This was great, thank you for sharing. A couple things I was hoping to see but didn't so I'll share my entirely uneducated opinion as we're supposed to do in a comment section.
First, for all of the decline that you mentioned with regards to engineering, you left out what Americans lead the world in these days: whining & complaining! We love to complain about anything and everything but the minute solutions are proposed we start whining. Until Americans are led to believe that solutions are their best interest, all of this is just going to get worse.
Second is greed. I think there's a bit of that spread out through the piece but not specifically called out. The corporate greed has killed both innovation and in some cases the environment. We're going to be stuck with quick, cheaply built apartments for the foreseeable future.
You're totally right about the complaining—we've turned it into our national pastime! We should've included that as America's number one infrastructure achievement these days.
I should've highlighted greed throughout this piece because that's what drives these things. That consultant racket I mentioned? Corporate greed. These companies realized that they make more money studying problems than fixing them.
Those cheap apartments going up while the roads fall apart? You got it exactly right - quick profits, who cares about the rest. Developers make their money and leave everyone else stuck in traffic.
It's a sad story how the advance of capitalism has hollowed out our communities. Your research tells a story of disintegration.
Added to the list of the failure to fund new and important infrastructure should be congressional favoritism and favor swapping in funding new projects by both parties.
I haven't done the research but adding another culprit here. The laws of nature apply to capitalism and money flows in the path of least resistance: leveraged buy outs and sell offs, sucking the vitality out of communities.
Getting people who have a social consciousness into Congress who are not beholden to the Democrat party is a big critical step. We must not replace oligarchical dominance with corporate dominance. We need to keep the drum beating on electing progressives. Thank you for keeping that focus up front.
Let's also jump in at the local levels and begin actually running our government in our states and communities. Having good people as local commissioners keeping a watch on where contracts are going, and pushing to upgrade our grids would be a big progressive step. And for gods sake, get on the school boards and bring the good literature back into our schools.
“We can't fix bridges, roads, or power grids unless we first fix our politics.” Yes, and to do that and address political corruption, we must get big money out.
Things began to change rapidly during the Reagan administration, as he famously said “Government IS the problem.” He shifted tax policy to focus on corporate profits with a “trickle-down” lie. Gone were the huge signs at construction sites saying, “Your tax dollars at work.” No wonder so many people lost trust or faith in government.
This well-written article is similar to ones I wrote about American health care 10-15 years ago. One of them started with, “Fixing our broken healthcare system, reducing costs, and improving care all comes down to getting the objectives and health incentives right.” (MHealthTalk.com/incentives)
Similarly, it spoke of political corruption and called for getting big money out. It also promoted public-private partnerships and embraced the contrast between business incentives (like ROI, quarterly profit, and payback period) and public sector incentives that have different objectives and measure success differently.
I reckon we can't fix any of the underlying causes without the political movement I'm describing. Whether it's money in politics, corruption, declining capacity, or the revolving door—whatever we figure the root cause of our dysfunction is—the only way out is through a political revolution. That's my underlying thesis, which is why I put it in the postscript of every post I put up here.
Another factor to add to the list of causes (for the infeasibility of large-scale projects) can be stated in three words: Capitalism versus Socialism. In the latter, a public agency sees a need to be filled and uses public workers to fill it. In contrast, under capitalism, dozens of private agencies are involved, at all levels from mining to manufacture. Each one of these has to make a profit - and ideally, as much profit as possible. So OF COURSE the costs are going to go up exponentially - to the point where the project simply cannot be done. (I no longer have the source, but I’d seen a report that California high-speed rail was projected to cost one billion dollars per mile.)
There is probably no “-ism” that represents a perfect system, but clearly one whose primary goal is profit for shareholders rather than good for the country and its people, is ultimately destined to fail.
I like your passion but still don’t see through to the answers. No mention of climate change. No mention of how. Most of America is now owned. How do you accomplish land acquisition in the face of that? And re climate, do we just keep on building, building, building? Millions of tons of concrete. The continued destruction of the environment. Bulldoze through everything. Burn baby, burn. More roads? More cars? Yes, with the congressional will we could achieve miracles. I just don’t see it happening in an America that has just elected a criminal fantasist to the presidency. A supreme court that is emboldening him and undermining labour. I’m 85. I’m with Bernie and AOC but honestly, do we still need more of everything?
I hear you, John. I try to keep my posts to a readable length so I can't talk about it all every time. I realize climate change is an existential threat. I think we can solve it with either the Jetsons or the Flintstones approach - and the Flintstones version is going to be more painful and deadly.
