Why is China doing so much more to improve its infrastructure than the USA?
Answer https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-doing-so-much-more-to-improve-its-infrastructure-than-the-USA# Follow· 10 https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-doing-so-much-more-to-improve-its-infrastructure-than-the-USA# Request https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-doing-so-much-more-to-improve-its-infrastructure-than-the-USA# https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-doing-so-much-more-to-improve-its-infrastructure-than-the-USA# https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-doing-so-much-more-to-improve-its-infrastructure-than-the-USA# https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-doing-so-much-more-to-improve-its-infrastructure-than-the-USA# https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-doing-so-much-more-to-improve-its-infrastructure-than-the-USA# https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-doing-so-much-more-to-improve-its-infrastructure-than-the-USA# https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-doing-so-much-more-to-improve-its-infrastructure-than-the-USA# https://www.quora.com/profile/Tony-Leng-4 Tony Leng https://www.quora.com/profile/Tony-Leng-4, B. Eng. Manufacturing from RMIT University Updated May 15 https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-doing-so-much-more-to-improve-its-infrastructure-than-the-USA/answer/Tony-Leng-4 https://www.quora.com/Why-is-China-doing-so-much-more-to-improve-its-infrastructure-than-the-USA# A2A. Why is China doing so much more to improve its infrastructure than the USA? There are many layers to this question. Here’s one: if it's 1980 now, we would be awed by all the new, gleaming infrastructure in the USA. But of course, we are in 2019. This time we are awestruck by China’s cities, integrated mass rapid transit, roads, high-speed rail, high-speed internet, data centres, educational institutions, satellite systems for navigation and situational awareness, leading-edge research facilities, seaports, airports, sustainable-energy plants, bridges, tunnels, water canals, hydropower dams, UHV power transmission, large-scale afforestation etc. (China’s use of concrete in the past decades is unprecedented in human history by a large margin. But this pales in comparison to her collective application of human capital.) Here’s my bottom-line take : Infrastructure empowers the general population, in multitude of aspects. If the objective of the country is to empower her entire population (and not just selectively), good infrastructure is the magic sauce. Infrastructure in the USA is left to crumble since they were built in the ‘70s, namely because the Corporations and Billionaires that effectively run the government, wants to create, and maintain, a certain social structure. They have succeeded. So why would the Oligarch/USA wants to spend money on something, such as infrastructure, that benefits the… ahem…‘peasants’? (Don't forget, infrastructure is largely owned by the ‘public’, while the military-industrial-scientific complex is owned by private corporations and hence individuals. Furthermore, unlike infrastructure, military products and services have no market-rate, they can be priced as much as one desire.) Simply put, it's way more efficient to attain obscene-wealth via wars, that cost in the vicinity of $5 trillion of taxpayer's money, in just a few short years in Iraq, for example. Better still, turn these lumpy-incomes from occasional wars into steady-stream incomes via perpetual wars. When military sales is slow, just create a fake event (chemical attack in Syria or WMD in Iraq) to boost revenue, or even better, get a windfall. So, in short, the Infrastructure Conundrum is due to the fact that China decided to invest in its people, while the USA decided to enrich the select few through perpetual wars, with taxpayer's money. Psst…Let's not forget that 63% of American households do not even have $500 cash for emergency use. A developed country?
