We are at the end of an era – the end of cheap oil, the end of suburban sprawl, the collapse of the world’s “shadow banking system”, the end of Wall Street’s arrogation of our nation’s financial system, the end of treating our natural environment as a “free” externality that corporations and consumers can ravage at will. In this time, as we transition from one era to another, billions is the mark of a mere politician. A true statesman -- someone who understands what we need to bring our country into the new era dawning -- will be talking about how many trillions we need. That’s why I was not happy with the stimulus package proposed and won by President Obama. Fortunately, the President has noted that it was only the first stimulus, implying there may be more to come. What we need to do now is begin defining the terms of the debate as to what is needed, and how much it is going to cost.

Below I outline one -- just one -- such national program we need. To build adequate urban rail transit systems in the 39 largest U.S. cities, where nearly half of all Americans live, is going to require $3.195 trillion. That is just construction costs – it does not include the cost of new rolling stock and maintenance rail vehicles. It is a project that can create 7.5 million jobs a year, for ten years. And it is a project that we most assuredly will not even initiate so long as we are content with politics and business as usual. New York City Transit BMT Brighton Line, at West 8th Street, photo by David-Paul Gerber, 7/13/2008, www.nycsubway.org

Building 50,757 kilometers of new rail transit lines, at a cost of $3.195 trillion. is based on building urban rail mass transit systems to the same service density found in New York City, in the next 38 largest urban areas. I began by assuming a desideratum of having a rail transit line no more than 2.5 miles from any point in an urban area. That is, if you took a square of urban area five miles on each side, we want to have a rail transit line running directly across the middle of that square. Slice that 25 square mile area into one mile strips, and you get one mile of rail transit line for every five square miles of urban area, or a density of 0.2 mile of rail transit line for every square mile. Converting square miles to square kilometers, and miles to kilometers, what we are looking for is a density of 0.124 mi of rail transit line for every square kilometer of urban area.

Fractured Priorities

USA Gets a D in Infrastructure

kodama cc

Civil Engineers Deliver the Bad News

Michael Collins

"The overall grade for the nation's infrastructure is again a D
and the cost to bring it up to good condition has risen to $2.2
trillion. In more than a decade, the United States has
made no measurable progress in improving either the condition or
performance of our roads, bridges, water systems or other vital
infrastructure when viewed in aggregate."

American Society of Civil Engineers, 2009 Report Card on U.S. Infrastructure

Read it and weep.  This the nation's infrastructure report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
We're not doing too well.  Maybe our fearless leaders of the last 40
years forgot their glasses or got into some of that Indian Hemp that
George Washington talked about.   Without any doubt, they were not
paying attention to the fundamentals.

If only we could take all that Solar Energy baking the World's Deserts,

Bottle it up, (using modern technology),

and send it to the Metropolitan areas, that run on Energy.

(and No ... the Fish aren't being electrocuted!)

But it does seem that our 19th Century Power Grid is already putting the Brakes on the 21th Century Green Energy transformation (already in progress, in some areas) ...

Find out how ... and what should be done about it ...

I was born in '48 and grew up in the time after WWII and the rapid growth of not only a Great Economic Expansion but the Envy of the World to the American Worker and our Products and Services. We had the power and wealth hungry who tried to suppress but we also had intelligent business minds and workers willing to fight that brought about growing wages, safety in the work place, respect for the worker, and so much more, which gave respect and expansion to not only the employer but the companies, The company owners, the executives, the worker, and for those public companies shareholders were all reaping the rewards of that wealth sharing, that's what built the strong and ever expanding middle class and helped some break out of that and join the upper crust of the wealthy. It was the Only Successful way a true capitalist society that can achieve and expand further. Decent expanding wages for a workers hard work and company dedication gives them the ability to purchase goods and services which in turn gives growth and prosperity to other companies and workers.
This is what this writer is pointing out, as others do

Actually, it has been part of the American economic system since its founding

What is the present day GOP trying to sell everyone with statements like this: "You can spread butter on toast, we can share the love, but we are not going to share the wealth," said the Republican gubernatorial candidate. And why are so many buying this crap?