When I was working on the Green New Deal, I envisioned it as a path to innovate and work our way out of the crisis. I still do. I'm trying to describe the need for a political and electoral mass movement. That's why this Substack is so focused on the depths of the problems - so we can see the scale of the solutions needed.
Vision is critical to change. We can't achieve what we can't imagine. We can't fix what we don't know is broken. When I worked with AOC, I advocated for relaunching a "world's fair" type of event. I pushed for a visual that became the video "A Message from the Future." I think it's critical that we inspire our imaginations.
And yes, I think there is more building to do - more discovery. More understanding of how to live in comfort but also harmony with our planet. This is one piece I've written - about 20 so far. Another dealt with privatization and ownership of the nation:
There was a change in the US after the 60s. We had optimism then. We put a man on the moon! We were going to end poverty! Perhaps it started with Nixon/Kissinger’s plan to fund the military build up of Iran (then, later, Iraq) as the US enforcer in the Middle East by encouraging the oil-rich Arab states to collude to raise oil prices, rather than raise money through taxation. Perhaps it had to do with the backlash against Civil Rights by people willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces, voting against programs that would have helped them in order to punish black uppityness. Maybe it was Watergate and Nixon’s subsequent pardon. Maybe it was Reagan, with his “government is the problem” line of BS. Maybe it was the endless stream of infomercials and books telling us that only fools worked for a living and smart people developed “passive income streams” in real estate, investing, and MLM. Maybe it was the assassinations of JFK, MLK, & RFK.
Or a shift in popular entertainment from the lead characters being upholders of decency (think The Waltons) and the rise of the anti-heroes (think Dallas).
Almost forgot: unions, which used to be for protecting workers from abuse & getting them a fair shake, became protection for laziness & incompetence. Workers, who once understood the concept of standing together, became got the “I’m in it for me” attitude and voted to screw other workers in contract negotiations.
As the wife & sister in law of factory workers, I’ve got stories. (Yes, not all workers.)
You definitely make some good points, but I do feel the need to remind folks that a lot of regulation is there for a reason. I work in making sure large infrastructure meets those regulations, so I believe I'm one of the compliance workers in your list of bloat.
As they say, regulations are written in blood. Nearly every issue I'm checking new projects for is checked because of a catastrophic failure we agreed should never happen again. There is certainly room for more efficiency, but I'd ask lay people to avoid being hasty when eliminating "red tape". It's important we build and improve on our infrastructure, but we need to do it safely or lived will be lost. Generally, just training wore skilled workers and engineers would allow us to ensure these projects are safe on a quicker timeline seems a better solution to me. I know my industry has been operating in a labor deficit for my whole career.
IMHO all politics is local, therefore the solution begins with local offices. the GOP has been gerrymandering and cheating to take over local politics for decades but some Democrats in red states are beginning to fight back by talking to their neighbors and organizing as well as running for office even if they lose; that gives them more opportunities to talk about local issues and has helped narrow the losses. No one really wins when GOP candidates run unopposed.
I agree with everything else said here, spot on...
You're right that local efforts matter, and groups like Run for Something are doing important work. I totally support those efforts. But I also think Democrats have a real branding problem at the national level, and when your national brand is terrible, it makes local races that much harder.
The other thing is, some of the problems I outlined in this piece just can't be solved locally. The Interstate Highway System, NASA, railroads, subways, high-speed rail - these aren't local projects. It's like comparing a national library system to those little "take a book, leave a book" boxes on wooden posts. Both have value, but they operate at completely different scales.
Yes, all politics comes down to local elections in some ways, but the solutions we need often have to be bigger than that. We need both - strong local organizing AND a coherent national vision.
Thanks for bringing this up - it's a crucial part of the conversation.
Yes, and I think the analysis needs to go further. While Ezra correctly identifies the problem, understanding the full picture requires recognizing that businesses and their C-suites have been the primary drivers of these barriers. They've deliberately weaponized bureaucratic processes against the public interest.
The solution isn't just about cutting red tape - it's about restoring a power dynamic where government serves people rather than corporate interests. This requires strengthening democratic institutions while avoiding authoritarianism - a balance Ezra touches on but doesn't fully explore.
Thanks Corbin. I'm really happy to see that you take the abundance argument seriously, and also understand how it's business priorities as much as any progressive ones that lead to regulatory bloat. I really think that combining this approach with M4A and tax the rich is a platform that we can build a broad coalition around.
