> The US has a massive setup cost problem, any significant infrastructure project takes years of regulatory hurdles and then legal challenges as competitors and

> The US has a massive setup cost problem, any significant infrastructure project takes years of regulatory hurdles and then legal challenges as competitors and NIMBYs try everything they can to slow things down. This is exactly what I meant by political problems. > Thus ending up being way more expensive than countries where they still have slums to ruthlessly tear down or land to seize from small-time farmers to make room for new infrastructure (not to imply that the way it works in the US is much better). India razed slums and farms for trains, the US razed forests and farms for interstates. It's the same thing. Slums in India have a land value to them. The government doesn't get that land for free. Just pay out property owners market value+20% for infrastructure and build the thing that is so direly needed.