I have some first hand knowledge of stimulus money allocated but not yet spent. Lots of it.

[Stinky The Clown]

I know a fair bit about the details of two projects that are representative of what is a whole lot more just like these two.

The jobs had been moving on a more or less normal pace ...... for years. Both of them are federal government projects. One has a price tag of $500M and one has a price tag of $184M.

The $500M job has been incrementally funded for maybe the last six or eight years. By incrementally funded, I mean that Congress has approved some chump change for this study or that, for this bit of engineering or that, for this bit of land planning or not. We did two of the studies.

And then along came the stimulus bill. Suddenly, this semi-stalled project got hot. It was fully funded and, by law, has to be under contract by August. We on the planning/design side had to move at light speed to get enough drawings and specs together to at least buy a design/build contract. The project is now out for bids and it *will* happen, without a doubt.

But right now ..... no Stimubux have been spent on it except for a paltry few million in design fees.




The other job is a renovation of a big, special purpose space in a famous building. This is the $184M job. The statement of need has been in place for a while, and kept current. I am aware of the job having gone before Congress at least twelve times over the last 20+ years. It was once funded, but the funding had to be diverted when a natural disaster struck the facility.

It has now been fully funded with Stimubux. Two teams are bidding for the work. This job will be under contract in August, too.

But right now ..... no Stimubux have been spent on it.




This is pretty much a pattern. Money allocated but not yet spent. These two projects, like so many others, were as "shovel ready" as any unfunded project could be.




Before we do another stimulus bill and raise the ire of the country, let's allow the current bill to work its way into the economy.




Were we to be lucky to be part of both winning teams for these jobs, our company will be very well positioned - and likely looking to contract for some additional horsepower - with respect to our workload for the next two years. There are lots of companies like ours. On the verge of a significant bump in workload and on the verge of - literally - creating new jobs.

[Horse with no Name]

1. I oppose any more stimulus that doesn't directly go into the pockets of Americans n/t

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. +1

:applause: :thumbsup:

[Cant trust em]

6. Isn't this the same as the Bush stimulus from last year?

Everyone got a check for $500 in the mail?

Something like that?

[Horse with no Name]

8. That isn't a stimulus--it is a payoff

and the stimulus doesn't necessarily have to be "a check in the mail".
It can be for a guaranteed number of jobs at living wages, or guaranteed healthcare, or guaranteed college grants--there are more ways to drop the money into the pockets of Americans instead of corporations and pet projects that don't accomplish squat.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. I think we need both direct and indirect.

The two examples I cite will do two things.

They will create two national assets. Both projects are legitimately needed. One is **sorely** needed (if you know what it is, you'd agree .... trust me).

Both will create new jobs and pay salaries to several thousand people for several years. In the "built environment" business, that's a big deal.




I also think there are certain forms of spending that go direct to citizens that have a place in stimulus, too. Health care. Education grants, maybe even some mortgage help (maybe direct loans or maybe new loan guarantees).

[marketcrazy1]

14. whats the big secret stinky

why dont you just name the projects!

[ContinentalOp]

15. Yeah, I can respect stinky's desire to be anonymous...

but it would be very interesting to know what the projects are.

[Stinky The Clown]

18. Thank you for understanding.

[zbdent]

21. I'll take my stimulus in my front pocket ...

:evilgrin:

[pinto]

2. Thanks for the info. I figured it would take time to get $ to the specific project level.

Thanks.

[Cant trust em]

3. Thanks. I'm glad that someone knows how this is supposed to work. nt

[dkf]

5. This is the sort of info I'd like more of.

So you see big spending starting in about a month?

It makes me think that a better stimulus would have been to plan out more funds that could be spend immediately, then have the infrastructure kick in to sustain it with the goal of having planned for all spending by the end of this year.

[Stinky The Clown]

9. Not arguing ......

.... you could well be right on this.

But in the end, it really seams a tactical than philosophical difference, doesn't it?

[marketcrazy1]

11. it was well known to many

on this board that even the so called shovel ready projects would take 3 to 6 months to bring online. but thanks for putting this out there, people need to be reminded that these things take time. the fly in the ointment is continuing job losses, even as these new jobs come online they will not be enough to offset the job losses still to come. as job losses continue to climb consumer spending will contract resulting in still more job losses. it`s a vicious cycle that will be hard to break in a 70 percent consumer driven economy...........

[JimWis]

10. Thanks for the info. I have heard that only a small part of the

stimulus money has gone out. Does anyone know where that is at at this point? Just wondering. I too believe it will take a while for it to filter through the economy and to start showing results.

