File: California High-Speed Rail.jpg (105.0 KB)
(Reposting something I found online:)
Things that happened faster than California's high-speed rail project (390 miles/32 years):
China's entire high speed rail system (30,000 miles) took 15 years from breaking ground to passengers riding trains
The entire city of Dubai went from barren desert to gleaming metropolis in 30 years
iPhone 1 through iPhone 17 (18 years)
The Internet (32 years)
For what Newsom is spending on this ridiculous train to nowhere, he could:
Pay for 200 L.A.-to-San Francisco limousine rides for every person in California.
Give a replica of his $9 million Marin County mansion to every homeless vagrant on Skid Row. Twice.
Give an average one-bedroom house to one million people.
Pay for Spain's entire high speed rail system. And Germany's. And France's. Combined.
Give every Californian 18 round-trip flights from L.A. to San Francisco.
Give $10,000 cash to every California household.
For all that money and time, we don't have even one inch of train track to show for it and the Democrats in Sacramento just voted to spend another massive pile of money on it.
Showing all 23 replies.
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So what you're saying is, california should have more slavery, money laundering, and e-thots shitting on tech bro chests? This is the current YIMBY stance? I don't expect decency from YIMBYs but it's good to keep up on the latest
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It was in China's interest to overbuild infrastructure as a way to keep the economy afloat. There was a large subsidy after 08 to keep their economy from collapsing, and that come in the form of infrusture spending.
It is also easier and cheaper to requisition land for development of any kind in china. Since a large part of their government funding is through land sales. So anything to keep the real estate price up is supported across the board. This is also the reason why alot of the chinese metro/railway station are in the middle of nowhere, since they see it mostly as a way to sell land more than anything else.
Obviously with the current real estate crash in china they are left with millions of useless projects throughout the country, but they still can't stop building them because otherwise millions would be unemployed. So they'll be building another pointless HSR in the middle of the desert.
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>>2072178
The part you're overlooking is that china still has significant internal colonial states like xinjiang and tibet that it needs to assimilate. So it's extremely useful to the central government if there's readymade cities waiting to be filled with a hodgepodge of minority groups, carefully mixed in just the right ways to keep them acting "chinese" and not uyghur or whatever
So it's not just a jobs program, it's a matter of, to put it bluntly, "national security". Of course, you might point out, china already has ghost towns all over the place from when they built up a decentralized defense-industrial complex taking advantage of strategic depth, but telling a bunch of tibetan villagers that they're getting a nice new high rise condo next to the maglev goes down a lot easier than "we're putting you in this place that looks suspiciously like a concentration camp"
You can find plenty of (unofficial) state propaganda videos ("slice of life documentaries") where they talk to displaced minorities about their colorful traditions and the shiny new buildings the generous people in beijing built just for them
Ok I just had a nuanced take on china, commence screeching at me that I'm either a chinkshill apologist or a sinophobe, depending on your ideology
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>>2072169
You seem to misunderstand something.
California's HSR project isn't about actually building a HSR.
It's about laundering billions upon billions of dollars to lobbyists and influential people... who will in turn funnel a good portion of that money (after keeping their share) into the Democrat party and other likeminded political groups.
Does the taxpayer get fleeced and California financially ruined for the next 3 generations? Yes. But who cares. Political groups need that money now.
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>>2072179
>internal colonial states like xinjiang and tibet that it needs to assimilate.
It has nothing to do with ethnic groups, it happens to every part of China. Regional and local identities in China are pretty much a commodity ready to be used for profit. You can even go to Beijing and see the old city either demolished or turned into a Disneyland for tourists. Where everyone lives in the "readymade" cities, and speaking even the Beijing dialect or complain about migrants is a sign of separatism.
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>>2072182
>who will in turn funnel a good portion of that money (after keeping their share) into the Democrat party and other likeminded political groups.
imagine being so conspiracypilled that you dont come to the more obvious conclusion of them spending it on the DNC (which has been utterly ineffectual since Bill Clinton) and not just (((THEM))) just fucking stealing it to buy boats and houses and dick/obesity/alcoholism pills and other such boomer shit
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>>2072169
Because it was decided by ballot initiative it can only be ended by ballot initiative. Because California voters approved the project in 2008 the state government in Sacramento must by law work on the project in some way shape or form. If they do not it triggers a state constitutional crisis. Support for the project in Sacramento is low. But the people of California themselves would have to vote in a new state ballot initiative to end the project.
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California's HSR hasn't actually been under development for 32 years but I'm sure everyone here knows that right?
I'm sure OP is going to respond with what he thinks is some gotcha where some politician made some statements back in the mid 1990s because we all love arguing in good faith here on 4chan.org/n/ don't we folks?
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What's really crazy is if they spend couple hundred billion to finish it, the system will still only be used by a very small percentage of Californians. For most in the state, it won't be something they ever use. And most who do use it, will only use it once in a while. A very small number of people will use it frequently and be glad the state spent hundreds of billion for their particular personal want.
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>>2072351
you are right. that guy is a dumb flame-stroker. the guy just wnats to flame or he is a retarded person who doesn't understand america.
this is america. california is the best state because it is richest, and being the most prosperous means theres a big government apparatus. it takes time for things to happen here. we are also an individualistic nation far more so than many others. a chinese-style fast build cannot happen here.
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>>2072182
Absolutely based. The point of large government constructions is never to build anything, but to pay off political supporters, donors, embezzlement, etc. The fact that something gets built (if at all) is merely a side effect, which in this case isn't happening
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