Comments on: Breaking Down

By: misfit

misfit — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:32:24 +0000

NYC wastes a tremendous amount of water because apartments are not separately metered.
http://prfamerica.org/WastingWater.html

By: Izquierdo

Izquierdo — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 03:10:32 +0000

A couple of years back, the New Yorker had an article that laid out the immense problems looming over the NYC water supply.
I fear that there’s more to come than just this.

How many cities have privatized their water utilities?
I know that Jersey City did, under Bert Schundler, a sleazy and ambitious Republican mayor.

By: Mad Martigan

Mad Martigan — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:36:25 +0000

What Bob said. Couldn’t we just end the occupation six months sooner and use the $300 Billion to lay some pipe? Maybe even shave a full year off the occupation and rebuild some bridges while we’re at it.

What else could we do with a full Freidman Unit in cost savings? [Not to mention the savings on future interest payments, since we've funded the entire occupation on loans from China.]

By: brendancalling

brendancalling — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:13:57 +0000

what’s interesting is that just a few days earlier, the Times printed an extensive piece on how well the railway infrastructure has held up.

But yeah of course “customers will have to bear the majority of the cost through rate increases, according to the American Water Works Association, an industry group.” That infrastructure is paid for with our taxes, which is what makes it a public utility. That’s preferable to the ugly trend of privatized water.

By: Linkmeister

Linkmeister — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:10:49 +0000

We get news of a broken water main somewhere on Oahu at least three times a week, seems like. The sewer rates are rising 100% over the next five years to fund repairs.

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:51:02 +0000

Iraq costs us 341 million dollars a day.
That amount of money sure could replace a lot of faulty infrastructure.

By: Snarki, child of Loki

Snarki, child of Loki — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:49:47 +0000

It’s amazing, when looking at the pubic works of the last century, and ask yourself: how could that be built today?

Golden Gate Bridge, NY subways, aqueducts, etc.

It’s not just a matter of inflation (although that is a factor); it’s also a profound change in the society, and the economy; from an industrial economy to a service economy. Which is fine, until you need to “build stuff”.

A “green” economy is much closer to the service model than the industrial model, but there’s still some big issues of long-term sustainability, both in the “green” sense and the “working infrastructure” sense.