I think it could be done.

I suspect by the time all the cost overruns, inflation etc were rolled in, it would be about double that.

Then again, some pretty smart people right now as writing publicly that the *real* price tag for the mortage debacle in the US alone will be 5 terabucks. Add Canada (it’s coming), Ireland, Spain, Iceland, and of course UK which is an absolute disaster, the global cost will be absurd.

I suspect we would literally be better off giving all the distressed mortages to their current occupants, destroying the banks responsible, publicly funding the devastated retirement accounts and bulldozing excess housing inventory.

The difference between a fast collapse and a slow collapse is that in a slow collapse the banks get to loot the taxpayers on the way out the door.

5B Euro = 6.8B USD
6,800,000,000$ / 320Km = 21250000$/km, or 34,200,000$/mi.

The longest leg on your rail network is Portland-Miami (3200 mi). That track would cost about 110B USD, so I’m sure the whole thing could be done for 700. I really, really doubt the solar power conversion facilities for such a massive transportation network could be built for that cost, though (or for any cost). As I understand it, efficient solar panels rely on certain rare elements (Indium and Gallium), and there just aren’t enough of these elements on Earth to build a power plant on this kind of scale.

Now, I’m Canadian (Ottawa), but if I were in charge of a similar disbursement here, I’d fix a pet peeve about Ottawa with a fraction of that 700B amount.

Despite the fact that we’re the nation’s capital, AND suffering from ever-worsening traffic problems, AND that government cabinet after government cabinet has been promising to reduce oil dependence for years now, we still don’t have great public transportation in Ottawa. Every few years, the same plan for building an electric light rail network through the city comes back up, millions are spent on debate and feasibility studies, and it gets shot down every time because actually building this would cost 2B CAD. That’s all. Add another billion over the next few decades for maintenance and ramping up the network of trains, and you’ve got a large part of the city’s transportation problems solved. This is the sort of project it makes sense to spend public funds on.