USA Politics

Some of the stuff coming from the White House these days makes me want to exclaim, like Holberg's Erasmus Montanus when he is in an argument with the uneducated people of his hometown about the Earth being round: O animal brutum!
 
It looks like Japan wants to sponsor investments in the US's infrastructure. While that will create some US jobs, it will also create a lot of Japanese jobs too. Not a bad idea assuredly, but it is also the opposite of buy American. This is buy Japanese.
 
The Yen is deliberately undervalued. It's a common tool to sell cheap products on the world market. That is the reason Japan can maintain being one of the top 5 export economies in the world. The problem with this is that it's not fair play towards other economies, so Trump is actually right in criticising it.
If he wants to turn the US into a competitive export market, the easiest way to do this would also be to undervalue the Dollar. He can't do this, because a) he's not a money god, and b) a lot of countries that have substantial financial reserves in US Dollars would get very angry. Most of all China, which actually possesses more US currency than the US does. This means that China has a lot of power over the US and for the sake of his country, his people and his own wealth, Trump would be well-advised that when China says "no", it does mean "no".
The only other thing Trump could do to outdo Japan is what he announced - protectionism. This is a disaster for Japan, because the US are Japan's second biggest market after China. Anyone in their right mind will know that what Trump is planning will bring the US economy down, but it would also severely damage other countries that have high stakes in the US, and Japan is one of those. That's why they are being nice to Trump, hoping that he will let the US continue to buy Japanese.
 
One of the prices the US has had to pay due to the fact that US currency has become the most valued currency in the world (not in terms of value per dollar, but in terms of being used as a benchmark for other financial systems) is less ability to play with the money in return for temporary gains. IE, Japan can undervalue the Yen, because while the Yen is a pretty OK currency to own, it's no greenback. Whereas if the US intentionally devalued the greenback by something like 20%, it would cause a worldwide depression as individual currencies based on their greenback holdings collapsed.

The way money works in the post-gold standard world is very complex, and that's why Trump's stupid "common sense" solutions towards it are meaningless. In terms of Japan, they're hoping to be excluded from Trump's Buy American policies and to be excluded from Trump's stated goals of currency and trade warfare. It's essentially a bribe to the US people and accepting it would go directly against Trump's words. Of course, I don't think Trump cares, so I suspect he will accept it if it's at all feasible.

The end result is the US becomes a nation-state like, say, Uganda, who sells out to the country most willing to show up and build highways and railroads. It might create US jobs but the end result will be a huge net gain for Japan. Massive. And over the long term the US will be beholden to Japan for maintaining what would assuredly become an important part of US infrastructure, buying Japanese parts, keeping Japanese factories open.

The real question Americans should be asking is - if we do what Japan is suggesting but on our own, how many jobs will it create? It's essentially like a country like, say, the UK saying in 1955, hey, do you want us to build the Interstate for you?

Of course, the problem is that the US Congress is institutionally incapable of making large-scale spending decisions like this in the current climate. Japan is gambling that the fact that they can do so will overwhelm the potential for the US going about this on their own.
 
It depends on the road project ... in Texas for example, there has been a slew of toll roads going in over the past decade. Really the reason being, the highways were needed, the state did not have the budget and they bid out the roads in exchange for the company building them collecting tolls for "x" years. At least one of them near me was built by a company from Spain. But overall, I think a decent deal for all concerned. I assume the country that bid on it will make $ on the tolls in the long run, the counties the roads were built through got a cash infusion that most seemed to use for other road/transportation projects, and as a driver you get a road that would not have otherwise existed and no tax dollars were involved (in fact they were saved).

But yeah, Trump is right that Japan, China, and other countries essentially are currency manipulators with an eye solely towards exports. It has its pluses and minuses ... it really depends to what degree they are undervalued
 
There's an argument about toll roads and whether or not they are good or bad for long-term infrastructure. I'm OK with them if the road is owned by the government - I am concerned about the concept of private ownership over major transport routes in general - obviously whatever X is, the company is clearly responsible for maintaining the roads, but what happens after? My other problem with toll roads is they shift the financial burden of paying for a road from the shared public to the direct users, whereas those who gain all the secondary benefits don't have to pay. Roads are important for people even who never drive on them. Anyway, that comes down to whether or not taxes are good or bad, etc etc, and not terribly relevant to the current conversation.

I have no problem with Japan investing in Texas, etc, and the US creating international partnerships like this. I just think it's really important to recognize that these sorts of partnerships go exactly against Trump's stated policy, and the long term will be billions upon untold billions of dollars sent back to Japan that could be kept in the USA.
 
I am in favor of private toll roads (shocking, I know :) )there is a great incentive to build them faster to start collecting the tolls that just does not exist in the public sector.

