There I was this afternoon watching the History channel about a ‘dream bridge’ that could be built across the Bering Strait from Alaska to Siberia. The show went into some of the advantages that would accrue to the entire world from such a bridge and how much of a technical challenge it would be to build. The show talked about the vast Siberian oil and gas fields that would become available over the bridge and down through Alaska to the US and how you would be able to drive from New York to London across the bridge and how our goods would reach eastern Europe easily and quickly and how it would at last tie the North American and Asian contents together in beneficial trade.

But the show was quick to point out how huge this project would be and how it would take the vision of governments on both sides of the Strait and that it would cost over 105 Billion dollars. That’s a huge sum of money, we could never get *our* government to the place where it could cough up that sum even if the benefit to humanity and the US would be vast.

But wait. It turns out that 105 Billion wouldn’t be that difficult after all. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are falling all over themselves to give us $150 Billion without so much as a bat of the governmental eye. After all when did you first hear about this crazy rebate? Two months ago at the most – right? It will pass and pass easily just a few months after it was hatched.

It is completely insane to spend that much money on something that will benefit almost no one except one or two large banks. Don’t get me wrong I will accept my share of the money and gladly spend it but I would much rather see it put to a use on a project with some vision in it.

What do you think?