As a road to a better economy, an old idea gains ground

[DogPoundPup]

Source: L.A. Times

Reporting from Washington -- As recently as a few months ago, the idea of trying to bolster the troubled economy by pumping money into public works projects such as roads and bridges was dismissed as too slow -- not the quick pick-me-up that was needed.

But today, economists and policymakers are beginning to change their minds.

Snip~
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, estimates that every dollar of infrastructure spending boosts the gross domestic product by $1.59.

Government and industry officials insist there are plenty of projects they can start quickly.

Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, cited $100 billion in deferred maintenance and repairs at 16,000 public schools, involving such things as antiquated wiring and leaky plumbing. He said that most of the projects could be completed in 60 to 90 days.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-infrastructure9-2008nov09,0,7223067.story

[cliffordu]

1. YES YES YES YES. Rebuild the infrastructure...

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. YES! Exactly my first response, too!

YES! :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[Ian David]

33. Just not in Utah. n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

34. Infrastructure removal?

:think:

[Ian David]

36. We should just label each road in Utah with a prefix that begins with 666 so they won't use it. n/t

[truedelphi]

38. Ya got my joke of the week award! n/t

[Odin2005]

43. DUzy!!!

:rofl:

[aquart]

2. Too slow? Yeah, god forbid we create jobs in the United States.

[shanti]

17. right

the corps would actually have to pay a decent wage for a change - NO OUTSOURCING!

[merwin]

21. People forget that this crisis wasn't created in a day

or even a few years. This is the result of 28 years of erosion by the Republicans (with a brief intermission with Clinton, although he arguably contributed to the crisis in some ways). It can't be fixed in a day.

What is with us Americans always wanting instant results?

[wordpix]

56. and god forbid we fix the potholes & prevent bridges from crashing down

geesh, about fucking time!

[smiley_glad_hands]

4. Please widen I64 between Richmond and Williamsburg. And another tunnell for Hampton Rds. eom

[virgdem]

13. I'm all for that...

especially since they are closing the Jordan Bridge today. Traffic will be a mess in the area and the tunnels will be clogged with traffic. The entire area could use an upgrade, with an expansion of light rail into Virginia Beach from Norfolk.

[nebenaube]

30. NO

Trains and street cars not bigger fatter roads!

[peacebird]

32. BIKE LANES on all new roads also.

[smiley_glad_hands]

41. You obviously no nothing about I64 or the area. eom

[peacebird]

31. How about a replacement for the Jordon Bridge that they closed permanently on Friday?

[underpants]

53. When I moved to Richmond in 1994 I64 was open and empty

mostly between Toano and Bottoms' Bridge. Now it is ridiculously congested. Unfortunately I81 will get expanded (truck lane) and then 95 mostly because they have so much commerce on them. 81 is truck alley.

They need to at least pave 64 west of Richmond. It is an assault on your spine to drive that stretch of road-I am talking about 8 miles from Richmond proper to Short Pump.

BTW- if you drive in West Virginia now you see work being done on every single bridge. Every one.

[sakabatou]

5. A second "New Deal" is needed.

[wordpix]

57. Jobs, Baby, Jobs: see Apollo Alliance on economic strategy: clean energy, green jobs

http://apolloalliance.org/

[Democrats_win]

6. FDR's way: maximize payment to workers, minimize material costs.

This made the program efficient at getting money to the workers and their families. Contrast this with the current "bailout." We've already seen how they are giving big bonuses out to a handfull of people. This is why the bailout is a complete failure.

[defendandprotect]

8. So great to see many here into and familiar with FDR and his positions ...

[silverojo]

23. I'm an FDR Democrat all the way!

My great-uncle got work through the WPA. It helped small-town America a lot...though the Repuke ingrates refuse to admit it.

[lumpy]

45. The work program under WPA called the CCC

helped my family by putting my young brothers to work on public roads (in Alaska) when there was no other work available for them.

[Nevernose]

50. Almost all state and national parks were CCC created/built

At least west of the Rockies. Every national park, national monument, every state park in Nevada except one, every bridge to Sequoia, every flood-control dam in Nevada and California's central valley -- all of it was CCC.

How much money has been generated over the last 75 years for places that desperately need an economic boost? How many small businesses and jobs across the country depend on families vacationing and tourists stopping at a place originally designed and built by the CCC?

[Zhade]

52. But some people "Thank God It Passed!"

Gee, you mean we were right about the failout?

[defendandprotect]

7. PLUS there are generations of environmental jobs to be done ...

why build bombs --????

[Delphinus]

29. The 'green'

revolution will generate a lot of jobs.

[johnnyrocket]

9. They're "beginning to change their minds"...no shit sherlock.

Maybe because they've been so wrong, for such a long time.

[elleng]

10. 'Economists' and 'policymakers'

have to have brains in their heads, too, before they're BELIEVED, don't they?

[unkachuck]

11. darn....

....and here I was getting ready to spend my new stimulus check....couldn't we have public works and some stimulation?

....screw the trickle-down repug mentality....does it really matter where money enters the system so long as it's spent in a timely way within our borders?....

....if everyone went out and bought Ripple with a stimulus check (if you can find Ripple) then the wine/distillers would simply hire more people, build additional plants to meet demand, buy more equipment and taxes would accrue for roads and bridges....

....and in the process we'd all have a tasty beverage, well, maybe....

[4lbs]

12. How about this?

Instead of $150 billion every two years back to taxpayers in the form of $300 rebate checks, it can be used to create ONE MILLION jobs paying an average of $40,000 per year for 3 years.

$40,000 x 1,000,000 = $40 billion in wages.

Add in $10 billion for materials costs, which also indirectly creates jobs in manufacturing to create those materials.