Klein’s “Abundance” is, at best, half an answer. For whatever reasons (all of which would be speculation, since I can’t see inside his head) he simply will not, or cannot, bring himself to acknowledge that there are things that the government MUST build by itself because “the market” NEVER will.
(sorry for being a bit shouty, but man is that blind spot irritating)
Interesting perspective. When you mentioned the cost of railroad building, was it just dollars, or was there a factor about the cheap labor of immigrants?
A Mr. LaPointe notes-it's all about the Benjamins. Greed begets poverty - of the pocket and the soul. My parents, children of the Depression and WW2 and Korea, built a house with a mortgage payment of $110 a month. They raised 3 kids on a salesman salary(Mom raised us at home, with no need for a second income just to feed us) and sent us to top end colleges. The U of Chicago cost $3000 a year.
A consumer based economy, which has led the U.S. to maintain the Reserve Currency and economic leadership of the world, has created a populace of desirous, shallow materialists whose children's children have no goals because 3 generations from the Greatest Generation they have no hope of living the "American Consumerist Dream". And AOC (a political lightweight) and Bernie (a failed Communist) are too late to the game to ever have any noticeable effect. Their Congressional partners are in it for the dough (see Pelosi's stock picks) and every Congressional district has a Department of Defense corporate recipient of weapons systems largesse.( You forgot to note that the one industry that leads the world in expertise and quality work-except Boeing- are defense contractors).
Sadly the only likely way out of this soul crushing crisis is war. If not the 30 year Neocon dream of taking over Russia via the Ukraine debacle(BlackRock already has the contract to rebuild the rubble that will be left there), then China will eventually overcome us economically as they pattern their economy on the US model, if they don't first economically crush us in a protracted war.
Wow. This is a fascinating mix of things I agree with and things I couldn't disagree with more strongly. I actually wrote about what you're describing - how people used to be able to build lives on one income - in this piece https://www.americasundoing.com/p/a-massive-american-pay-cut
But then you call AOC a political lightweight, which has been proven false by her effectiveness in Congress, and Bernie a "failed Communist" when he's really more of a democratic socialist who's achieved remarkable things. I do agree with your assessment of Pelosi and many other House members - both Democrat and Republican. And yes, the military industrial complex was incredibly strategic in positioning themselves across congressional districts.
Where I disagree is on military products and technology. I don't think we're still producing the best - we're starting to get beaten there too.
But the biggest disagreement? That war is the only way out of this crisis. That's the path unthoughtful leaders might take. Sure, there's appeal in using war to unite the country and build an economy, but it's not the only way. The Green New Deal was essentially mobilizing on a wartime footing without building bombs.
Glad to see you engaging with these ideas, even if we see some things very differently.
You'd undo bureaucracy by voting in Comrade Bernie? I don't see his track record of doing anything. Not as a mayor or Senator. Without politics, he'd still be living in his van.
Our problems are bigger than you think if your argument is the bureaucracy will right itself with the correct "swampers" in charge. There is no incentive for politicians to do anything differently. This system works great for them. Democrats Republicans Independents. This paradigm shift has to occur in a small group then spread. Capitalist communes come to mind.
Hi Corbin - fascinating analysis. My partner and I just did something similar at the micro level for my Village. My partner works in project management for a multi family builder, so knows how badly “off” infrastructure pricing at the Village level is. Here’s the thing: our Village staff priced the cost of a sidewalk at 1.8M. My husband got 3 bids from subs he works with for between 150k-400k. When we brought this to our Village, crickets. So here is what I see: it’s not just the consultants who have a chokehold on infrastructure - it’s the village employees who insist on hiring them as well. And those employees all must have “credentials” that are equally bogus but ensure that the grift continues.
If you draft all Americans into military service and teach them engineering and other trade skills and set them all out of military at relatively the same time with free college and free houses and you can't forget this: The rest of the world must be in ruins so that the American economy and dollar are the only stable things then you can recreate the same economy. Remember: non whites don't get the free college and the free houses so whites will support this "socialism." Maybe that's what it will take to create a "scandinavian" style "socialist" economy in the usa again.
This was great, thank you for sharing. A couple things I was hoping to see but didn't so I'll share my entirely uneducated opinion as we're supposed to do in a comment section.
First, for all of the decline that you mentioned with regards to engineering, you left out what Americans lead the world in these days: whining & complaining! We love to complain about anything and everything but the minute solutions are proposed we start whining. Until Americans are led to believe that solutions are their best interest, all of this is just going to get worse.
