STRAT | Domestic Infrastructure Obstacles & Opportunities

The movement of goods and services - going to work, transporting raw materials as well as manufactured items, and providing predictable services in a harmonized fashion is critical to a solid economic culture and functional modern society. While the issue of "infrastructure" may seem to be an externality to most of us and something beyond our immediate control, it is essential to the success and even survival of our republic and global order - in which we are all stakeholders. The American Society of Civil Engineers grades American infrastructure as C minus, and public investment in domestic infrastructure as a share of GDP has fallen by more than 40% since the 1960s. US infrastructure was once rated the world's best and is now rated as 13th. In short, there is an enormous need for dramatic new infrastructure investment, and while the $1.7 trillion bill signed by President Biden is a big step forward, our domestic infrastructure problem represents an enormous shortfall that has increased more quickly than the public capacity to keep up. As the US and more broadly – ‘Fortress North America’, are grappling with this challenge, we are just part of a $15 trillion gap in what is needed to provide adequate global infrastructure by 2040. Private investment to date has been a drop in bucket, and this bucket is leaking fast. Mark Mansfield and Hal Kempfer tackle this challenge head on, discussing the significant problems, implications, and critical need for corrective action on this episode of STRAT.