Comment by laughing_man

I'm not ignoring the piece at all. What I'm saying is the underlying reason Japan built so much rail has nothing to do with what the author is claiming.

And yes, overbuilding infrastructure is a sign of dysfunction. The money to build all that stuff came from people who would have stimulated the economy in other ways, and it isn't free to maintain what you've built. It's really inefficient to build a rail line and then shut it down because you can't afford to maintain it.