[Stinky The Clown]

12. I *think* it is less than 10% spent.

I am not by any means an expert on this. Or even well informed. I only about the part of it that affects me and my business. They are contracting for new construction in various ways. But all of them has some lead-in time that, at its very swiftest, takes a few months. Some will take years. The start-up almost always involves only the deign side of the equation. The REALLY big money as *always* on the construction side. And that's the last to get started (obviously).

[BadgerKid]

13. Relates to Biden's "misread" comment?

I'm guessing that it's easier to take credit for any upswing in the economy rather than trying to pinpoint exactly when the upswing would start.

[annabanana]

16. k&r for more visibility!. . . n/t

[kjackson227]

17. Thank you. They mentioned this on CNN today. In addition to...

the fact that some states have allocated the stimulus to other projects to alleviate the loss of jobs, it is going to take time for other projects to get up and running. Your project was a great example.

[uncle ray]

19. a lot of people don't know how long it takes to make things.

probably because so many don't know how to make anything.

i'm in manufacturing, fairly high end machining, our specialty is medical implants and other medical/aerospace/etc. products. recently i've been involved in a project to make a product that reduces pollution from existing coal plants. it can be excruciatingly slow to get a product from idea to a marketable product. as fast as cad files or whatever info can be sent across the world in the modern world, the reality is there is only so many man(and machine) hours available. if you want it faster all you have to do is throw money at the problem, sure we'll buy new machines, hire new people, work overtime, but it's going to drive the costs way up. in manufacturing, construction, whatever industry it's going to take some time to actually get projects rolling.

there's an old saying in manufacturing. "Good, cheap, quick. Pick any two." really, it applies to politics and economic policy as well.

[Hawkowl]

20. Hence the lagging effect of budgetary stimulus

People shouldn't even think about the stimulus showing up in the economic data for at least 9 -12 months.

However, I believe the second stimulus is being talked about because unemployment has exceeded the administration's worst case scenario of 8% and is fully expected to hit 10%. So they know that the second stimulus would also lag, but they are hoping to get in front and prevent unemployment from reaching a new worst case scenario of 12%. What it means is that the administration thinks that the economy is about to WORSEN. No green shoots. No less bad is good. Just plain old increasingly bad.

[galileoreloaded]

22. Good that you are working....Wanna hear my stimulus/infrastructure story???

Got a call to provide pricing on an ARRA project, one of the first, out west. Went up to look, put the numbers in, got the job awarded, and said we were low. Decent margin, and it would have kept 10 guys working for a year.

Contracts signed, then whoops!! The billion dollar Canadian firm that got the job decided to use their own guys. With American stimubux.

Now, 10 guys on unemployment (and these were "good" jobs, $50K+), no prospects, but eh, NAFTA says it's ok.

Stinky, they will come for you too. I can't think of a civil engineer or draftsman with a job right now, and I live in a city of 4 million and have been doing this for a while. Engineering is being outsourced, heavily, as we speak. You will be as screwed as I am in a few short quarters.

Thats why I giggle when DUers talk about "infrastructure" as the godsend of our economy, like it's 1935 or something. Infrastructure is big business, run by multinational corporations, gaming the system, and winning the war.

Oh well, I have a little time before I have to resort to panhandling, thank goodness.

Now, I don't tell you this for your pity or "I am so sorry's", this is the profession I chose, and this is how the cookie crumbles, I just want folks to consider the possibility that things aren't always as they seem.

[robdogbucky]

23. On a recent road trip

here in California, I noticed those big signs the reactionary anti-stimulus repugs are even complaining about announcing that the massive Bay Bridge project is part of the Economic Recovery Act, etc., as well as seeing the same signs on huge highway/freeway projects all the way up to Reno/Truckee and back down to the Bay Area on Interstate 80.

Is this the stimulus money at work? If so, this is kajillions of dollars going to construction and all that supports such construction. Public works, roadways, etc.

I seem to think so, as it all kicked in late this spring as the stimulus packages were voted on.


Just my dos centavos,

robdogbucky

[Stinky The Clown]

25. We're not engineers .... we provide a highly specialized, niche service

There are fewer than 2,000 people, worldwide, who do what we do. We're neither glamorous nor particularly high tech. We are a WBE. Our work is usually less than 1% of the total design cost.

I know almost everyone in the business, worldwide. There are two people in all of India who do this. Many in Europe, but they tend to stay in country. A dozen or so in Australia. Less than 20 in Japan. One in Burundi, though. And one in Brunei. And ...... amazingly ...... one in Nepal.

Go figure!

[glowing]

24. But there are programs that need more money. Seniors and children and

foods programs.. shoot, we need a bunch of affordable housing. I think we will have to have more for this.. I think we need a trillion spent just on trains and public transportation.

[Stinky The Clown]

26. I think some money *is* going to those sorts of things.