4 ms·
You are comparing California labor construction costs to the costs of third world laborers. What's the cost difference here; 10 to 1? Surely 5 to 1 at the least
by imjustsaying 10y ago
You are comparing California labor construction costs to the costs of third world laborers. What's the cost difference here; 10 to 1? Surely 5 to 1 at the least?
Then you gotta figure the cost of compliance with all the different bureaus and regulations that don't exist in China or India to make something like this happen in California.
And then there's the litigious cost amplifier that is another distinctly American feature.
This is the reality we live in.
- dmoy 10y agoLess than a tenth. The laborers in Beijing building subway lines are not pulling in that much. More like $4/hr. Edit: original Parent post was taking about $100:$10, I'm agreeing and saying even less, more like $4/hr in Beijing.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- smallnamespace 10y agoYou're missing one of the biggest costs, which is obtaining the right of way from existing property holders. There's plenty of prime real estate in California that the route would need to pass through, and every local community is going to try to negotiate the best deal along the route.
- yummyfajitas 10y agoSo let's import Chinese and Indians and have them build it. If American labor can't get the job done, let's not use it. The goal is getting train service rather than funneling money to unions, right?
- trome 10y agoWe actually did this with the Chinese and Irish immigrants [1], and some rail lines would kill off workers to avoid paying them once a rail line was complete. That being said, American labor isn't the issue, Chinese already cost $4/hr and importing them costs quite a bit, whereas the labor market stateside is pretty soft in that segment. It likely would not make sense unless your good with mass executions to cut costs. 1 - http://web.stanford.edu/group/chineserailroad/cgi-bin/wordpress/timeline/ http://web.stanford.edu/group/chineserailroad/cgi-bin/wordpr... Edit: dmoy states labor is $4/hr in China, not $3/hr.
- yummyfajitas 10y agoChina and India do not currently execute their train construction crews, so I don't see why we would need to. If we can hire American labor for cheap (i.e. less than Davis Bacon wages) let's do that - but then don't use labor costs as an excuse why CA rail costs > 10x what Chinese rail does.
- trome 10y agoIt is part of the reason why it'd cost more, we also have much higher safety standards (our rail cars are only allowed to crush in 1 inch, as compared to over a foot of crush allowed in Europe), an expensive right of way acquisition process, massive environmental impact statements ("Lets quantify the impact on the average person in this area"), and much more community involvement in the design process. Unless we can steal land and cut corners when building, the costs are unlikely to drop much.
- dmoy 10y agoTo clarify: (average) construction labor in Beijing, I wouldn't be surprised if it was cheaper outside of Beijing (but I also don't know)