Second is greed. I think there's a bit of that spread out through the piece but not specifically called out. The corporate greed has killed both innovation and in some cases the environment. We're going to be stuck with quick, cheaply built apartments for the foreseeable future.
Thanks again, Corbin. All the best.
You're totally right about the complaining—we've turned it into our national pastime! We should've included that as America's number one infrastructure achievement these days.
I should've highlighted greed throughout this piece because that's what drives these things. That consultant racket I mentioned? Corporate greed. These companies realized that they make more money studying problems than fixing them.
Those cheap apartments going up while the roads fall apart? You got it exactly right - quick profits, who cares about the rest. Developers make their money and leave everyone else stuck in traffic.
Appreciate you reading and commenting.
-Corbin
It's a sad story how the advance of capitalism has hollowed out our communities. Your research tells a story of disintegration.
Added to the list of the failure to fund new and important infrastructure should be congressional favoritism and favor swapping in funding new projects by both parties.
I haven't done the research but adding another culprit here. The laws of nature apply to capitalism and money flows in the path of least resistance: leveraged buy outs and sell offs, sucking the vitality out of communities.
Getting people who have a social consciousness into Congress who are not beholden to the Democrat party is a big critical step. We must not replace oligarchical dominance with corporate dominance. We need to keep the drum beating on electing progressives. Thank you for keeping that focus up front.
Let's also jump in at the local levels and begin actually running our government in our states and communities. Having good people as local commissioners keeping a watch on where contracts are going, and pushing to upgrade our grids would be a big progressive step. And for gods sake, get on the school boards and bring the good literature back into our schools.
“We can't fix bridges, roads, or power grids unless we first fix our politics.” Yes, and to do that and address political corruption, we must get big money out.
Things began to change rapidly during the Reagan administration, as he famously said “Government IS the problem.” He shifted tax policy to focus on corporate profits with a “trickle-down” lie. Gone were the huge signs at construction sites saying, “Your tax dollars at work.” No wonder so many people lost trust or faith in government.
This well-written article is similar to ones I wrote about American health care 10-15 years ago. One of them started with, “Fixing our broken healthcare system, reducing costs, and improving care all comes down to getting the objectives and health incentives right.” (MHealthTalk.com/incentives)
Similarly, it spoke of political corruption and called for getting big money out. It also promoted public-private partnerships and embraced the contrast between business incentives (like ROI, quarterly profit, and payback period) and public sector incentives that have different objectives and measure success differently.
I reckon we can't fix any of the underlying causes without the political movement I'm describing. Whether it's money in politics, corruption, declining capacity, or the revolving door—whatever we figure the root cause of our dysfunction is—the only way out is through a political revolution. That's my underlying thesis, which is why I put it in the postscript of every post I put up here.
Another factor to add to the list of causes (for the infeasibility of large-scale projects) can be stated in three words: Capitalism versus Socialism. In the latter, a public agency sees a need to be filled and uses public workers to fill it. In contrast, under capitalism, dozens of private agencies are involved, at all levels from mining to manufacture. Each one of these has to make a profit - and ideally, as much profit as possible. So OF COURSE the costs are going to go up exponentially - to the point where the project simply cannot be done. (I no longer have the source, but I’d seen a report that California high-speed rail was projected to cost one billion dollars per mile.)
There is probably no “-ism” that represents a perfect system, but clearly one whose primary goal is profit for shareholders rather than good for the country and its people, is ultimately destined to fail.
The top 1% used to pay higher taxes, which paid for the giant infrastructure projects.
I like your passion but still don’t see through to the answers. No mention of climate change. No mention of how. Most of America is now owned. How do you accomplish land acquisition in the face of that? And re climate, do we just keep on building, building, building? Millions of tons of concrete. The continued destruction of the environment. Bulldoze through everything. Burn baby, burn. More roads? More cars? Yes, with the congressional will we could achieve miracles. I just don’t see it happening in an America that has just elected a criminal fantasist to the presidency. A supreme court that is emboldening him and undermining labour. I’m 85. I’m with Bernie and AOC but honestly, do we still need more of everything?
I hear you, John. I try to keep my posts to a readable length so I can't talk about it all every time. I realize climate change is an existential threat. I think we can solve it with either the Jetsons or the Flintstones approach - and the Flintstones version is going to be more painful and deadly.
