Can we stop with the Paul Krugman posts already?

[JDPriestly]

60. That's the way our country developed. Land was cheap. Some of it was simply homesteaded.

The government gave it or sold it for very little to people who were willing to farm it. Government divided the land, maintained a system of records so that people could buy and sell and establish their ownership of the land. The government is sovereign, has the right of eminent domain and can take the land back when it wants if it pays fair value.

The railroads were a public/private partnership. The government gave much of the land, and the private investors built the railroads.

The federal parks that Theodore Roosevelt established on public land across America are the basis for an infrastructure of tourist and travel businesses. People come from around the world to see Yellowstone and other great American parks. The parks are infrastructure. Government investment in those parks inspired many people to start businesses in travel, sports equipment and all kinds of associated businesses. Many individuals and companies profit from the infrastructure that the government saved and keeps safe and enjoyable.

Across America, in our parks, our schools, in our public buildings, on our bridges, we use infrastructure that was built by the Roosevelt administration during the Great Depression. We are a richer country because of those investments.

During the Eisenhower era, the government funded and built a highway system that stretches across the country and connects us all. That infrastructure facilitated trade and, like the railroads, brought the country together. Ask trucking businesses whether government spending on infrastructure helped them start their businesses. The answer is obvious.

Our government investments in early computers and in space exploration led to the internet, to new ways to transmit communications and all kinds of private businesses.

Entrepreneurs feed off the discoveries at universities especially the sciences and humanities. Pharmaceutical companies rely on a lot of basic research done in American public universities and by the NIH.

You might be surprised at how many musicians who make lots of money for the corporations that distribute their records learned to play instruments or sing in school music programs. (Pre-Reagan, there was a lot more music in the schools than there is now.) Same for art. Kids discover their talents in schools, and then they use those talents that they discovered at school in their businesses.

The expression, "use it or lose it" applies to the talents of people as well as their muscles and minds. As a society right now, thanks to austerity and the recession that preceded it, we are not using our skills and our abilities and so we are losing them. We really are. That is why the government needs to step in and spend what it must to keep people using their skills and abilities. Because otherwise those skills and abilities will be lost.

And what destroys creativity, what prevents people from starting businesses is partly the hopelessness of the bad economy but also the sense of inadequacy, of not having the skills and abilities they need to succeed in a business. People also, as others have said, are not starting businesses because demand is weak.

You can't start a small business no matter how good your product or services if your customers can't afford to pay you. People who don't have jobs can't afford to spend money to keep new businesses going.

Government spending on infrastructure and education and job creation in infrastructure and education is probably the only way that we can get our economy moving at this time.

We also need to improve our trade balance by putting the brakes on out-of-control imports.