They amount of roads that have come up that filled a massive need for east-west highways in this area was filled incredibly quickly versus some public projects that were smaller in scope and took much longer to finish.

The "tax" on driving on the road is an option .. or not. Don't want to pay it, drive on the access road or other roads, it will take you longer, but it is "free" and still faster than if the toll road had not opened to start.

The secondary benefit (if you are talking about goods/services moving on those roads) ... are paid .. in the price of the goods services.

It has been a good source of funding for other projects. Denton County for example, took their portion of the toll road lump sum payment and built out a 23 mile rail line that connects to other rail services that cover 120-ish miles of rail. No federal funds involved and used it to fund other road projects.

When 'x' ends, the state can take it over (or I assume extend the lease) and collect the tolls directly. Add to that, they are cheaper to operate now than at anytime in the past (toll tags versus toll booth workers)


Main benefits to me are an influx of funding, a general reduction in traffic congestion (both from the toll roads and the rail projects they helped fund) the roads get built faster (or in some cases it is the only way they would be built), no tax funds, a contractual obligation to maintain the roads while they collect, and the almost certain cost over runs the taxpayers are on the hook for in public projects.

There is little downside to me and massive benefit.
 
The biggest problem for me with it is the cost to the individual public long term is much higher. You are right in that it gets done faster, there's lots of good stuff - I just think using it as the sole method of expanding road works is probably a huge mistake. There's lots of privately built roads that have sprung up here and the world hasn't ended. I'm not sure it's clever for things like the Interstate long term, but anyway.
 
LooseCannon said:
The biggest problem for me with it is the cost to the individual public long term is much higher. You are right in that it gets done faster, there's lots of good stuff - I just think using it as the sole method of expanding road works is probably a huge mistake. There's lots of privately built roads that have sprung up here and the world hasn't ended. I'm not sure it's clever for things like the Interstate long term, but anyway.
Click to expand...

Yeah, every road cannot be private ...I was not making a general statement, but on a case by case basis. Around here there was a big time need for east to west highways and when this started being built no funds to make it happen. It makes sense.

A newer trend has been mixed highways, free lanes (public) with toll lanes (private with variable pricing based on traffic) .. an interesting experiment.


There was a plan floated (that went nowhere) to build a private highway with a high speed limit (85MPH) with rail, and lanes dedicated to trucks to connect the triangle of Dallas, Houston, San Antonio/Austin. The dollars did not make sense, but private is the only way that would happen, there are public highways that connect all those cities now, but they cannot handle higher speeds and retrofitting/widening a thousand miles of roads would take an eternity.

There is talk of extending a commuter rail up to Oklahoma (in part funded by a massive Indian casino .. which of course would have a stop on the rail). Again, probably the only way that would happen and having commuter rail from Dallas to Oklahoma City would be a good overall public benefit, but only happen with private dollars.

In general though, I do think private should be looked at for new routes and the dollars can go to public projects to enhance/fix existing roads
 
There is no reason to have privatized infrastructure. None what-so-ever.
Road is such a good project that only a corrupt state can loose money on it. So when you see a state road project going in deficit, that's the corruption, not the general effectiveness. You own a piece of horizontal infrastructure between two cities, in your example Dallas and Houston, you shaft down gas pipes and dark fiber and the lease of secondary services that go together with the road will pay out for the large part of the operation.

My state has 4.2m ppl and 56k km2. Dallas-FW-Arlington has 6m ppl on 25k km2. We have 1400km of motorways by EU standard (grade separation, 130km/h limit, 2+1 lane per direction, a lot of required support infrastructure). It's loosing money only due to major corruption at the building phase (Bechtel Corporation), and major corruption at operational phase (cronyism, etc.).

Slovenians have a similar density but they're not as corrupt and their roads are fine and making money.
I'd recommend on looking how it's done in Europe because we're #1 at infrastructure.
 
Those secondary services already exist between Houston/Dallas, if the road was public .. it would not be toll (most likely) ... there is no way they make money on that .. which is a main reason it is not being built.

The east/west roads in Dallas would only have been built with private funding, the public money was not there and taxes were not going to be raised (nor will be anytime soon) to build those. it is a good method to supplement an already massive public road system

US Interstate highways are
47,856 miles (77,017 km) .. that does not even count state highways, which probably nearly double that. I doubt .001% is private, but they fill a need
 

Kellayanne Conway on CNN. I feel a certain ethical unease for posting this, because a person with obvious mental issues is making a complete fool of herself here and exposing herself to public ridicule. Then again, that's my feeling about a lot of other people in the new US government, and with the amount of exposure they receive, I can't protect them.
 
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