>>1978639Close
>Our entire economy depends on people [AND FREIGHT/GOODS] being able to move freely from from A to B.The good little boys and girls on the other side of the mountain want jolly toys to play with and wholesome food to eat. The push for I-69 is heavily driven by NAFTA and desire for cargo transit between US, Mexico and Canada. Nobody is bombing Houthis for the sake of passenger liners passing through the Strait of el Mandeb.
>If the energy and time saved by building a railway exceeds the time and energy spend on building it by a sufficient factor, do it, because it creates wealth.Yes, with a few extra complications.
1. Project ROI must be estimated, typically for very long periods of time and uncertainty. EROEI is a simpler, short-term formula with less uncertainty.
2. Projects compete for funding/resources meaning that simply having positive ROI isn't enough. It needs to have better Risk/ROI profile than a competing project. In theory, anything with a positive ROI is worth borrowing to fund but that's a tautological claim that sidesteps the question of risk. Not saying government decision-making processes are efficient and free of corruption but rational decision-making is still the best-case scenario.
