To bring this full circle back to the article, the inability to build and maintain things is a recent and uniquely American problem. The fifth largest economy in the world can’t build a train (California HSR), but much smaller countries can. New York’s maintenance and construction costs are a laughingstock with no obvious causes.[0]
Obviously something is seriously wrong, and everything needs to be looked at, but the defeatist idea that “Well, it can’t be done, and if we do it, we’d just screw it up, so don’t bother.” Only in America is there one party that refuses to look at entrenched interests, and another that sabotages things in order to make a point, or more recently to simply “trigger” the other party.
I can tolerate incompetence, but really can’t stand sabotage.
The problem isn't unique to the US. We.are the worst, but the UK isn't much better, and even France has issues to work on. Spain has great construction, but their opperations are questionable. Assian countries also have variations. There is no reason India should be so expensive to build in.
Obviously something is seriously wrong, and everything needs to be looked at, but the defeatist idea that “Well, it can’t be done, and if we do it, we’d just screw it up, so don’t bother.” Only in America is there one party that refuses to look at entrenched interests, and another that sabotages things in order to make a point, or more recently to simply “trigger” the other party.
I can tolerate incompetence, but really can’t stand sabotage.
[0] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/new-york-infrastruct...