The knight in the big world of American TV series

Chapter 1942 Reached (Please give me a monthly ticket!!! Please subscribe!!! Please recommend!!!)

Chapter 1942 Reached (Please give me a monthly ticket!!! Please subscribe!!! Please recommend!!!)

"Besides, this is New York, boss. How fast can we go? No one will give way to us, and the traffic jam will still happen!"

What can I say about New York City’s infrastructure… I can’t say it’s bad, I can only say it’s outdated.

Driving in New York is a very stressful thing, especially in Manhattan's heavy traffic. Every time you drive, you have to concentrate highly. If you accidentally "kiss" the Lincolns and BMWs on the street, or have close "contact" with precious human bodies, the driver will be in big trouble. Think about it, as the largest city in the United States, New York covers an area of ​​828 square kilometers and has a population of 735 million, but it has more than 800 million cars. It is natural to be nervous when driving in such an environment. A report shows that New York City has become the most congested city in the world for the second consecutive year. It is estimated that the city has lost $91 billion in time costs. "Traffic congestion is both a source of pain and a barometer of economic health; it symbolizes the prosperity of the city, but also suppresses prosperity,"

The large number of cars is one reason, and the backwardness of infrastructure is another. At present, the current state of infrastructure construction in the United States can be described as a former president said: "The infrastructure of the United States is as weak as that of a third world country."

But some people think that the United States lags behind because it is "advanced". Because it is too advanced, it does not want to change its infrastructure construction, so it naturally appears backward. You know, as a highly developed capitalist country, the United States achieved modernization as early as the 1940s, after World War II, and its infrastructure construction has a history of 80 years. It can be said that as early as the 1930s, the United States had high-rise buildings, and in the 1950s, highways reached the whole country. After 80 years of friction, these roads and high-rise buildings have been weathered and naturally look old. However, the United States is unwilling to spend money to rebuild and renovate these aging infrastructure, which naturally makes the appearance of American urban roads generally lag behind other developed countries, and it looks as old as a "big countryside" to outsiders.

However, Americans just don't want to spend money on renovations.

As the saying goes, to get rich, you must first build roads. This is an eternal path. There are many benefits to building infrastructure. It can not only improve the traffic environment, but also increase employment data and improve people's economic conditions. It is reflected in economic data and is an important manifestation of economic growth. Generally, there are three basic situations when a country builds infrastructure: the first situation is that industrialization has not yet started. For example, agricultural countries in Africa or tribal chiefdoms in primitive society do not need industrial production, let alone high-rise buildings or roads. They remain in the "small country with few people" situation of small peasant society, so naturally there is no demand for infrastructure. The second situation: post-industrial countries are countries that need to develop industry, such as Japan and South Korea now. The infrastructure is very mature. The third situation is countries with declining industrialization, such as the United States and Germany. These countries have already completed industrialization and infrastructure construction, but the characteristic is that they are aging, like old houses, they need to be rebuilt or renovated. However, the benefits of infrastructure construction are not as good as those of high-tech industries and investment finance, which have better economic benefits and greater output.

Post-industrial countries, such as developing countries, need infrastructure to drive economic development. The vigorous construction of infrastructure such as airports, high-speed railways, high-rise buildings, and highways can reduce the economic exchange costs required for industrial development through improved transportation, and also drive employment, stimulate consumption, drive economic growth, and drive GDP growth. This is also a very satisfactory way of economic growth.

But in developed countries, infrastructure is very complete, and further construction can drive demand in the short term. However, in the long run, infrastructure construction requires huge amounts of money, but it is difficult to receive good marginal returns. Finally, using taxes to fill the investment funds will eventually lead to heavy debts, which will inevitably cause price increases and inflation, and the economy will shrink.

In microeconomics, this is also a kind of diminishing marginal benefits, and there may even be negative returns. To give a common ratio, if a person is very hungry, he immediately spends money to eat a piece of bread, which feels very refreshing. But after eating the second and third, his stomach will burst. Not only can he not eat more, but eating too much is also harmful to his health. It is better to use this money to buy drinks or fruits, which is more comfortable!

