Michigan Dam Failure


So here's what I'm upset about today:

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TL;DR: A privately owned dam in Midland, MI (where some of my distant relatives
live, just fyi) burst. This caused a chain reaction of dam failures and is
likely going to cause the entirety of Midland, including the Dow Chemical
headquarters, to become flooded, displacing tens of thousands of people. During
a pandemic.

Said first dam, the Edenville Dam, was privately owned by a hydro-electric
company. It had been constantly reported and cited for failing safety
regulations. It wasn't fixed. The federal authorities just within the last year
or so revoked their license and forcibly sold the dam to a government authority.
But, it was too little too late.

This. Fucking *this*. This is why I've been a raging anti-capitalist lately.
Maintaining a dam isn't profitable, so why do it? It's *only* going to cause
the failure of a city if it bursts. Who caaares?

Critical infrastructure like this should *never* be privately owned, IMO. Things
that are REQUIRED to keep people alive should not have to worry about chasing
dollars and begging for resources. Decomission stuff if you want, IDC. But if
the maintenence burden is too high for a community, letting it just crumble is
NOT the answer. Especially when, well, this.

I'd also argue that factories and industry and stores fall under "things that
need to be operational to keep people from dying". Radical take. Eh. I'm just
having a very hard time rationalizing the concept of money. I wrote a whole
article about that recently though so I won't repeat myself here.

Fun US fact: Most dams and bridges in the US are around 50 years old. This is
going to keep happening. You know what would be really, really great? Some sort
of, I dunno, a Civilian Conservation Corp or something that just goes around
the country and fixes everything. It would certainly solve the unemployment
issue after the pandemic is over. Is it profitable? Frankly, that's a very silly
question. We pay taxes to maintain the things people need to live. That's the
whole god damn point of the government. Of taxes.

sdnfklsdgndlfsgn im angery.