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The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

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Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#161

Post by flubert »

imgabe wrote: post #80

I don't know the answers, but as someone who works in the industry (on the design side). I think a big unmentioned factor is probably liability and the prospect of litigation. If you look at old blueprints for projects in the past, they are a LOT less detailed. They had to be, because it was physically more difficult to produce them since they had to be drawn by hand. A lot was left to the contractor to figure out in…

>Now, drawings are more detailed and contractors are incredibly reluctant to make even the smallest decisions on their own.

I also wonder about the effect of building codes, etc.. It might be interesting to plot construction costs and number pages of building code vs. time for the U.S., Japan, France, etc., and see if there are any correlations. That type of plot seems like it might almost be doable.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#162

Post by jernfrost »

cjlars wrote: post #148
Frondo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish the Libertarians who post this solution ("shrink the state to the bare minimum") would ever actually show us where it's working in practice, to provide a decent quality of life for people. In China, they're building mad infrastructure--big state. In Europe, they're providing a good quality of life--big state. The "small state" places I can think of, none of them are places people are flocking to for an improve…

The US would count as a small state by most OECD averages, so assuming by quality of life you mean, 'high GDP and standards of living', Texas would be a fairly good counter-example of a successful small state. I don't think there are many people in the libertarian mainstream who would suggest shrinking government revenue to below ~15-20% of GDP (US average is currently ~27%, Gary Johnson only recommended a 3% reducti…

Doesn't fit with studies I've read. E.g nordic countries had similar tax levels to the US but started increasing taxes substantially in the 1960s without experiencing any lower economic growth. In Europe as a whole nordic countries tend to have the highest taxes but best performing among most economic metrics, growth, uemployment, competiveness, innovation etc.

I suspect these studies are massively skewed by low tax asian countries which have had high growth due to the catchup effect, and very high savings rate. Also cultural peculiarities means e.g. Countried like Japan doesn't need as much welfare system. You already got lifelong employment and companies trying to keep employees in downturns.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#163

Post by mistermann »

bluGill wrote: post #141
solotronics wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got back from China and the rate of infrastructure expansion is amazing. I have a theory that since they are highly centrally planned they don't really have to worry about if infrastructure is "profitable" in the Western sense of the term. They want to build roads and high speed trains? Well the government entirely controls the banks and construction companies so they just make some money and give it to the co…

It is amazing I'll grant, but it is useful? Are they building cities for nobody to live in, roads that nobody will travel, and bridges to nowhere? If so (which they have been accused of though I don't know the facts) it is wasted effort. All those workers could have stayed home to play go in the park and been just as productive without the environmental downsides of building infrastructure. Note that building infrast…

I believe China's leadership is very well aware of all of your concerns, and I think if you could get a closer look you'd see much of these concerns tend to eventually find a way of solving themselves as time goes on. These are not dumb people.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#164

Post by dang »

Kenji wrote: post #41

The solution is shrinking the state to the bare minimum and making as many transactions as possible voluntary.

Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. Those lead to black holes of sameness which we're keen to steer clear of here.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14453781 and marked it off-topic.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#165

Post by Broken_Hippo »

masterleep wrote: post #7

Bureaucrats, allied with progressives and public sector unions, work vigorously to make government as expensive and inefficient as possible. In the United States, they are succeeding very well.

Nearly everywhere has bureaucrats - it is necessary to a point. They come from all sorts of political leanings.

It isn't really that the bureaucrats are trying to make the bureaucracy inefficient, outside of wanting to protect their own jobs. But the bureaucracy itself is inefficient, partially because the lawmakers haven't upgraded the bureaucracy with the times nor made full use of the tools they have.

For example, if you had a suspended license in Indiana, there used to be only 3 locations you could go to get it reinstated. This, for most folks, required a car to travel there. They had a special building to go to with bad parking so that they could enter your information into a computer. If your insurance company had to fax proof of insurance (yes, fax), it went to a different building. I highly doubt folks in the DMV were working to keep it that way.

It finally changed when the laws changed, which not only allowed folks to go to their local branch to do everything, but also funded a website where folks could renew plates (among other things) and allowed folks to visit branches in other areas, which made things more efficient. Make no mistakes, though - this was a top-down sort of thing.

And that's really where the problem is: Inefficiency and political infighting. Not the bureaucrats, not progressives, not conservatives, and certainly not labor unions (as the article mentions, though they are a different breed in the US).