When I was working on the Green New Deal, I envisioned it as a path to innovate and work our way out of the crisis. I still do. I'm trying to describe the need for a political and electoral mass movement. That's why this Substack is so focused on the depths of the problems - so we can see the scale of the solutions needed.
Vision is critical to change. We can't achieve what we can't imagine. We can't fix what we don't know is broken. When I worked with AOC, I advocated for relaunching a "world's fair" type of event. I pushed for a visual that became the video "A Message from the Future." I think it's critical that we inspire our imaginations.
And yes, I think there is more building to do - more discovery. More understanding of how to live in comfort but also harmony with our planet. This is one piece I've written - about 20 so far. Another dealt with privatization and ownership of the nation:
https://www.americasundoing.com/p/americas-execution-crisis-privatization
I'm so glad to see you in the comments. I want to talk this stuff through.
There was a change in the US after the 60s. We had optimism then. We put a man on the moon! We were going to end poverty! Perhaps it started with Nixon/Kissinger’s plan to fund the military build up of Iran (then, later, Iraq) as the US enforcer in the Middle East by encouraging the oil-rich Arab states to collude to raise oil prices, rather than raise money through taxation. Perhaps it had to do with the backlash against Civil Rights by people willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces, voting against programs that would have helped them in order to punish black uppityness. Maybe it was Watergate and Nixon’s subsequent pardon. Maybe it was Reagan, with his “government is the problem” line of BS. Maybe it was the endless stream of infomercials and books telling us that only fools worked for a living and smart people developed “passive income streams” in real estate, investing, and MLM. Maybe it was the assassinations of JFK, MLK, & RFK.
Or a shift in popular entertainment from the lead characters being upholders of decency (think The Waltons) and the rise of the anti-heroes (think Dallas).
Thoughts?
Almost forgot: unions, which used to be for protecting workers from abuse & getting them a fair shake, became protection for laziness & incompetence. Workers, who once understood the concept of standing together, became got the “I’m in it for me” attitude and voted to screw other workers in contract negotiations.
As the wife & sister in law of factory workers, I’ve got stories. (Yes, not all workers.)
WTF are you talking about?
When your “security state” killed your own president, the Republic was over.
You definitely make some good points, but I do feel the need to remind folks that a lot of regulation is there for a reason. I work in making sure large infrastructure meets those regulations, so I believe I'm one of the compliance workers in your list of bloat.
As they say, regulations are written in blood. Nearly every issue I'm checking new projects for is checked because of a catastrophic failure we agreed should never happen again. There is certainly room for more efficiency, but I'd ask lay people to avoid being hasty when eliminating "red tape". It's important we build and improve on our infrastructure, but we need to do it safely or lived will be lost. Generally, just training wore skilled workers and engineers would allow us to ensure these projects are safe on a quicker timeline seems a better solution to me. I know my industry has been operating in a labor deficit for my whole career.
IMHO all politics is local, therefore the solution begins with local offices. the GOP has been gerrymandering and cheating to take over local politics for decades but some Democrats in red states are beginning to fight back by talking to their neighbors and organizing as well as running for office even if they lose; that gives them more opportunities to talk about local issues and has helped narrow the losses. No one really wins when GOP candidates run unopposed.
I agree with everything else said here, spot on...
You're right that local efforts matter, and groups like Run for Something are doing important work. I totally support those efforts. But I also think Democrats have a real branding problem at the national level, and when your national brand is terrible, it makes local races that much harder.
The other thing is, some of the problems I outlined in this piece just can't be solved locally. The Interstate Highway System, NASA, railroads, subways, high-speed rail - these aren't local projects. It's like comparing a national library system to those little "take a book, leave a book" boxes on wooden posts. Both have value, but they operate at completely different scales.
Yes, all politics comes down to local elections in some ways, but the solutions we need often have to be bigger than that. We need both - strong local organizing AND a coherent national vision.
Thanks for bringing this up - it's a crucial part of the conversation.
I'd like to know how this overlaps with the abundance approach Ezra Klein wrote about.
Yes, and I think the analysis needs to go further. While Ezra correctly identifies the problem, understanding the full picture requires recognizing that businesses and their C-suites have been the primary drivers of these barriers. They've deliberately weaponized bureaucratic processes against the public interest.
The solution isn't just about cutting red tape - it's about restoring a power dynamic where government serves people rather than corporate interests. This requires strengthening democratic institutions while avoiding authoritarianism - a balance Ezra touches on but doesn't fully explore.
