The whims of Bezos
Yes, this is definitely what billionaires should be doing to hasten global warming.
A historic bridge in Rotterdam, Netherlands, is to be dismantled so that Jeff Bezos’ superyacht can pass through.
Sure, that’s fine. Waste resources on breaking a bridge so that an egomaniac can move his egomaniacal boat from A to B.
The Koningshaven Bridge, nicknamed “De Hef” by locals, has been a landmark in Rotterdam since 1878.
Then it’s high time some piggy Yank came along and broke it. Good job Bezos.
Now, it is to be dismantled to let the Amazon founder’s 127-meter (417-foot) long luxury sailing yacht – the Y721 – to reach the ocean. The yacht will be the largest vessel of its kind in the world, and will be unable to make it under De Hef when it is completed by the ship-making firm Oceanco. Despite promises that the bridge would not be dismantled again following renovations in 2014-2017, the middle section of the bridge will be temporarily removed to let the billionaire’s boat out.
Which is more important, not breaking a perfectly good bridge or giving a piggy demanding billionaire exactly what he wants?
“It’s the only route to the sea,” a spokesperson for the mayor’s office explained to AFP, adding that building the yacht created jobs, and that the bridge would once again be restored once the job was complete.
If the goal is creating jobs why not just hire a bunch of people to take the bridge apart altogether and then rebuild it? And then do it again? No need for Bezos to get involved at all.
How about just hire people to draw plans to dismantle the bridge and put it back together, and not actually do it?
Exactly what went through my mind.
In my town, we are arguing about restoring, tearing down, or replacing an old viaduct that is no longer safe. The other option is to leave it like it is. This has festered in our city council for more than two years. If they could find a way to create jobs by never resolving it, would they do it? (They are creating plenty of front page stories for the newspaper, so maybe that is creating jobs.)
Almost as extravagant as round trip flights to absolutely nowhere in phallic spaceships. Maybe less expensive, but the biggest and baddest of it’s kind, of course. At least the sails are somewhat functional, minimally I would think given the size and weight of the vessel, but there are many yachts with excessively tall, yet entirely nonfunctional masts that are even more absurd if you can believe that. Excessive money, excessive conceit.
How about hiring people to take the boat apart and rebuild it on the other side of the bridge?
Why not build the boat in Hamburg?
@4 From what I read, assembling it outside Oceanco’s shipyard would require more work and resources than taking the middle section of the bridge apart and putting it back together. Whether that’s true or not is debatable.
Hopefully the bridge bill is sent to Bezos rather than the taxpayers.
Now, Holms, that would just be ridiculous! Why should the billionaires have to pay? It’s not like they pay taxes.
I remember when Dubya had the rules on Superfund changed to taxpayer pays because he didn’t feel it was fair to make the polluter pay…the large corporations, of course. Then he sent a request for a zero budget for Superfund. Clever. Congress still included money for Superfund in the budget, but hey, he tried to save the taxpayers money.
#4, #6
You’d think they’d prefer doing it that way, given the decrease in efficiency and their desire to do vanity work to create jobs. And when they’re done with this task, they can pay people to dig holes and then fill them.
Well, it’s building the boat that created the jobs, not dismantling and remantling* the bridge. So perhaps they should just continually take the boat apart and put it back together. Or keep it in the shipyard and let Bezos visit it there. (Hey, it could even become a tourist attraction! Even more jobs!)
*This ought to be a word. Please feel free to use it widely until the dictionaries recognize it.
Holms @9 Apart from my weird curiosity about the logistics of moving large things from place to place, I could really give a shit less about the pissing contests of the wealthy. :D
100% your fault Ophelia!
https://farcornercafe.blogspot.com/2022/02/naughty-lus.html
and yes, I’ve always rooted for Nemo
Heh!