time I heard, 10,000 bridges in the United States are in serious need of repair. Many need to be replaced entirely, as with the proposed Columbia River Crossing, which is looking like it's just not going to happen.
Here's the punch line. WAIT FOR IT!
Road repair, road construction, bridge maintenance, those every-two-year inspections that are meant to find stretched out bolt and rivet heads, are all paid for my state and federal gasoline taxes.
However, today's cars get far better mileage than they did when the laws that decreed those taxes were passed, hybrid cars use very little gas, and electric cars like the Tesla use no gas at all.
It's not just that electricity is cheaper than gasoline, but that one doesn't pay the Road Tax to drive a tesla.
What's more, despite many kinds of road repair such as cracks due to ice during the winter, do not depend on how much the road is actually used, Americans these days are driving less.
I myself don't drive at all, this after I wrapped my soda popcan Chevy Prizm around a concrete highway overpass post. Buckle Up For Safety! Now I ride the bus and light rail.
here is the very first impression that my then-girlfriend, now ex-wife Bonita Hatcher had of These United States upon her first visit to me in 1998:
"You have such terrible roads."
Really I had not noticed, but I lived with her in Canada for a while. Just about all the roads are kept in mint condition. They have to, with their harsh, bitterly cold winters. This despite being far less populous than America, with so much of the population being so far spread out in rural areas, so that there are quite a lot of miles of road for the Canadian Federal and Provincial Governments to maintain.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]