by
DrMarty | September 20, 2008 at 06:37 am
324 views | 22 Recommendations |
11 comments
Wake up, get out of bed, drag a comb across my head...head out to the road, over the bridge...oops!...you are late for work forever, you are dead. The bridge designer, architect, and construction engineering company pause to reflect on the engineering disaster before them. The next day, 10 more engineering structures fail, and a week later a thousand more. A failed bridge here a collapsed building there, pretty soon you are talking about a real loss of human life. There are no other designers, architects, and construction engineering companies the government can turn to, so the group that failed so miserably is hired to replace the wreckage, with cost-plus contracts that every tax payer in America will fund. Not only are they too big to fail, there's nobody else to turn to. So, dust off the same engineering drawings, use lowest-bid subcontractors and before you know it America's back in business and the CEOs of the designers, architects, and construction engineering firm are all enjoying the French Riveria with money snatched from the pockets of the underemployed, recently laid off, and poor who must now beg at intersections for money to eat.
Truemors
if engineers had deference given to speculative fund managers
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (11)
at 07:44 on September 20th, 2008
DrMarty, I like this story. It's good stuff. This may be a local story, I don't know the bridge. Who is the CEO enjoying french rivirea? The last, who arrived was Richard Perle after the CIA disaster, "we didn't conquer the world"
at 11:46 on September 20th, 2008
Sorry for confusing you. This is not news, but an attempt to illustrate how polite we all are to those who propose such crazy things like bailing out gamblers.
at 11:52 on September 20th, 2008
>with money snatched from the pockets of the underemployed.
They'll never get filthy rich that way. Robin Hood robbed the rich, now that makes more sense.
at 12:19 on September 20th, 2008
If the Federal Reserve bails out speculators with trillions of dollars of money that would come from suckers like you and me (not those who've been given tax breaks) and the poor, then it is possible for scum bags to get rich. $100 from 10,000,000 people is a billion dollars, isn't it?
at 12:52 on September 20th, 2008
Bingo! Welcome to corporate socialism.
at 13:19 on September 20th, 2008
>$100 from 10,000,000 people.
Sure, but we shouldn't underestimate the number of scumbags that need to get paid. If too few, they are in danger of being overwhelmed by the masses. They need to be somewhat conservative about this milking of the general public so the process can continue for an extended period and the gain compounded. Upsets like now will result in a temporary suspension of ill-gotten gain.
at 13:26 on September 20th, 2008
So what you're saying is that if engineers engeneered engines the way fund managers managed funds that the first tire to hit a bridge would collapse it.
I'd like to argue agin this but I think you'/re right.
at 14:00 on September 20th, 2008
My point is that engineers' failures are as plain as day...some fail sooner than others, like the federal flood walls in New Orleans or the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis....the financial system took 37 years to fail from the point the dollar was decoupled from the gold reserve system into a floating exchange rate system....then speculative funds were allowed into our banking system with he repeal of the Depression - era banking laws by McCain's buddy Phil Graham. Yet, listen to the talking heads on TV and hear them say "too big to fail," etc...so who will be on top of the financial markets and regulatory agencies after the trillion dollar bailouts? Where did Bush's brother go after his Silverado bank was bailed out in the 80s?
Yet, would anybody hire the guy / gal who designed / approved the failed New Orleans flood walls? The Corps is still hiding his / her identity, so he /she is probably still pushing out failed designs...but if you knew you wouldn't. But in the case of the financial markets, the bastards are still there.
at 14:03 on September 20th, 2008
DrMarty, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 14:28 on September 20th, 2008
Well, I get your point, and it's pretty good too.
I think what we're witnessing here is more like a bunch of airplanes that flew too high too fast and then stalling and crashing, or a whole fleet of ships that charted courses into waters they knew were almost certainly suicidal ...
But they don't care !!
They've got their parachutes and lifeboats !!
Do you really think they designed safety provisions for the 3rd-class passengers into the system ?
at 15:20 on September 20th, 2008
Emilio, "safety provisions for 3rd class passengers", I think no. Get yourself a pasport, leave for a better world.....