New York City in the World Land-Bridge

While initially almost all U.S. think-tanks were negative concerning China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), or simply refused even to take note of it, there has recently been a shift. Except for the hardcore neocon think-tanks, several now have started to report on the tremendous business opportunities the New Silk Road project would offer to U.S. enterprises. This has been especially true since the very successful summit, despite difficult circumstances, between President Xi Jinping and President Trump in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. The most obvious of many areas of such cooperation would of course be the link between the Belt and Road Initiative and the planned $1 trillion infrastructure investment President Trump promised in his election campaign, which is supposed to be presented in May. There are several roadblocks to be overcome for this to happen. The infrastructure requirements of the United States are enormous, due to decades-long non-investment by the previous administrations. Except for those who have actually been to China, most Americans have no idea how far behind China is U.S. infrastructural development is. The average speed of the Washington-Boston 736 km Acela "high-speed" line is only 105 km/h, with only very short segments at 145 km/h. This is by no means high speed, compared to the approximately 130,000 kilometers of high-speed rail in China, which amounts to over 50 times as much U.S. roads are in terribly dangerous condition, and so are the bridges, and sanitation systems-but their use is still expensive. For a trip between Washington and New York, one has to pay the substantial amount of $115 in tolls and gas per car. The American Society of Civil Engineers, at a recent conference, released the estimate that current U.S. infrastructure investment requirements are actually $4.5 trillion. There is no way that the financing of either of these amounts will come from the private equity market. Representatives of this sector in recent discussions with President Trump, put forward prohibitive conditions, such as an 11-12% return per annum, and a full return of the capital invested within ten years. The idea that the infrastructure should be financed by a toll system is also problematic. Even if that might barely work in some densely populated areas, it would certainly fail in thinly inhabited areas. But the very idea that there should be an immediate direct return on infrastructure investment, shows complete ignorance of the role infrastructure plays in the general economy. The quality and density of infrastructure is a necessary precondition for the productivity of an economy as a whole. A modern economy requires that approximately 50% of its total expenditures should be designated to be used for the expansion and modernization of infrastructure, since the life expectancy of infrastructure's various categories is between 20 and 50 years. A well planned infrastructure platform is an integrated system of highspeed rail lines, waterways, highways, energy production and distribution, and communications, as well as so-called soft infrastructure such as health and education systems. The higher the technological development and productivity of an economic space becomes, the more important the speed and efficiency of the transport and density of infrastructure in general will need to be, since all the various levels of production into semi-finished and finished goods work together like a complicated machine, where each part has a role for a harmonious function. Thus, the return on infrastructure investment is actually measured by the increase of the productivity of the entire economy. Therefore the financing can not be left to the private investor, but it must be the responsibility of the state, which is devoted to the common good of the national economy.