Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
September 21, 2012
You can tell a lot about a nation by the condition of the
infrastructure. So what does our infrastructure say about us? It says
that we are in a very advanced state of decay. At this point, much of
America is being held together with spit, duct tape and prayers. Our
roads are crumbling and thousands of our bridges look like they could
collapse at any moment. Our power grid is ancient and over a trillion
gallons of untreated sewage is leaking from our aging sewer systems each
year. Our airports and our seaports are clogged with far more traffic
than they were ever designed to carry. Approximately a third of all of
the dam failures that have taken place in the United States since 1874
have happened during the past decade. Our national parks and recreation
areas have been terribly neglected and our railroads are a bad joke.
Hurricane Katrina showed how vulnerable our levees are, and drinking
water systems all over the country are badly outdated. Sadly, at a time
when we could use significant new investment in infrastructure, our
spending on infrastructure is actually way down. Back during the 50s
and the 60s, the U.S. was spending between 3 and 4 percent of GDP on
infrastructure. Today, that figure is down to about 2.4 percent. But
of course we don't have any extra money to spend on infrastructure
because of our reckless spending and because of the massive amount of
debt that we have accumulated. While the Obama administration is
spending more than half a million dollars to figure out why chimpanzees throw poop,
our national infrastructure is literally falling apart all around us.
Once upon a time nobody else on the planet could match our
infrastructure, and now we are in the process of becoming a joke to the
rest of the world.
The following are 21 facts about America's failing infrastructure that will blow your mind....
#1 The American Society of Civil Engineers has given America's crumbling infrastructure an overall grade of D.
#2 There are simply not enough roads in the United States today. Each year, traffic jams cost the commuters of America 4.2 billion hours and about 2.8 million gallons of gasoline.
#3 It is being projected that Americans will spend an average of 160 hours stuck in traffic annually by the year 2035.
#4 Approximately one-third of all roads in the United States are in substandard condition.
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