It's hard to put away money for the future. You can spend a bit less on maintenance now in order to avert a current disaster. The bill will come, but not now, and at an unspecific time. If unmaintained dams would definitely burst on a specific date, this wouldn't be an issue. But they don't, it's somewhat random when it happens, so every day you get away with it you pocket the "win". Probably a large part of this "win" is actually just tolerance or margin of error built in by cautious engineers.
A similar problem is going on with pensions. In many parts of the west, people were promised very comfy pensions. This presumed either a growing population or more productive economy, neither of which has happened in the proportion needed to pay the pensions. In the meantime, you get the occasional unfunded pension scandal. This will probably escalate, especially if the market comes down from what looks like a high level. Now and again it will become clear that people need to either keep working for longer or receive less generous benefits.
We don't seem to have any governance to solve this kind of problem. The people making the promises (elected officials) will be long gone by the time the dams break. On the private side, being inside a corporation doesn't seem to solve it either. The CEO who signed off the generous pensions will also be gone. And everyone can claim they acted in good faith, given the projections at the time the decisions were made.
The economy has been more productive. Funds for pension maintenance were simply diverted to other purposes. Politicians signed agreements with unions and didn't follow through with their promises. I have yet to read solid evidence they couldn't have or that it would have been impossible if other decisions hadn't been made. No politician seems to care about what happens after their term is up, so they have no incentive to ensure the financial infrastructure is in place and remains healthy.
A similar problem is going on with pensions. In many parts of the west, people were promised very comfy pensions. This presumed either a growing population or more productive economy, neither of which has happened in the proportion needed to pay the pensions. In the meantime, you get the occasional unfunded pension scandal. This will probably escalate, especially if the market comes down from what looks like a high level. Now and again it will become clear that people need to either keep working for longer or receive less generous benefits.
We don't seem to have any governance to solve this kind of problem. The people making the promises (elected officials) will be long gone by the time the dams break. On the private side, being inside a corporation doesn't seem to solve it either. The CEO who signed off the generous pensions will also be gone. And everyone can claim they acted in good faith, given the projections at the time the decisions were made.