California looking to communist China for High-Speed trains

In a story that Il Principe has been following since April 7, 2010, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was recently in China looking at new high-speed trains for California. This one story summarizes why the American economy is unable to get out of its longest recession since the end of World War II and is a world power in decline. While media pundits and politicians try to make excuses why the American economy is still in a recession, the most obvious reason is that the American economy has become precariously imbalanced towards consumer consumption and has gone from a country of production to a country of consumption.

Americans from every generation should be embarrassed that a political leader from the largest state in America is shopping for high-speed trains designed, engineered, and manufactured by a communist country. If that was not embarrassing enough, the governor of California is also looking to a communist country for the financing it needs for the state’s high-speed rail project. This makes a mockery of the political rhetoric espoused by a generation of American politicians that capitalism was superior to communism. If American politicians did not hand out billions of dollars to defense corporations located in southern California building expensive and unnecessary weapons to fight communist Russia during the Cold War like the B-2 stealth bomber for two billions a copy, perhaps these same politicians would now have some money to give the governor from California.

While not widely known to most Americans, at the time of its development, the United States Air Force already had several other aircraft and weapons systems that performed the same mission as the B-2 stealth bomber. Even after the end of the Cold War, the two billion dollar a copy B-2 Stealth bomber is still in use, and to justify their use, they have been used to attack such high-value targets in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Making matters worse for the American taxpayer, Northrop Grumman, the maker of the B-2, was recently awarded a military contract to refit and repaint the fleet of 20 planes still in service at a cost of over $60 million per plane.

Without implementing any increase in taxes or in the federal budget deficit, the governor of California would not be forced to go to communist China to get the financing needed to build a vital public works project, if one aircraft carrier was decommissioned or if twenty obsolete foreign military bases were closed in Europe. Instead of flying an American flag in blind patriotism, more Americans should recognize the connection between their country’s crumbling infrastructure and a corrupted political establishment unable to challenge the power of entrenched interests associated with the military.

Analyzing why the United States does not have an advanced high speed rail network or a more developed mass transit system within its major cities, reveals a political establishment more focused on catering to the needs of the politically connected wealthy members of society. As the wealthy members of America are less likely to use mass transit, the politicians in control of funding public works projects like a high speed rail line in California have no incentive.

Instituting a decades long policy of rebuilding America's crumbling infrastructure with American built high speed trains is perhaps the best approach for America to become the great industrial nation it was during its apex of power in the late 1940s. While the process will be long and difficult, this long term economic strategy will serve the interests of the entire country and not just the political elite members of society as it does today.