[entee]

One thing I wish I understood better is where the hell does the money go?

The federal budget is to a first approximation is 2/3 medicare/medicaid/social security/defense. In California across state and local has it's 2/3 being spent on health care/education/pensions. The Golden Gate Bridge cost $1.5B in today's dollars to build. Today-ish it took $6.4B to rebuild the east span of the Bay bridge.

How have things gotten so expensive, where does that money go, it just seems like despite paying a fair amount in taxes we're just not getting very much for our money.

[patmcguire]

It's more expensive everywhere than it used to be, but the construction cost inflation is vastly greater in the US than in other developed countries. Construction is getting less efficient over time.

https://pedestrianobservations.com/2011/05/16/us-rail-constr... https://www.economist.com/news/business/21726714-american-bu...

[swendoog]

I have the same damn question - where is all the money going?

Put another way, why is my dollar buying exponentially less than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago? Don't even try to tell me it's inflation.

I don't know the answer. We pay politicians to know those things and to work on finding solutions. Funny how they don't seem any better at understanding the problem and finding a solution than you and me.

So while I don't honestly have any solid understanding, I can only posit that it may have something to do with wealth consolidation [1]. I'm no proponent of socialism or artificially redistributing wealth but I look to the growing divide between the rich and poor in the U.S. (and globally) and can't help but notice it correlates quite strongly with my dollar buying less, and less. Yes, correlation != causation, but you gotta start somewhere.

If you can get past the 90s era cinematography "The Money Makers" is a fascinating documentary which illuminates some of the issues with our monetary system.

https://youtu.be/XbEu-OLMKLQ

[1] The top 0.01% of households, with net assets of over $40m, short-changed the taxman by a whopping 30%.

https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/06/daily-...

[dabockster]

> where does that money go

Contractors and sub contractors. The more layers in the supply chain, the harder it is for that money to be tracked.