Infrastructure

rono

Howdy folks,

Screw this new round of stimulus and simply pass a $5 trillion infrastructure package. Let the states decide where to spend their share. Create jobs damnit. No more handouts to people and corporations. Just jobs. Demand side econ. Add to aggregate demand.

If you give a man a free meal, he's going to come around tomorrow for another. Give him a job and he can feed himself.

and so it goes

peace and wear the mask,

rono

bee

Home Infrastructure too...HD and other building material companies are ready for you to spend your stimulus check.

Related to Home infrastructure:
Pool sales skyrocket
us-health-coronavirus-pools/pool-sales-skyrocket-as-consumers-splash-out-on-coronavirus-cocoons

msf

rono said:

Screw this new round of stimulus and simply pass a $5 trillion infrastructure package. Let the states decide where to spend their share. Create jobs damnit.

There's immediate relief (to help people put food on their tables, keep a roof over their heads, etc.), there's economic stimulus, and there's infrastructure. Different things, different timings.

Remember Obama's "shovel ready" projects that weren't?

Michael Grabell is an investigative reporter for the nonprofit ProPublica. His new book is called "Money Well Spent? The Truth Behind the Trillion-dollar Stimulus, the Biggest Economic Recovery Plan in History." ...

GRABELL:: ... the idea was that a flood of money in tax cuts, food stamps, unemployment checks, would get consumers spending. Then we would see this money in education, health care money help the states out who were really struggling, you know, with budget gaps. And then the shovel-ready infrastructure projects would kick in, creating new jobs, repaving roads and making homes more energy efficient.
...
[Dave Davies, host, Fresh Air, NPR]: Let's talk about some of the bigger kind of building and infrastructure projects that the stimulus program funded. And one of the things we heard early on was that these projects would be ready to go. The phrase was: shovel ready. Were they all shovel ready?

GRABELL: Well, no. You know, there was this famous scene - and I write about it in the book - in Tuscumbia, Missouri where the minute the stimulus package is signed there's a makeshift board meeting, they bang the gavel and sparks fly on this Depression-era rusty truss bridge. But a lot of projects were not like that. A lot of projects took six months to a year to get off the ground.

The way highway projects work is that first the local area has to go to the federal government and say this is what we want to do with the money, they have to get the stamp of approval. Then and only then can they go bid out the project, which can take months, and then they can get the contract signed, which can take some time as well. Once that happens they then have to go back to the administration and say this is what we're doing and get a notice to proceed. Only then can the contractor go ahead and hire his workers and muster his equipment and begin work.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/145650753

davidrmoran

yeah, in the public sector six months is shovel-ready indeed

(not that you'd want it different)

rono

Howdy folks,

msf. Obama's infrastructure program was done completely wrong. Much of the money was never spent and most of what was, didn't go to building infrastructure but to 'touchy feely' handout programs (e. g. grants to locals to hire a fireman, policeman, etc.). WRONG. That creates another dependency. That's no different from just giving people money. Wrong.

What I'm talking about is demand side economics vs. supply side economics. The latter was always BS. Money doesn't trickle down, and never has. When Jr. passed his great tax cuts, I said at the time, there wasn't enough at the low end of the income ladder. It's all about the Marginal Propensity to Consume (MPC). What happens with an additional dollar - how much spent and how much saved? At the high end it's around zero and at the low end it's around 1.0. You need people buying stuff so you have to build stuff.

We need a massive infrastructure program, not just because of the MPC but because it's investing in our future.

We need to raise the minimum wage to $15 and index it for inflation. Yeah, it might cost us an extra $0.25 for out Big Mac, but every damn dime would be spent of consumption. Er, it's called increasing aggregate demand.

Would there be a lag between passage and shovels. Of course. That said, you talk about highway projects, well that all have 5 year plans and longer planning documents. Would it take time to ramp up. Sure. But this is STILL the proper way forward instead of all these handouts, most of which have gone to corporations that don't need it and the stock market.

The way we're headed is not good and it's not going to end well.

Oh, and BTW, msf, stop being to out 'Navarro' Peter.

thanks,

and so it goes,

peace and wear the damn mask,

rono

msf

Would there be a lag between passage and shovels. Of course.

What would you do now about people about to be evicted from their homes, people already waiting hours in lines for food? Apparently nothing, you want only infrastructure:

Screw this new round of stimulus and simply pass a $5 trillion infrastructure package, and

Would it take time to ramp up. Sure. But this is STILL the proper way forward instead of all these handouts

The proper way, the one and only way. Let people wait (10.2% unemployed, officially) until things ramp up. How long to ramp up? I quoted Grabell: "A lot of projects took six months to a year to get off the ground"

That said, you talk about highway projects, well that all have 5 year plans and longer planning documents.
Of course we'd like these to be long term projects, to keep people well employed for years.

Here are the current Democratic and Republican "stimulus" proposals. Are there any line items that you wouldn't strike out as being unrelated to infrastructure?
https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/heals-vs-cares-vs-heroes-key-differences-between-the-democratic-and-republican-stimulus-packages/

Stimulus checks? Clearly out; they're unconditional handouts that people might spend (demand side) on food and shelter. What about extended, enhanced unemployment benefits? That's dollars above what was paid into state UI programs, more unearned handouts.

Employee tax credits? Just a government bribe for working. Maybe that's okay if they're working on infrastructure? Rental assistance? Evict the bums. Or perhaps you see keeping people in their homes as increasing demand for housing, spurring new construction?

Money to schools? Maybe that is infrastructure, but it seems to be the type you don't like: 'touchy feely' handout programs (e. g. grants to locals to hire a fireman, policeman, etc.)." Or schoolmarm.

Bottom line: if the only money you want going out is via a "$5 trillion infrastructure package", and given that "it take[s] time to ramp up", what would you do in the meantime?

I find "Screw this new round of stimulus" little different from "Let them eat cake."

davidrmoran

yeah, disaster relief and public works projects are very different things

Crash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Trevelyan,_1st_Baronet
"If the Irish once find out that there are any circumstances in which they can get free government grants, we shall have a system of mendicancy [begging] such as the world never knew”. After a million had starved to death he stated “The great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people."

Only a million or so died. Only a million or so emigrated away, in the Irish potato famine. No worries.

WABAC

Since my Cardinals continue to test positive . . . I don't have much to keep me busy online.

There are good reasons for updating our infrastructure that have little to do with what is happening right now. So I'm not here to criticize infrastructure programs.

I don't see much future in my daughter learning to be a heavy equipment operator as a near-term solution for her, or the legions of unemployed, and underemployed in the current mess we're in. I'm not saying she couldn't do it. I just don't think there's enough of a need to take care of all the people that need real jobs now, and into the future.

Last time we went down this road, during the Great Depression, one party had a filibuster-proof majority. Numerous programs were created to employ all kinds of different people with different skill sets. They didn't just build new county court houses in underserved locations. They hired artists and architects to make them visually appealing. And then they hired people to write about the history of the county, and others to document and photograph the building of the new structures.

msf is quite right to point out the near-term economic threats to ordinary Americans. We're just this close to Trumpville shanty towns of cardboard, tarpaper, and blue tarps.

The last thing I want to see before the next election is large numbers of evictees with no "legal" address.