Login
You're viewing the mastodonapp.uk public feed.
  • The Penguin of Eviletchedpixels@mastodon.social
    Sep 16, 2026, 2:51 PM

    Thought for the day

    The US will be very shortly paying the same per year in debt intetest as China spent building the largest high speed rail network in the world.

    So when you wonder why you don't have nice trains remember it's because the US sold rich people bonds instead of taxing them.

    PS: if you are wondering why US petrol and diesel prices are so high it's because it's apparently more important to export fuel at peak prices than add export restrictions and keep in country prices down.

    💬 9🔄 135⭐ 160

Replies

  • Feohfeoh@oldbytes.space
    Sep 16, 2026, 2:57 PM

    @etchedpixels There is SO MUCH to say around the utter neurosis America has when it comes to anything like public infrastructure.

    People can't even agree that paying for basic services like road maintenance, public schools, police and fire is a good idea, much less something like a.public transit system.

    It's disgusting, and the degree to which America and Americans have fully accepted car culture as The Way Things Are And Always Will Be is a deep sadness I don't think I'll ever be able to get away from.

    The irony runs thick and deep because with folks living longer and healthier lives, EVERYONE is going to spend quite a number of years of life past the point where even a fully abled person can drive.

    💬 3🔄 1⭐ 10
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 1
  • 💬 1🔄 1⭐ 6
  • Feohfeoh@oldbytes.space
    Sep 16, 2026, 4:57 PM

    @c_merriweather @etchedpixels Absolutely true but it's race + class.

    At least here in Boston, a LOT of the disdain for public transit comes down to "Only poors ride the bus".

    (Don't get me wrong, this city is PLENTY racist too, just... Our evil is like a multi-faceted gem. :\ )

    💬 2🔄 1⭐ 4
  • clewclew@ecoevo.social
    Sep 16, 2026, 9:44 PM

    And a mysterious number of people feel like maintenance and operations is for losers. Not just doing the work, but even thinking about it.

    That’s probably partly the classism again, although I think consumerism too.

    @feoh @c_merriweather @etchedpixels

    💬 0🔄 1⭐ 2
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 1
  • ericmericm@infosec.exchange
    Sep 16, 2026, 5:18 PM

    @feoh @etchedpixels It's not just a car culture problem though we have that too. Americans can't even agree to being taxed slightly more to support roads for cars! My supposedly liberal state recently rejected a small gas tax increase to make up for inflation. There is a wide spread belief even amongst supposed liberals that all governments are incompetent and wasteful while private industry is always better. Decades of propaganda, plus Republicans actively working to destroy government, has worked.

    It feels like the latter days of Rome when they were on the decline and could only look at the ruins of the great works they'd once built.

    💬 0🔄 0⭐ 5
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 5
  • Ralston Elko :sn:rek@twit.social
    Sep 16, 2026, 3:35 PM

    @etchedpixels export restrictions don’t work when refineries are constructed to refine non domestically produced crude. If you ban exports of refined products then the crude producers ban exports to you. If you ban exports of crude, then you cant refine it. Either way youre fucked. Didnt we all learn just a few years ago that supply chains cannot be reconfigured on the fly?!?!

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 3
  • The Penguin of Eviletchedpixels@mastodon.social
    Sep 16, 2026, 3:56 PM

    @rek The US has some refining capacity for its own oil but you are right - I'd not realised the sheer extent of the US refining dependency on foreign oil types.

    💬 0🔄 1⭐ 4
  • RastalRastal@mastodon.social
    Sep 16, 2026, 5:23 PM

    @etchedpixels Irony being it was US that flooded China with money, which enabled #china to build itself up & to build Belt and Road Initiative. US did that to make China dependent on $USD

    US can print all the money it wants. US economy does not work like your bank account. It doesn't pay debts, it gets other countries to depend on $USD. It has debt because money = debt, literally. No debt, no money

    Only reason US doesn't spend on infrastructure is b/c it chooses not to, not due to debt

    #uspol

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 2
  • The Penguin of Eviletchedpixels@mastodon.social
    Sep 16, 2026, 6:25 PM

    @Rastal The more money the US prints the higher inflation and interest rates and the less it can sell bonds. It doesn't work like a home account but at the end of the day it does have limits.

    That's missing the point though - however you like to frame causes the US is about to be spending more servicing debts each year than China spent on a massive high speed rail network.

    As to flooding China with dollars - US and other companies did that to increase profits no sinister motive required.

    💬 0🔄 1⭐ 3
  • 💬 0🔄 1⭐ 1
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 1
  • OddOpinions5failedLyndonLaRouchite@mas.to
    Sep 16, 2026, 10:20 PM

    @etchedpixels

    pretty sure the last part of your pos " export fuel . ." is just wrong, showing a total lack of knowledge of the basic economics of oil

    oil trades on a global market; the price we pay in the US is the price of oil around the world

    💬 1🔄 0⭐ 0
  • The Penguin of Eviletchedpixels@mastodon.social
    Sep 16, 2026, 10:30 PM

    @failedLyndonLaRouchite Not at all.

    The USA can choose not to export refined diesel or gasoline so that its own citizens get lower prices as there is less demand.

    Governments choose to allow stuff to be exported. Plenty of governments have stopped exporting refined oil to protect their own citizens.

    It's only a global market if your government allows you to export the product.

    💬 0🔄 1⭐ 1
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 1
  • 💬 0🔄 0⭐ 1