The United States also had a period of "infrastructure mania", that is, Roosevelt's New Deal in the 180s, which promoted employment and economic growth through infrastructure. At that time, President Roosevelt's government spent up to $7.8 billion on various infrastructure projects, hired millions of workers, and eventually built 65 bridges, 700 miles of roads, 1.3 miles of runways, 12.5 playgrounds, and 4000 military and civilian buildings, including more than schools.

Therefore, the infrastructure projects currently used in the United States are all left over from the 650s. The transportation systems commonly used by ordinary people in the United States are highways and aviation. The United States has the longest highway mileage in the world, with a total mileage of about 8 million kilometers. It is also the country with the most highways in the world, with 8 kilometers of highways, accounting for about half of the world's total highway mileage, connecting all towns with a population of more than 5, forming a highway network that runs vertically and horizontally across the country and covers more than 90% of cities.

Therefore, the US's attitude towards infrastructure is that if it is not necessary, do not add physical infrastructure. If the airport can be used, then use it; if the trains and subways are acceptable, then just look at them first, and as for rebuilding them, don't spend the money.

Most importantly, capital is not optimistic about this kind of behavior. After all, you can't make money by building roads. No, to be more precise, it is not as profitable as other activities. For example, if the same amount of money is invested in the financial market, the income of others in one year can be much greater than the income created by your infrastructure in 20 years!

The market is not interested in such things that require large investments but have small actual returns but benefit a wide range of people, so infrastructure projects are basically carried out by the state. Because from a macro perspective, the state is making money, and capital is not happy to see this situation.

The United States is unwilling to spend money on infrastructure construction, which is also a system problem. The United States is a democratic and federal system with a total of 50 states. The "small government" and local autonomy are highly autonomous, and the leadership relationship between the upper and lower levels is not very strong. There are also frequent disputes between states over interests. Moreover, the United States is also a country with a separation of powers. The power of the president is subject to the constraints of Congress, and the Democratic and Republican parties participating in politics also restrict each other. For example, when someone was running for president, he proposed a $1 trillion infrastructure revitalization plan, but after taking office, this plan was opposed by the Democratic Party and was not actually implemented. From this case, we can see that many infrastructure plans in the United States have been delayed due to differences between the two parties over the source of tribute.

Many examples also show that the Democratic Party of the United States advocates the use of more federal funds in infrastructure, through raising taxes and issuing bonds to obtain funds. The Republican Party advocates a generally accepted approach to encourage more private sector investment in infrastructure construction, thereby using lower costs to achieve good construction results, which also makes the two parties unyielding in infrastructure. In addition, the opinions of various states in the United States on infrastructure issues are often difficult to maintain consistency with the federal government, and sometimes the states do not listen to the central government's orders. This also leads to a mess of infrastructure projects in the United States.

Another thing is… land is expensive!

Why don’t you need land?

Where is this? This is New York City. It's really expensive.

Since most of the land in the United States is privately owned, infrastructure projects need to communicate and negotiate with the landowners in the process of expropriating land, which is labor-intensive and time-consuming. The reason why the infrastructure construction in the early days of the founding of the United States was able to proceed smoothly was mainly because the U.S. population was small at the time and the land basically belonged to the federal government. The government could do whatever it wanted with infrastructure construction.

Is it okay now?

Labor in the United States is also relatively expensive. American workers strictly work eight hours a day. When the weather is too hot, rainy, snowy, etc., they can not work but still get paid. The high labor cost makes infrastructure more expensive. Moreover, the United States is characterized by vast land and sparse population, and spacious housing. If infrastructure is to be built, a series of infrastructure will be needed, and the funds spent are all unaffordable for the US government.

So over the years, New York's infrastructure is still the same as it was decades ago. Even today, after being patched up a bit, some places can no longer adapt to the needs of the new era.

This is also the reason why New York has bad traffic.

Saji and the others want to arrive in time unless nothing unexpected happens.

"I've always wanted to apply for a helicopter, but they wouldn't approve it. Who can I blame?"

