Obama's beloved Chinese train system bleeding cash

Remember when Obama said this at the SOTU?

Our infrastructure used to be the best, but our lead has slipped. South Korean homes now have greater Internet access than we do. Countries in Europe and Russia invest more in their roads and railways than we do. China is building faster trains and newer airports. Meanwhile, when our own engineers graded our nation's infrastructure, they gave us a "D."

Ah, yes - let's be more like China! And South Korea! And Russia! Any hopes the President was just kidding were dashed less than a month later when Vice President Joe Biden proposed spending $53 billion over 6 years on high speed rail. Has anyone bothered asking how China's rail system is doing? Business Insider has the answer, and it's not pretty:

China's Ministry of Railways and its associated companies have a mountain of debt, quite simply because of the over-aggressive expansion of the high-speed rail. Now, the ministry's disclosure confirms that the Ministry and its associated companies have lost RMB3.76 billion in the first quarter of 2011.

Who wouldn't want to model something that loses $580 million dollars a quarter? Obviously not us...

H/T Business Insider