I think the situation is more nuanced than that.

Of course, the F-35 program was an incredibly expensive mess (litterally the most expensive weapon program of all time), because of conflicting specs, data leaks, political infighting, cost overruns which are the stuff of legend, etc… At some moments, there were certainly reasons to think the whole program would collapse on itself like wet tissue paper.

But there are operational F35 now. 900+ as of 2023, which is 4 time more than the rest of Gen 5 fighters combined. And performance-wise, it is good, especially on the stealth & avionics parts. On the other side, the J-20 is largely unproven (probably a decent design, but not as good), and the Su-57 is a bunch of glorified prototypes.

Now sure, cost is high, maintenance is time-consuming, availability somewhat below target, but it’s not particularly surprising for high-performance equipment. It may fall short of the ambition of the program on the cost part, but by itself it’s a dangerous and fully operational fighter.

Crabs. All will be crabs.

Yep, Giga-Euro.

I don’t disagree with you on the principle. But at this price tag (a significant part of the budget of a major Metropolitan area), you don’t only need to know it’s good : you need to know by how much it is better ; when the payoff is going to begin ;and how to you make sure you don’t create issues which will persist for up to a century. Granted, large road projects aren’t cheap either.

It also tie a significant amount of money each year to pay for continuous operation of these transportation, and for the moment, there is a significant number of transportation jobs which can’t be filled. Roads are costly too, but can withstand these employment issue… for a time.

US cities probably should invest much more in this area, but there are limits to the ability of these project to solve transportation issues.

I’m not sure. Public transportation infrastructure is insanely expensive. Where I live (France), there was a project to add a new subway line. A single one. Estimated cost was more than 2 G€. And that’s before taking into the numerous issues of another subway line modernization program…

Because public programs were somehow even more expensive for the same externalities and service.

No. You could reasonably argue that the LFI program is social-democrat, but their internal democracy is a joke, and JLM himself consider the Venezuelian political system to be a model while being remarkably tolerant of Russia’s imperialistic moves. This guy’s a crypto-tankie.

As for the RN, there are a fair number of fascists in the party (and nazis too, but that’s different), but they mostly seems there because there are no legal political formation further right. The voting base don’t particularly support them, and even the high management is annoyed by their presence/visibility… Even is their tolerance of it is far too much for my taste.

This government is getting dumber every day. Goddammit.

Using “Moderate leftist politicians” to depict Melenchon and its party is a very dubious take. And I won’t ho into the use of “nazi” for convenience, refardless of the truth of the matter.