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[quote user="Maglev"] "Even South Korea has faster trains than we do." Their government does not need to "justify" the economic rationality of spending billions on public infrastructure.  Here in the United States, we are too stubborn to admit that the "invisible hand of the free market" is actually just (to use a polite term) "self-stimulating" industries that are eating away at our society and environment. [/quote] The U.S. National Debt is $10.7 trillion or approximately 76 per cent of the Gross National Product.  Approximately $2.2 trillion is held by overseas investors.  In addition, the deficits being incurred to save the financial markets, as well as those anticipated to recover from the economic recession, will add another $1.4 trillion to the national debt.  This will take it to $11.9 trillion or approximately 87 per cent of GNP, and it will be the highest it has been since the end of WWII.  Most of the large debt racked up by the end of WWII, of course, was incurred to help defeat Germany and Japan. The annual interest on the debt in FY 2009 will be approximately $476 billion.  State and local government debt tacks on another $1.85 trillion to the government debt load and pushes the annual combined debt service requirement above $500 billion per year.  This is one of the reasons, although not the only one, why taxes represent the largest single outlay for a typical American family. In addition to government debt, i.e. federal, state, and local, Americans are on the hook for approximately $11.5 trillion in mortgage debt, $10.1 trillion in corporate debt, $950 billion of credit card debt, and $2.6 trillion of consumer debt.  This brings the total debt load to approximately $37.6 trillion or an average of $311,000 per household.  The country is awash in debt.     Many economists believe that America's unbridled appetite for debt is the major cause of the recession, in large part because Americans have run out of the ability to incur any further debt or in many instances service their debt load.    These dismal numbers beg a central question.  How do you suggest the U.S. should pay for high speed trains
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