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US is far from finishing deveping, fortunately or unfortunately. Take trains, for example, area where US is far behind China, Japan, or European countries, desp
by amaks 10y ago
US is far from finishing deveping, fortunately or unfortunately. Take trains, for example, area where US is far behind China, Japan, or European countries, despite the size of its territory. I'm sure there are other examples.
- Cyph0n 10y agoTransportation in general is weak in the US compared to other countries.
- nerfhammer 10y agoTangent, but the US freight rail networks are much better than Europe. US is good at freight rail and bad at passenger service, Europe is vice versa.
- xiaoma 10y agoActually, I find Europe's passenger service uninspiring compared to Japan or especially Taiwan.
- reddytowns 10y agoTaiwan's trains are subsidized
- xiaoma 10y agoSo are Japan's. The idea isn't to get a profit off of tickets vs operating costs. The idea is to improve the efficiency of the country and economy. It's an investment. If the US had a similar political climate the east coast would already have high speed rail from New York to Miami.
- nerfhammer 10y agoRail needs to be profitable, but roads certainly don't. For some reason.
- reddytowns 10y agoJapan has a very low subsidy and most of its railways are private and receive none.
- knd775 10y agoI think that Japan's population density and relatively small size makes it much easier to make money on railways.
- fapjacks 10y agoBut they don't need to be, really, when they can just put it on a boat for the whole journey, or most of the journey and then just truck it a few hours inland.
- velodrome 10y agoOur infrastructure needs a lot of work ($4T dollars worth). Improving our infrastructure has a good ROI (GDP multiplier). http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LKZQT6pv_oU/TBqKqQaCcaI/AAAAAAAAA6I/So1V5I--j8Y/s1600/Multiplier+effect+chart.png http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_LKZQT6pv_oU/TBqKqQaCcaI/AAAAAAAAA6... http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/infrastructure/our-insights/infrastructure-productivity http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/infrastructure/our-insigh... http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/grades/ http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/grades/
- WillPostForFood 10y agoThe problem with infrastructure spending isn't that it doesn't potentially have a good ROI, it is that the process channels the money to wasteful projects that don't have a good ROI.
- aminorex 10y agoThis is what happens in every ecosystem as the available energy sources become fully exploited. Featherbedding and cronyism are the parasitic vines which strangle enough trees so that when the next lightning strike comes the conflagration is inevitable. They cannot exist without the forest. When the forest grows to maturity they become inevitable.