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This is sweeping a lot of problems under the rug. Many US governments are so disfunctional that it's unclear that they could succeed at European-style public ho
by skybrian 4y ago
This is sweeping a lot of problems under the rug. Many US governments are so disfunctional that it's unclear that they could succeed at European-style public housing.
An analogy: just because Japan has a very good high-speed rail network doesn't imply that a new one will succeed in the US. In California it's an open question whether it's going to succeed in the end. You can't assume the US way of doing things like that will do as good a job as other countries on some things, because the culture and politics are very different, and sometimes that means we screw it up.
- jeffbee 4y agoCalifornia has a vast and robust sprawling network of socialized transportation, the budget for which has doubled in the past 2 years to consume 7% of the annual state budget. Think I am talking about high speed rail? No, just the freeway department, which spends 40x more every year and the economic sustainability of which is never even obliquely questioned. In short, California has plenty of appetite for socialism, as long as it is the kind they want.
- skybrian 4y agoOkay, but generic arguments of this sort won't tell us whether any particular project will succeed. It's going to depend on local conditions.
- recursive 4y ago> 40x more every year Am I reading this right? Are you saying that each decade, the California freeway department multiplies their budget by a quadrillion? If their budget was $1 in 2013, they would now be spending more money than there exists in the world? I'm going to request a source for that.