上海的月亮: EN — LARRY ROMANOFF: A Sample of the E-Book “Nations Built on Lies — Volume 2

Nations Built on Lies

Volume 2

Life in a Failed State

LARRY ROMANOFF

A sample chapter of this book:

Life in a Failed State – Part 2

The Crumbling of America

America the Shrunken

The World’s Richest Banana Republic

Abandoning the American Dream

The Crumbling of America

In June of 2013 an Interstate bridge on a main commercial corridor between Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, Canada, collapsed and fell into the river below after being hit by a truck. This was not a high-speed collision; the truck simply bumped one of the main support pillars at low speed, but the weakened and dilapidated pillar broke from the strain and, without that extra bit of support, the entire bridge immediately collapsed into the river. In prior examinations, the heavily-travelled bridge had not only been rated as functionally obsolete but structurally deficient and requiring replacement.

This is only one of thousands; the great majority of the physical infrastructure of the US is in a similar condition, involving roads, dams, bridges and more. More than 160,000 bridges in the US are officially categorized as dangerous, at risk of collapse, with such collapses now regularly occurring.[1][2][3]

Most American infrastructure was built in the early to mid-20th century, the continent having been simultaneously wired for electricity and phone service while constructing large projects like the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as the interstate highway system along with thousands of smaller bridges, tunnels and more. But the US has spent almost no money on maintenance and repairs on any of this infrastructure for almost 60 years now, all its money having been spent on wars and foreign military bases and bio-weapons labs. The situation today is dire and, in many instances, critical, but money is no longer available. Roads and highways alone require more than $100 billion per year; bridges would require many hundreds of billions per year indefinitely. Most are reaching the end of their useful life and repairs alone will not suffice; replacement will become increasingly necessary.

The American Society of Civil Engineers produced a comprehensive evaluation report on America’s entire infrastructure, which gave all but one item category a “D” grade, meaning unsatisfactory, inadequate, and in danger of failing. The list included drinking water, wastewater treatment and handling, the electric power grid, airports and aviation facilities, rail facilities and transportation, inland waterway transportation, roads and highways, bridges, dams, hazardous waste, schools and transit. Each category received a D.[4][5][6]

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