$50 billion per year.

[Rydz777]

14. Rebuilding the infrastructure is long overdue.

It will not only be an investment for the future but will provide productive work that people can be proud of.

[Jackpine Radical]

15. Maybe Joe the Unlicensed Plumber

could create a contracting company and hire some real plumbers to start fixing schools at government expense. I spose he'd still grumble about his taxes, though.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. "Too slow" means it's gotta go through the hands of the working class

before the bankers can get their greedy mitts on it.

[Ichingcarpenter]

18. Dr. Paul Krugman and Vice President Gore call for the same thing today

Gore:The Climate for Change NY times editorial
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x399989


Krugman:New Deal economics NY Times editorial
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x399956

[Booster]

19. I'll probably get flamed, but jobs to rebuild the infrastructure has

to be given to U.S. citizens and at a decent wage; wages they would get before contractors started hiring illegals to do the work. It's about time we started enforcing the laws re: labor that we have on the books now instead of looking the other way because it's cheaper. Cheaper is what got us in the mess in the first place.

[PSPS]

20. You're absolutely right

These need to be good union jobs. No outsourcing for material or labor. Domestic production of the steel in domestic union shops assembled with union workers making a decent wage. Even in Iraq, where we're flushing billions a week, they outsource everything to cheap foreign (mostly Filipino but also Egyptian and other) workers while Halliburton and other bush cronies pocket the rest.

[merwin]

22. Well the no-bid contracts will be gone in a few months, and I'm pretty sure

that there's going to be some labor reform happening as well.

[truedelphi]

39. I agree whole heartedly. n/t

[Zhade]

54. I don't like the dehumanization of the term "illegals".

But I do agree that employers need to be held accountable for breaking the law.

[laureloak]

24. It's time to build a new power grid. n/t

[KakistocracyHater]

25. Change empty malls into high schools

it would save some money & be large enough for teens, with plumbing & electricity
already present.

[Odin2005]

44. Now THAT'S an excellent idea! n/t

[KakistocracyHater]

46. Thanks, I think of that every time I pass an empty mall

For the post below-yes! I love old films & just thinking about all the peripheral
jobs that go with trains: local farms get to supply food for train meals, baggage
handlers, laundry services, cooks, engineers, etc.

[JDPriestly]

26. California voted for fast rail. That's where we need to go.

Reduce air travel.

[Sherman A1]

27. It could come in the form of tax credits for energy efficient

improvements around the house and transportation. It needs to go to the working class in one way or another and I am not sure the means that it gets there is all that important, but a new deal jobs program will help to create more jobs in areas that support those jobs.

[dipsydoodle]

28. It's odd how Keynes gets dismissed

and then gets revisited from time to time.

Keynes argued that the solution to depression was to stimulate the economy ("inducement to invest") through some combination of two approaches :

* a reduction in interest rates.
* Government investment in infrastructure - the injection of income results in more spending in the general economy, which in turn stimulates more production and investment involving still more income and spending and so forth. The initial stimulation starts a cascade of events, whose total increase in economic activity is a multiple of the original investment.<1>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics

[truedelphi]

40. He was deliberately shoved aside because the Upper One Percent

has always hated the middle class.

So the move was to ensure the adoption of the bastardized version of Milton Friedman's Supply Side economics. You can read pages and pages of those theories - the "trickle down, globalize" theories of economics, and never find the words "Job creation" or tariffs.

Those were words that the Founding Fathers used liberally, because THEIR citizenry was educated and thoughtful enough to know that the middle class ain't got a class if there are no local jobs due to tariffs being non-existant.

Since Reagan, it has been all about cheap goods. Globalization. Service economy here, producion economy overseas.

The deliberate destruction of our democracy - and the Democrats including Clinton helped push those notions along with such instruments as NAFTA.

[Cronopio]

47. "The government spending multiplier effect" - first-year economics material.

Just goes to prove how little many financiers (even successful ones) and politicians know about basic econ.

If that was part of their basic business training, maybe the economy would operate a little more smoothly? Just a thought.

[dipsydoodle]

48. That's it -

just basics. I learned that over 35 years ago.

[denverbill]

35. And fix the thousands of bridges that need repair so we have no more collapses.n/t

[PinkoDonkey]

37. Yes we build!

The sidewalk on my street still bears the imprint "WPA 36"--as in the Works Progress Administration. I also drove a bit on the Eisenhower Interstate System while moving this summer. Infrastructure investments provide jobs, help the economy in the long term, and if done well provide one heck of a legacy for the leader responsible. My point is that this sort of investment, this sort of spending (as opposed to, say, dumping the national fortune into the quicksands of Iraq) has some pretty long lasting, positive effects.

As New Dealer Harry Hopkins was fond of saying: "Tax, tax, tax; spend, spend, spend; elect, elect, elect."

If you build it they will come...to the polling place and vote Democratic. :D

[Odin2005]

42. About F-ing time! Long live Keynesian Economics!

Right-wing economists always shit on Keynsianism because it's the only complete macroeconomic model proven to work, which pisses off the free-market fundamentalists.

[jmowreader]

49. Asphalt is the finest job-creation substance the world has ever seen

If you want to create a lot of jobs in a hurry, start paving roads. It's like what the fundies say about abstinence--it works every time it's tried.

And the funny thing is, even the most hardened anti-government fascist likes new roads.

[bluesmail]

51. It truly is a way to help our newly founded (you know what I mean)

country transition into the used to be greatest country. I am all for it.

[underpants]

55. Any dollar introduced into the economy (private or public) usually multiplies 6 times

Privatization proponents cite this as scripture but conveniently ignore that public dollars have the same effect.

[mentalslavery]

58. We have 1 trillion

And we will be asking for it soon.