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How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

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Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#151

Post by m_mueller »

CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #35
nsns wrote: post #8

But is it only BER? As mentioned int the article - what about Stuttgart 21 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 ) etc.? It is possible that these sites exist as new financial "loopholes", transferring tax-money from the government to private contractors without much oversight.

The complexity of that project is extremely high. My cousin is a civil engineer in Stuttgart, and he showed me a cross-sectional diagram of the affected area and the number of considerations seemed intractably high to me. But more generally, these kinds of megaprojects go over budget in nearly every part of the world -- especially when tunneling is involved. Here in the United States, two examples are Boston's "Big D…

Another example: Switzerland is building the AFAIK still world's longest train tunnel. It casually went from 8 billion estimated in 1992 to 24 billion and it's still not open.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neue_Eisenbahn-Alpentransversa... (German)

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#152

Post by foobar2020 »

DasIch wrote: post #64
gutnor wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite sure if it is still the case, but not so long ago Germany was borrowing money at negative interest rate.

That was true for the federal government however I would expect the rates for states and local governments to be quite different.

Lands, at least the better ones, are also borrowing at zero/slightly negative yields: http://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/en/bonds/lfa+f+b+bayern+is+r2...

This happens not (only) because it is safer to keep piles of German bonds than piles of EUR, but because of the unorthodox ECB monetary policy. We certainly live in some very interesting times.

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#153

Post by tinco »

brazzy wrote: post #138
germanier wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try but don't hold me accountable for any inaccuracies. At the moment three public prosecutors independently investigate that companies practices which is rare in Germany: 1) A gigantic adventure park in Poland which was never supposed to be built 2) A cartel which allowed them to build two power plants 3) Falsification of balance sheets. Imtech is responsible for parts of the airport's construction – including the…

> They also suggest that these projects look like a Ponzi scheme: A project's loss is paid by doing even crazier projects. This seems to me to be the most interesting finding: the company was not doing all this illegal shit in a diabolical scheme to make the owners or management super rich (though they probably got some fat unwarranted bonuses over the years), but in desperate attempts to stave off bankruptcy. A bit…

One of the managers got fired for incompetence, then sued and won over a million euro for being fired without good reason.

Yes, they got a little fat off of it..

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#154

Post by digi_owl »

hkmurakami wrote: post #148
ubernostrum wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to get into the hall of fame, you do an Olympics.

Look no further than the $2.5 billion debacle that is the new Tokyo Olympic stadium. A rather lavish expenditure for a country that is deep in debt.

A nation is never too deep in debt to host a sports event (or take part in a war)...

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#155

Post by _delirium »

hkmurakami wrote: post #148
ubernostrum wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to get into the hall of fame, you do an Olympics.

Look no further than the $2.5 billion debacle that is the new Tokyo Olympic stadium. A rather lavish expenditure for a country that is deep in debt.

Another example among many: Greece hosting the 2004 Olympics turned out not to be a great financial decision.

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#156

Post by saalweachter »

CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #4

"At the very moment Merkel and her allies are hectoring the Greeks about their profligacy, the airport’s cost, borne by taxpayers, has tripled to €5.4 billion." So, which country does Germany want to borrow money from in order to cover the wasteful spending?

Not all national debt is foreign debt; in the US, a vast majority of the US debt has historically been held by domestic investors.

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#157

Post by a3n »

Given our various economic and political systems, is it just not possible to build something this large and complex, and have it all ready to go on the same day (whether on time or late)?

I wonder if it would be better to build and contract these things in stages, in blocks of usefulness.

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#158

Post by macintux »

phkahler wrote: post #110
therobot24 wrote: post #6

> "Professor, let me understand this," Loge said. "You are talking about having 800 people wearing orange vests, sitting on camping stools, holding thermoses filled with coffee, and shouting into their cell phones, 'Open the fire door'?" Loge refused the airport an operating license. Schwarz stood up and walked out without another word. Easily the best part of the article.

>> "You are talking about having 800 people wearing orange vests, sitting on camping stools, holding thermoses filled with coffee, and shouting into their cell phones, 'Open the fire door'?" Funny thing is, if they had allowed that there would never be an opportunity to fix it correctly. It would require shutting down the airport for quite some time. The parallels with software and other areas of engineering are a bi…

I couldn't help but think of the recent "What is Code" article and thinking they could just swap this one for that.

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#159

Post by AaronIG »

peterfirefly wrote: post #131
koenigdavidmj wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you build an airport near the city, it becomes impossible to expand. San Diego is a good example of this, a single-runway airport that's surrounded by the bay, I-5, the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, and a residential neighborhood. It's running near capacity and impossible to expand. There's simply nowhere to go.

They can expand into the water, adding an extra East-West strip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Artificial_island_air...

That's unlikely an option due to North Island, though.

Re: How Berlin’s Futuristic Airport Became a $6B Embarrassment

#160

Post by [deleted] »

bluecalm wrote: post #15

There is a joke in my country (Poland) about every little town needing: -an airport -an aquapark -a huge sport stadion All of them as a way to transfer some state/town money to political cronies. The sad part is that some of those make sense as an infrastructure improvement (most doesn't though, at least here) so it's easier to sell the idea to people. The way the business is done is to just pay 30%-50% more than it…

[deleted]
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