The Habit of Cost Over-Runs

How much bang do we get for our infrastructure buck?

Assume, for example, we go back one hundred years or more and look at how much structures cost:  the Temple of Music in Buffalo, NY cost $85,000 in 1901 US dollars, and this is equivalent to $1,500,000 in 2008 US dollars. (The Temple was built for the Pan-American Exspo, and it was where President McKinley was shot.)
Now this comparison obviously involves more than monetary adjustments, for we cannot build such a structure for $1,500,000 any more. So we must include cost over-runs. Such a building would cost us $3,000,000 - for whatever reasons costs do go over.

In other words, Society itself has changed, and we must not only look at the value of money at different times, but we must also take into account that some ages just generally inflate the costs of doing things... they get lazy and fat by doing it: easy money and easy times and lax discipline lead to generally inflated costs.
We have been lax for over 30 years, and I doubt that we can kick the habit cold turkey.