Kai squinted his eyes and looked over: "Are you using me to wipe it?"

Saji finally understood what he said, and wanted to get good things for his department.

To be honest, the Special Division is the department with the most adequate budget in the entire New York Police Department. There is no way around it. Kai and Tony have always donated the most to the police department. Although Kai has never clearly stated which departments will be given priority for this money, the top brass of the police department are not really stupid.

They naturally know what to do.

In the entire New York Police Department, the Special Division and the 15th Precinct receive the most funding. There is no other way around it because one of these two departments was founded by Kai, and the other is Kai's old department.

Even if other departments have ideas, they have to keep them to themselves. After all, if they don't make a fuss, some of the donations will be distributed to them. But once they make a fuss, Kai will stop donating directly, and then no one will get anything.

After all, donations are not grants, and the donor's wishes are more important.

But Saji was not satisfied with this and kept applying for more and better things for the Special Department, which made the heads of other departments very angry. They thought that they were so rich, but they were still competing with them for food. It was too much.

But Saji didn't care about that. Damn it, even if I applied less, these bastards wouldn't thank him, so why not apply?

At least I've applied, so I can get some points.

At least the people in this department will be grateful to him.

In fact, any worker would like such a boss. The boss doesn't need you to be smart or wise. As long as you can bring benefits to the department, it doesn't matter if you are a fool. Even if he is wise and powerful, he will just let us work hard without any benefits. We will still be bullied.

It’s good for Saji like this, at least the people in the special department recognize him very much.

"Tsk... I'll ask after a while." Kai really didn't know what to say... Because he was also that kind of person. For some things, if you don't fight for them, no one will be grateful to you. If you earn them, others may think you are eating alone, but your own people will definitely be very happy.

It’s enough as long as our own people are happy.

other people?

What do I care about other people?

"Thank you, boss!"

Saji actually knew that his boss was good enough to him. Basically, he would not come back empty-handed every time something like this happened, but then again, if there was wool to be taken, why not take it? It wasn't just him who took it away to eat and drink, so he had a clear conscience.

What is a confidant? This is a confidant.

Do other people dare to speak in front of Kai? If they say it's too late, you can only admit your mistakes and apologize, but Saji doesn't. Not only does he find excuses, he also turns around and takes advantage of him.

If the confidant is treated the same as everyone else, this confidant would be worse off than not being a person!

"Who is this?" After two full chapters, Saji finally remembered to ask the real question.

"Nick Fury," Kai said.

"Oh, Nick..." Sage didn't take it seriously at first, but the next second: "Who are you talking about?!!!"

"Nick Fury? What? Your English is not good enough?"

"Not... him... this! Is Nick Fury?!!"

How the hell, this is a white-haired middle-aged white man, how can he be Nick Fury? Where is his one-eyed face? Where is his black skin? Where is his Madfake?

"He had plastic surgery, and it was quite successful. He is Nick Fury." Kai said casually.

Nick Fury looked up at Sage. He knew Sage. He was Kai's younger brother. He had served in the same squad with Kai, and later retired together and became police officers together. He was Kai's best friend.

It's just that Nick Fury has never paid attention to such a small person in the past, so although he knows him, he has never met him.

"They were captured by your special forces. You have made a great contribution this time." Kai said casually.

This credit is meaningless to Kai and Tony, let alone to the kids. It will also make them easy to be targeted by others. It is better to share the credit with the special forces.

"What?!!"

"Jessica and Rorschach have found this guy. In this case, the credit goes to you."

After saying that, Kai looked at Nick Fury and said, "I'll hand you over to them, and then the government will take you in. Is that ok? Hurry up."

Kai agreed to Nick Fury's request.

Nick Fury was not too nervous at this moment. After all, there were so many people here, and Kai had acknowledged his identity. If they wanted to kill him, Kai would have just not said anything. There was no need to announce his identity.

Now that he has revealed his identity, it means that Kai really has no intention of killing himself.

After all, he died without knowing why, which was a big problem for Kai.

Then Nick Fury gave out an address.