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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36394 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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As a former tradie: Hell yes it is. (NOTE: This is a SoCal perspective, where the infrastructure is generally better and governance is more responsible vis. putting off essential maintenance in that it only does it as a treat(NOTE NOTE: This does not include anything that is privatized and not sufficiently regulated, which is a horror shit show as it is everywhere))

We could fix every god damn bit of decrepitude and disrepair (THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE RAILROADS, I DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT RAILS) without hiring anyone new and without going into wartime style crash programs in about 15-20 years; if we hire new people we could do it in less time, if we invest a zillion dollars in equipment even less than less time.

If we fully employed everyone who could swing a shovel in useful work, we'd run out of even marginally valuable shit to do after at most 30-40 years.

The problem is in order of severity: Political will, privatization, and regulation. Even taking contracting out of the hands of the contractors and giving it to civil engineers would vastly speed up and slim down timelines and budgets (until they got in on the contractor grift. Profit motive is a bitch, aint she)

If we fully employed everyone who could swing a shovel in useful work, we'd run out of even marginally valuable shit to do after at most 30-40 years.

Hardly. After 30-40 years some of the stuff you started with would be in need of maintenance. And of course changes in plans, expansions, natural disasters, unnatural disasters, and such will take their toll. Yes, if you've got a huge backlog and work to reduce it you will reach a steady state where you need to do far less work, but there will never be none.

Again: no.

If we did preventatives as required and acted with 15+- optimal efficiency (instead of 85% --) re. big works projects, we couldn't even employ all the people we have now on a permanent basis. We can put them to work digging holes and filling them in again (which is our current system), but that's it kinda.

There is tones of replication, grift and fat in the private contracting ecosystem. I'd go so far as to say it's MAJORITY fat. The exception to this is Rail: Our rail network is shit 'cause the companies that own it do stock buy backs instead of anything at all whatsoever, but I've never worked on the railroad part of the railroad, so I can't say for sure what's up there.

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