Seven Monuments of the State

[Dániel Boros]

Same as the other topic only with different criteria:

• must have been funded exclusively by the government
  
• must be expensive
  
• must be a waste of money or at least unprofitable
  

Edited June 30, 2012 by Dániel Boros

[dream_weaver]

I'm having difficulty with the first criteria, funded exclusively by the government, since government's only source of funds is John Q. Public, . . .

With that in mind, Disneyland on the Potomac is funded exclusively by John Q Public, demonstrated itself to be very expensive, and is nearly a complete waste of money and unprofitable, but I would be hard pressed to cite an example of either personally.

On a more serious note, I would submit Public Education. Sadly, it also has to be one of the most destructive institutions. The conceptual faculty of most exposed to it tend to lend nearly unquestionable support to its funders, and cite the necessity of its continuence....

Edited June 30, 2012 by dream_weaver

[Reidy]

California's high-speed rail may never happen, so I nominate the TGV in France. It's luxurious and thrill to ride, but it's one of the reasons they're broke.

[oso]

The Canadian Gun Registry. Billions of Canadian tax payer money all so that we wouldn't catch a single criminal or save a single life. It's gone now but our socialists still want to bring it back.

[ToyoHabu]

The Space Shuttle program seems to fit the bill. Space shuttle program cost was around 200 billion dollars. I dont know what the return on investment is though.

[Dániel Boros]

The Concorde

link

[bkildahl]

A google search of Soviet projects turns up something called the White Sea - Baltic Canal, built from 1931 to 1933 by Gulag prisoners with basic hand tools (lol) at the cost of some 100,000 lives. Here's a paragraph from one of the websites I looked at:

"The icing on the cake? The canal was completely useless when finished. For most of its length it was too shallow to admit anything larger than a small barge. Later a book of propaganda detailing the biographies of "heroic" workers and engineers, intended for distribution in capitalist countries, had to be recalled because in the downtime Stalin had ordered all the main characters shot."

[NikolaiM]

How about the Ryugyong Hotel of North Korea? Construction began in 1987 with planned completion in 1989, but after several delays construction was halted. It stood topped out but without windows or interior fittings for the next sixteen years. Construction eventually resumed, and it was expected to officially open in April 2012, but didn't. It's still considered a work in progress.

I'll also throw in the Trabant, which was the most common vehicle within the former communist states of Eastern Europe.

Edited July 2, 2012 by NikolaiM

[DavidV]

USA annual GDP is about $15 trillion.

• USA nuclear weapons program: total cost about $10 trillion dollars.
  
• USA aircraft carriers: $22 billion lifetime cost * about 80 since 1922 = $1.7 trillion
  
• Apollo program: $170 billion (2005 dollars)
  

[Tabernac]

• Apollo program: $170 billion (2005 dollars)
  

Funny, I would have considered that to be one of mankind's crowning achievements to date. What else captivates the human spirit of adventure and ingenuity more?