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#166

Post by mistermann »

ori_b wrote: post #89
mistermann wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest, there are not that many examples to choose from. What I like about China is, it illustrates how effective a mostly benevolent dictatorship is. It is the optimal political system imho, provided it remains benevolent of course, which is no small feat. Provided they don't trip and fall, if China is not the absolute supreme leader of the planet in 25 - 50 years I will be shocked.

> Let's be honest, there are not that many examples to choose from. Yes, I think that's the point. There are decent numbers of places where government has neither the ability or desire to regulate heavily. None of those places seem to have blossomed into oases of free enterprise and infrastructure construction.

If there is no well designed set of rules and corresponding righteous enforcement, I would not expect any oasis to arise. Without this, it is very easy for people with ill intentions to forcibly seize power and muck it up for everyone else.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#167

Post by karmelapple »

deanCommie wrote: post #126
imgabe wrote: post #80

I don't know the answers, but as someone who works in the industry (on the design side). I think a big unmentioned factor is probably liability and the prospect of litigation. If you look at old blueprints for projects in the past, they are a LOT less detailed. They had to be, because it was physically more difficult to produce them since they had to be drawn by hand. A lot was left to the contractor to figure out in…

Anecdotally, having moved to Western Europe, I get the sense that this is the major factor as well. If I walk down the street and there is a group of workers excavating a road, there's a lot more of a relaxed attitude about fencing, walking underneath construction equipment, etc. After all - use your common sense - don't fall into the hole. If you do, isn't it kind of your own fault? Nobody's going to sue anybody. Ad…

The abusive relationship love-affair is the best explanation I've ever heard of cars in the USA.

Just like a an abusive relationship, the car love affair still produces some good things. It's not all dark and dreary.

"I hate that he comes home drunk and hits me, but he's so loving and apologetic the next morning."

"I hate that I get so stressed from my daily commute, but being able to drive to the countryside on the weekend is so nice."

You can be in a relationship without dealing with abuse, and you can get to work less stressfully and still have the freedom to explore the world.

That's what makes the relationship so sinister; it's Stockholm syndrome.

"How could I ever live without him, even though he hits me sometimes?"

"How could I ever live without driving everywhere, even though the country on the whole is getting more unhealthy, we continue to use up our limited resources, and the ability to walk around and individuals' quality of life is reduced?"

Of course you can live without those negatives. There are ways out. There is a better life possible.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#168

Post by Nihilartikel »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #23
bkjelden wrote: post #13

I have been wondering lately if we have become so dependent on certain sectors of the US economy (housing, infrastructure, healthcare, education) that risk aversion is suffocating innovation. No one wants to send their kid to an unproven, experimental university. No city wants to beta test a new style of road building. No patient wants to be the first to try a new treatment. We are so dependent on these things that t…

Do you really think France and Japan, two of the countries cited here, are less risk averse?

The distinction that I see is that the US is perhaps not individually risk averse, but is systemically accountability averse. There is no end to the inefficiencies that can be introduced by constant ass-covering and compulsive subdivision of responsibility to the point that no one human is accountable for anything of note.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#169

Post by mistermann »

briandear wrote: post #116
mistermann wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest, there are not that many examples to choose from. What I like about China is, it illustrates how effective a mostly benevolent dictatorship is. It is the optimal political system imho, provided it remains benevolent of course, which is no small feat. Provided they don't trip and fall, if China is not the absolute supreme leader of the planet in 25 - 50 years I will be shocked.

The dictionary defines benevolent as "well meaning and kindly." And here are some counterexamples to the claim that the CCP is "well meaning and kindly" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1... http://www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org/blog/chinese-gov... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/political-prisoners-chin... http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/extreme-torture-inside-chi... http://t…

There's no doubt they rule with an iron fist. I think an argument can be made that they have benevolent long term intentions, but rightfully or wrongfully have decided that to achieve their long term vision it is prudent to crush anything that gets in their way, if necessary.

Ask yourself this: do you think things are getting better or worse as time goes on for the typical Chinese citizen, and to what degree? (And as a followup: what information sources are you using to form this conclusion?)

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#170

Post by flubert »

sfifs wrote: post #132
pilom wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Hoover Dam was build for about $800 million inflation adjusted. I'm 100% certain that you couldn't build that structure today for that much without killing people.

So are you saying Japan builds infra cheaper than US by killing people?

What would be a good way to compare these types of numbers?

http://www.jisha.or.jp/english/statistics/accidents2010.html...

https://www.osha.gov/oshstats/commonstats.html

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