Thanks Corbin. I'm really happy to see that you take the abundance argument seriously, and also understand how it's business priorities as much as any progressive ones that lead to regulatory bloat. I really think that combining this approach with M4A and tax the rich is a platform that we can build a broad coalition around.
Klein’s “Abundance” is, at best, half an answer. For whatever reasons (all of which would be speculation, since I can’t see inside his head) he simply will not, or cannot, bring himself to acknowledge that there are things that the government MUST build by itself because “the market” NEVER will.
(sorry for being a bit shouty, but man is that blind spot irritating)
Interesting perspective. When you mentioned the cost of railroad building, was it just dollars, or was there a factor about the cheap labor of immigrants?
A Mr. LaPointe notes-it's all about the Benjamins. Greed begets poverty - of the pocket and the soul. My parents, children of the Depression and WW2 and Korea, built a house with a mortgage payment of $110 a month. They raised 3 kids on a salesman salary(Mom raised us at home, with no need for a second income just to feed us) and sent us to top end colleges. The U of Chicago cost $3000 a year.
A consumer based economy, which has led the U.S. to maintain the Reserve Currency and economic leadership of the world, has created a populace of desirous, shallow materialists whose children's children have no goals because 3 generations from the Greatest Generation they have no hope of living the "American Consumerist Dream". And AOC (a political lightweight) and Bernie (a failed Communist) are too late to the game to ever have any noticeable effect. Their Congressional partners are in it for the dough (see Pelosi's stock picks) and every Congressional district has a Department of Defense corporate recipient of weapons systems largesse.( You forgot to note that the one industry that leads the world in expertise and quality work-except Boeing- are defense contractors).
Sadly the only likely way out of this soul crushing crisis is war. If not the 30 year Neocon dream of taking over Russia via the Ukraine debacle(BlackRock already has the contract to rebuild the rubble that will be left there), then China will eventually overcome us economically as they pattern their economy on the US model, if they don't first economically crush us in a protracted war.
Buckle up kids, the road si gonna be a bit bumpy.
Wow. This is a fascinating mix of things I agree with and things I couldn't disagree with more strongly. I actually wrote about what you're describing - how people used to be able to build lives on one income - in this piece https://www.americasundoing.com/p/a-massive-american-pay-cut
But then you call AOC a political lightweight, which has been proven false by her effectiveness in Congress, and Bernie a "failed Communist" when he's really more of a democratic socialist who's achieved remarkable things. I do agree with your assessment of Pelosi and many other House members - both Democrat and Republican. And yes, the military industrial complex was incredibly strategic in positioning themselves across congressional districts.
Where I disagree is on military products and technology. I don't think we're still producing the best - we're starting to get beaten there too.
But the biggest disagreement? That war is the only way out of this crisis. That's the path unthoughtful leaders might take. Sure, there's appeal in using war to unite the country and build an economy, but it's not the only way. The Green New Deal was essentially mobilizing on a wartime footing without building bombs.
Glad to see you engaging with these ideas, even if we see some things very differently.
-Corbin
You'd undo bureaucracy by voting in Comrade Bernie? I don't see his track record of doing anything. Not as a mayor or Senator. Without politics, he'd still be living in his van.
Our problems are bigger than you think if your argument is the bureaucracy will right itself with the correct "swampers" in charge. There is no incentive for politicians to do anything differently. This system works great for them. Democrats Republicans Independents. This paradigm shift has to occur in a small group then spread. Capitalist communes come to mind.
Hi Corbin - fascinating analysis. My partner and I just did something similar at the micro level for my Village. My partner works in project management for a multi family builder, so knows how badly “off” infrastructure pricing at the Village level is. Here’s the thing: our Village staff priced the cost of a sidewalk at 1.8M. My husband got 3 bids from subs he works with for between 150k-400k. When we brought this to our Village, crickets. So here is what I see: it’s not just the consultants who have a chokehold on infrastructure - it’s the village employees who insist on hiring them as well. And those employees all must have “credentials” that are equally bogus but ensure that the grift continues.
If you draft all Americans into military service and teach them engineering and other trade skills and set them all out of military at relatively the same time with free college and free houses and you can't forget this: The rest of the world must be in ruins so that the American economy and dollar are the only stable things then you can recreate the same economy. Remember: non whites don't get the free college and the free houses so whites will support this "socialism." Maybe that's what it will take to create a "scandinavian" style "socialist" economy in the usa again.
Capitalism has declared war on community. That's it. We have no community feelings becasue community is bad for capitalism.
You're a clown.