Are you psychotic? I don't even know who's stock_turder. I started getting the impression that all you desire is for the economy to be destroyed, for your own psychotic reasons. That won't happen...and yes, building a bridge requires real work and it's a productive job, unlike posting crap in ET forums, like you do.
Just as a matter of interest who decides who is going to get handouts from the 700 billion $ and how much ? Anybody know ? More bureaucrats ? buddies from the golf course ? brown nosers ? Let's face it there is an alarming shortage of people known to have integrity, especially in high places.
Giving a huge check to congresspeople because the 'infrastructure really needs it' is like giving beer to an alcoholic who claims to be 'severly dehydrated'
Maybe so, but that doesn't invalidate the need. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/opinion/02dodd.html THE most pressing problems can sometimes be the dullest â until they force their way into our attention in an instant. On Aug. 1, the bridge carrying Interstate 35W over the Mississippi River buckled and broke. Thirteen people were killed. More than 100 were injured. Afterward, we learned the frightening facts: 160,570 of our bridges are in just as dangerous a shape; a third of our roads are in poor or mediocre condition; some of our biggest cities depend on water and sewage systems over a century old. With every bursting pipe, potholed road and derailed train, the conclusion became inescapable: Americaâs backbone is decaying... It's a shame that there is no sense of ownership. Everyone prefers to act like a tenant. It's not different here in Canada.
chris dodd wrote that, I wouldn't trust mr countrywide with a gun to my head. That said there is problably room for some kind of spending in things government needs to do anyway, so might as well do it now to keep the economy up. I just happen to think its far more likely politicians are lying about the 'need' for this kind of spending so they can buy votes as compared to they doing a serious research through the US to calculate the size of these 'needs'. If the infrastructure bill passes I bet dodd, pelosi and reid have never been to the places will endup getting a lot of the money
Are we discussing the virtues and pitfalls of Keynesian economic theory or perhaps its inappropriate implementation? I think it is important to distinguish between the two.
The interesting thing TD is that both of you now agree that it should be done. There is just (totally valid) suspicion of your poli's. But even pork barreled spending, though less than optimal, will still contribute to the keynsian solution. For the questioner earlier: the issue is not the INTERNAL government spending of Australia but the EXTERNAL debt load that has been gained in times of easy credit. Said credit has been exacerbated by the "get rich by selling each other houses" and "be richer by borrowing on them" school of gluttony. Now we enter a time where exports fall, export prices fall, the government drops interest rates (monetarist), the government increases spending (keynsian). And the debt load plus loss of income and thus ultimately even the much vaunted Australian Consumer Confidence will trump everything else. Thank god we don't live in China though --- that will be hell on earth when the unemployment hits the cities.