The Crumbling of America (Upcoming History Channel episode)

[JohnyCanuck]

America's infrastructure is collapsing. Tens of thousands of bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. A third of the nation's highways are in poor or mediocre shape. Massively leaking water and sewage systems are creating health hazards and contaminating rivers and streams. Weakened and under-maintained levees and dams tower over communities and schools. And the power grid is increasingly maxed out, disrupting millions of lives and putting entire cities in the dark. The Crumbling of America explores these problems using expert interviews, on location shooting and computer generated animation to illustrate the kinds of infrastructure disasters that could be just around the bend.

Rating: TVPG
Tuesday, October 06 10:00 AM
Tuesday, October 06 04:00 PM

http://www.history.com/shows.do?episodeId=452430&action=detail

[Selatius]

1. This sort of acts as a blow to my national pride.

This is supposedly the richest nation in the world. It cannot even maintain its own national infrastructure. We saw, with tremendous pain, what happened when the infrastructure failed when it was needed the most during Katrina. The levees were smashed, and thousands died in the aftermath.

Oh well, I'd rather be humble with the facts than be proud and ignorant.

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Well look on the positive side......

The USA has some really magnificent, world class bombs, nuclear submarines, tanks, aircraft carriers and fighter jets and can and does destroy other peoples' infrastructure around the other side of the world in the blink of an eye, mainly because it spends more money on its military than the rest of the world combined. Doesn't that just warm the cockles of your heart?

[JohnyCanuck]

4. New Orleans n/t

[KharmaTrain]

2. The Anything BUT History Channel...

Lately when I throw them on, I see Iceroad Truckers or some Armegeddon/Nostradamus themed show. As of late they've been on the kick of destroying the earth...tune in and watch your favorite city crumble. Many times I feel like I need to put on a tin foil hat to watch.

[Le Taz Hot]

5. And instead of spending (largely borrowed) monies on

WPA-type projects, what did President Change do? He put the fox in charge of the hen house (Geitner) and funneled TRILLIONS of OUR money into the fucking banks and the insurance companies that backed those bad loans! Se WE get the debt and WE get the bad loans and WE'RE still losing our jobs and homes. Meanwhile the scum suckers who caused all this mess in the first place are collecting bonuses and, once again, we pick up the tab. Rebuilding our infrastructure would have created millions of desperately-needed jobs. There was one opportunity to get it right and this administration missed it completely.

[JohnyCanuck]

6. American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure reportd card: GPA D

Aviation D
Bridges C
Dams D
Drinking Water D-
Energy D+
Hazardous Waste D
Inland Waterways D-
Levees D-
Public Parks and Recreation C-
Rail C-
Roads D-
Schools D
Solid Waste C+
Transit D
Wastewater D-

America's Infrastructure GPA: D
Estimated 5 Year Investment Need: $2.2 Trillion
http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

[HamdenRice]

7. Obama funnelled trillions to the banks? Do you know the date of the TARP bailout?

Hint: It was before January 2009.

You sound like the right wingers blaming Obama for nationalizing the banks.

Don't people use simple chronology anymore?

Btw, there was some good news on NPR this morning. Geitner's TARP 2 is all but dead and has been scaled back to a few tens of billions rather than the $200 billion remaining under TARP 1.

That means that there basically never was an Obama administration bank bailout. It simply never happened.

[seabeyond]

8. we had a good ride. greed won out. nt

[berni_mccoy]

9. Not to mention our crumbling health system.

[Kingofalldems]

10. Did they consult with Nostradamus on this?

I bet they find something he wrote and connect it to bridges collapsing.