The entire premise of that video is "American towns and specialy suburbs are financialy insolvent due to debt and low tax revenue". He doesn't realy mention anything about efficiency, in fact he even mention expenses like water treatment etc.
This is basicaly the basic neoliberal argument I mentioned in advance. The idea that the government:
1-Has a budget.
2-Budget must be balanced
3- When budget isn't balanced you resort to the capitalist banking sector to "finance" the government functioning.
4- Solutions like deficit spending and/or "raising revenue" are immediately dismissed, like he does in the video. Gee I wonder why anyone would think raising taxes is unsustainable, just assert it is and move on.
I concede that any country being governed under this type of neoliberal policy is going to struggle, it is why I mentioned it right away at the start, but I also maintain this is true with everything not just roads. Whether you decide to build metro, a bus line, an airport, a train station, a new road, if the neoliberal government says the budget isn't sufficient then that is enough to deny every proposition.
Using the "but roads are costly" is just reinforcing the neoliberal argument that we need a budget and it must not be exceeded.
There are other points I could make too, like roads are the one type of infrastructure that already exists and if we are serious about climate change than efficient road transportation is part of the solution even if only temporary, we have 20 or so years to tackle climate change.
Okay but when you're looking at using the social wage, you should be thinking about what forms of spending will make it go further. Like, trains will always be more cost efficient than busses. Spending money to turn roads into rail is an efficient use of money that moves more people and freight. Spending money to repair roads after lithium SUVs is necessary while we have roads, but is a less efficient use of money
no, roads are not cost efficient and in fact handicap local governments through expensive maintenance and overbuilding
Watched all of it.
The entire premise of that video is "American towns and specialy suburbs are financialy insolvent due to debt and low tax revenue". He doesn't realy mention anything about efficiency, in fact he even mention expenses like water treatment etc.
This is basicaly the basic neoliberal argument I mentioned in advance. The idea that the government:
1-Has a budget.
2-Budget must be balanced
3- When budget isn't balanced you resort to the capitalist banking sector to "finance" the government functioning.
4- Solutions like deficit spending and/or "raising revenue" are immediately dismissed, like he does in the video. Gee I wonder why anyone would think raising taxes is unsustainable, just assert it is and move on.
I concede that any country being governed under this type of neoliberal policy is going to struggle, it is why I mentioned it right away at the start, but I also maintain this is true with everything not just roads. Whether you decide to build metro, a bus line, an airport, a train station, a new road, if the neoliberal government says the budget isn't sufficient then that is enough to deny every proposition.
Using the "but roads are costly" is just reinforcing the neoliberal argument that we need a budget and it must not be exceeded.
There are other points I could make too, like roads are the one type of infrastructure that already exists and if we are serious about climate change than efficient road transportation is part of the solution even if only temporary, we have 20 or so years to tackle climate change.
You're aware electric busses exist right? Is this bad too? The City with 16,000 Electric Buses & 22,000 Electric Taxis | 100% Independent, 100% Electric
You wont believe which country. :xigma-male:
Okay but when you're looking at using the social wage, you should be thinking about what forms of spending will make it go further. Like, trains will always be more cost efficient than busses. Spending money to turn roads into rail is an efficient use of money that moves more people and freight. Spending money to repair roads after lithium SUVs is necessary while we have roads, but is a less efficient use of money