The loose definition of what encompasses "defense" is the very reason it is so easily exploited by those seeking profit. http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/09/army-to-congress-thanks-but-no-tanks/comment-page-4/ I realize there are 2 ways of looking at this but it would be far more financially viable to have retooled this factory 5-10yrs ago into producing something actually needed instead of building 1000's of extras to sit and rust that then need more $ to refurbish. This company is not interested in "jobs", its motive is to maintain the cash cow they milk for profit. Its just excessive waste of tax payers $ for corporate profits that is made up to appear like its to help the working base. If unsustainable jobs are maintained at the tax payers expense repeatedly, the system becomes dependent on hand outs and it looses ALL ability to be competitive. When to much of the economy falls into this protectionism, the whole economy gets dragged down. There needs to be a clearly established point where a line is drawn. Help is given for the company to transition and become competitive again and if it can't then capitalism mandates that the weak (Companies/corporations) must die and allow new growth to spring up in its place. Only when this happens naturally will there be an appropriate feed back mechanism to politics that will in turn ensure business must maintain US based competitive business models - not just PROFIT models. As it is, corporations have lobbied politicians to make it more profitable to move their facilities offshore for the most part and that's exactly what they do. We can't fix the sickness by allowing even more sickness. It only will ever lead to a ever decreasing US capacity. In turn, less good paying jobs, which results in even less consumption. Then to stay competitive, manufacturing costs must be decreased by moving more jobs offshore. This game of short term profits results in its own consumption bases demise eventually.
Same here. We have noticed MASSIVE increases to weekly bills. Its easy to maintain whatever official figure is needed when you can change the "basket" of goods being tracked.
I'm talking of internal migrant workers from state to state. Not external migrant workers. They still require temporary housing, transportation, food and services etc. I was one of them working on government IT contracts at fed and state level.
Apart from this being temporary, clearly these internal migrant workers will stop consuming housing, transportation, food, services etc in the places which they will be leaving behind. Isn't it then mostly a wash, net-net? The fiscal multiplier of 1.2 - 1.5x sounds about right for infrastructure, but much will depend on the details.
Like i mentioned, i work for fed gov't and familiar with beltway bandits and lobbyists. Last time I heard Trump doing something with lobbyists. Some of this may go away, not too soon. As we all know, there is waste $ in DC, is that an understatement or one of Obama's hope and change, putting Americans back to work. If military manufacturing is for profit, then we should not spend tax $. But that is not the case. There are many details much too granular to discuss on this forum.
There are already hotels and apartments in place. They will be utilized is my point. Any growth will come form transition from temp to permanent resident. People do move and relocate closer to work.
If only we could turn back the clocks to 1955. I think that was the year in Back to the Future. We would have a strong economy and trade balance, low debt level, no big military or terrorism threat etc etc. That is what Trumpie supporters think he will accomplish. Better instead to watch the movie again. It's "closer" to reality.
Do you think the construction can save this country?! I understand the basic economic concepts which stand behind this idea, but in my opinion, it's not the best way to improve the economy. Theoretically, it might work, but I would prefer if we spend more on R&D.
Not sure if R&D would employ 47 million people. And once R&D is complete, as you should know, they outsource hitech jobs, while locals end up training replacements (been there done that). Don't get me wrong, we should never stop R&D. But the masses need employment. Reminds me of a case study in the 80s, same debate with my prof. He said the masses will move onto hitech jobs, like key punch operators and programmers. hahaha