Domino shames local governments, starts fixing infrastructure by filling potholes

fortune.com/2018/06/12/dominos-potholes-american-infrastructure/

Now this is a publicity stunt, but it kinda goes to show how little is being done to take care of our nation's roads that this is making news at all. I hope this gets people to start shaming our state governments a little bit more into actually fixing our roads and doing one of it's many jobs. My guess is that some politicians will try to use this as an excuse to slash budgets even more in the short term.

What are your thoughts on this guys?

Just what I wanted. Advertisement on the road itself as well.

@Serraph105: infrastructure costs money, and money comes from taxes

Hmm, considering that this is under the jurisdiction of the state, you should ask the state why they have not fixed the potholes.

But I do not have a problem with a business showing some initiative and fixing the potholes, the advertisement is a bit much but considering it´s not major intrusive, it does not matter.

two decades ago I listen to a lecture in which this was stated 'archaeologically speaking we can determine what is the center of power in a society based on the height of its buildings, so for example, the largest buildings used to be churches, then government, now business'

the reason the State/local or federal is not fixing it is because the money is not there.

this is what happens when you stop feeding the goverment, it might turn out ok with business kicking into gear we shall see

You want to know what I want? Here in Chicago, I want the city to actually do proper planning when it comes to repaving the roads. Actually collaborate with utility companies so they can do their work BEFORE city workers come in and properly repave an entire block.

Currently, the city will repave some of the most notorious stretches of crappy roads, then in comes utility companies less than 1 month later digging up what was just repaved. When they're finished, not only do they use what must the cheapest and poorest quality asphalt they can find (which cracks up and sag over time), but the actual patch jobs are horrific ranging from either a large bump or a deep dip on the road. That terrible patch job when winter come around normally gets snatched right up by snow plow trucks, leaving nice size pot holes in the ground. It becomes an endless cycle of the city repaving the street just for utility companies to tear it up. Seriously, I wish the city could fine utility companies or at least penalize its workers every time they do a shoddy patch job so maybe it would motivate them to repair what they tear up, properly....

As for Domino's, if they want to fill in potholes while leaving their logo, its fine with me as long as its not a poor patch job...

Yeah, pretty much. Hard to shame a government when the local government doesn't have money to begin with. Maybe the title should be "Dominos shames other corporations by actually investing in a community." Anyway, this might be relevant:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephanie-kelton-economy-washington_us_5afee5eae4b0463cdba15121

@theone86: The proposal being that we set up the job guarantee and use it as a labor supply to build/fix neglected public infrastructure?

So here is it boiled to its basic elements.

You have a hole in the street, it cost X dollars to repair.

If community does it, the community might be able to have a say in what color, what contractors to use or get information about how much money was spent etc. because its 'public'

If a private organization does it, its just that, private and it comes with all (or most) of the attributes associated with private ownership of which the people driving on the road (you) are not an owner of.

we have been moving the direction of the latter for sometime now

its really a basic debate of 'might i be able to have a say given its in the community vs I forgo any ability to speak on the subject because its now private'

Our state has either the highest or second highest gas tax in the country. It was recently raised with the intention of using the money to fix the roads but the politicians have squandered it to other areas. The other issue is how the roads are fixed improperly. If the state or local governments do not do the job itself, the job is contracted out for the LOWEST bid. The lowest bid comes with the lowest quality.

@tryit: WTF are you talking about not feeding the government?!? The amount of tax money both federal and local governments get is insanely high, outrageous, but they waste it. The money is there to fix and do what needs to be done, but government is highly inefficient and throws money around like its a bunch of 5 year olds playing monopoly.

which is more efficent use of money is a different topic from what i am saying.

please go back and read more closely, it would be nice if people would be better at focusing on what I am saying instead of trying to interject assumptions which then get off topic.

its about 'you get a possible say and possible view' vs 'you do not because its 1000% private' you do know what 'it is private' means?

also...before you pull your government is horrible about money card, keep in mind about 1/2 of all your money goes to the military

@mattbbpl: Yeah, pretty much. I think she intended it to be spent on something a little bigger than potholes, but why not start there? If it helps a community in need and creates jobs at the same time, then it doesn't really matter if it's not as sexy as, say, a bullet train.

@theone86: I don't disagree, I was just seeking clarification.

It's an interesting proposal. It's potentially one that could see some bipartisan support, but it could also be pretty easily derailed, I think.

@Serraph105:

**** it, let's elect Dominos for president!

@theone86: I kind of agree with that way of thinking. The only real restraint to money is food production and the natural environment. Food production ultimately ultimately depends on energy. And energy production depends on the sun. Let's say we figure out how to get a fusion reactor working...well then, money doesn't have any value because we can create endless supplies of food. Nowadays with technology improvements, we don't need to use as much human labor to even harvest the food, so money loses even more value. Ultimately though, this is a big reason why climate change and plastic pollution is a big problem. Wrecking our environment is a good way to introduce scarcity. Scarcity will drive the value of money upwards.

Literally the most important thing in the world, more than debt or military spending is to take care of our environment. We should be spending trillions of dollars fixing the environment. Tax the sht out of people who use plastics and manufacturers who create it, they are wrecking our money supply by destroying our environment. Same with carbon emissions, tax it. It's true a big chunk of our economy depends on fossil fuels because that's how we get our energy but I think that's something in the past as we figure out how to get more and more energy from cleaner sources.

The biggest thing the government should be doing is cleaning up the environment and pulling out all the stops to doing this.

Potholes are also, generally, a local government problem and even if a state government is doing well, it can be filled with towns/districts/etc that are struggling. You're not going to get the federal or state government coming into your neighborhood to fix your road.

There's actually a stretch of highway between Livermore and Modesto in California called the Altamont Pass, this is a freeway where people are driving ~75 mph on average. And it is riddled with potholes that are deep and sometimes as large as half the lane. It's actually caused damage to cars (suspension, body, etc) and they finally fixed because it became such a huge problem to commuters. But that is how bad things need to get as far as potholes go before the state get's involved.

I've driven through there many times, it's pretty scary.

Sounds like she is, more or less, rewording the old saying of "Gotta spend money to make money" or "How do you make a million dollar company? Spend five million creating it".

There's some truth there, especially when the article points to job creation. I often think that a new New Deal like Roosevelt did would be pretty great. Make big projects, put people to work, create jobs and work that aren't inherently critical but improve infrastructure.

@mrbojangles25:Yeah, the idea is that, since government can always print money, there's not a hard and fast limit on the amount of debt they can rack up. She does acknowledge that inflation is still a factor, so the government can't buy Lamborghinis for everyone, but as long as the money is being used to create productivity in the U.S. economy the debt is an acceptable tradeoff. Since local governments can't print money, using federal money on local projects that the local government can't afford like fixing potholes should fall under that.

@mattbbpl: The biggest problem I see is that you have to have government officials operating on good faith at every level. If local governments treat this like a never-ending piggy bank then it tanks the whole proposal, if the federal government treats it as pork then it's going to get a lot of people angry and opposed to it, and if any branch is ideologically opposed to it then there are a million ways to make it ineffective and turn people against it on purpose.