Link to weekly address released yesterday, with video: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/22/105213/85/22/665098 Our government's top priorities right now need to be the safety and health of our communities and the efficiency and reliability of our nation's infrastructure and transportation systems while providing green energy, all the while creating jobs and providing effective economic stimulus. Does it get any better?
i just hope we can win the game of chicken and be able to pay for it before other nations start doubting our ability to repay debts. i like where obama is going with these ideas but i am very worried about the 2 years worth of massive deficits we will likely have to run to pay for them. i just hope the govt does a good job of being able to sell our debt.
Frankly I see this time of our infastructure getting old as an opportunity to go with the next gen stuff. Wait about 10-15 years and do another huge public works effort this time without cars as the feature player.
Ideally, we should've been on the path to reduce the deficit and rebuild our infrastructure long before katrina. It isn't like it's a new discovery. The World Bank and IMF, the US's supposed puppet banks, warned us that our path was unsustainable 5 years ago. This is the best we're going to get with the way things are in washington. Hopefully we get an infrastructure that penniless entrepreneurs can use because the service economy will contract a lot and manufacturing is already hollowed out. Finance will be finance, meaning they won't give a **** about people who they can't use or exploit.
This is just what I've been hearing from economists should be done by the US government. The timing is perfect for the government to borrow and inject spending into the receding economy. Keynesian time all over again.
Definitely took a page out of the New Deal. As a noneconomist, I've always looked at this as a good way to answer raising unemployment (far more so than manufacturing a war under false pretenses). I've found it interesting/surprising that many academic economists feel that the New Deal prolonged/deepened/worsened the Great Depression. No specific link, but a quick google should yield a decent number of articles.
yeah i was also gonna say that i hope he has some sort of way to make sure these public works have some sort of way of winding themselves down after the economy start to recover. ...but i am afraid that kind of planning will not be in place.
Well according to Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, most of those economist who push that idea come from right wing think tanks. "Now, there’s a whole intellectual industry, mainly operating out of right-wing think tanks, devoted to propagating the idea that F.D.R. actually made the Depression worse. So it’s important to know that most of what you hear along those lines is based on deliberate misrepresentation of the facts." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/opinion/10krugman.html?_r=1&hp
I completely agree. Its a good jump start, far better than handing out freebies. But it also needs to come to an end. What we need are more revolutionary ideas like the interstate system. Public works will only work when people get desperate enough. It will be an extreme waste of time if we can not deal with the underlying issues of the American dream. The American dream was to work hard and get rewarded for your hard work. Now its a easy get-rich type of mentality. Americans need to lower their standard of living. Im not talking about living in mud huts, but more of people living within their means. If the government is issuing jobs in the 30k median range, it won't work if people are living on a 50k range. Also we need to work on our production to consumption ratio. First, we need to reverse the trend of foreign companies buying everything. Second, America needs to start making quality products so Americans will buy American goods. And third, we need to export goods as much as possible. All of this is simple economics, but like the "buy low/sell high" concept, we keep ignoring it.
people say americans need to live within their means which is true, but its still the banks responsibility to make good loans. guys get paid 6 figure salaries to make and advise people on what they can afford. if these banks didn't bet on the housing market prices increasing forever and ever, they wouldn't be in this situation. period. its their responsibility.
Concur. I don't see how you can blame the idiot homeowners living at 2 or 3 times there salaries. Sure they're dumb - but they guys handing them the money (loans) are much dumber.
Well, I agree with you. I would like to see a massive investment in building a nationwide system of high speed rail, similar to what we are seeing in operation or being built in developed countries, and even some developing countries. Detroit could retool some of their plants to build rail cars and the like, if they had solid government contracts in hand. In Texas, we've already done extensive research on the idea and the state would be ideal for being a part of the system. California is looking to build such a rail system. They could be connected to light rail in urban areas, also funded by the Federal government. These are massive investments, extremely expensive, but desperately needed. Leaving them to be built solely by state and local governments will either delay construction, or produce endless studies without action. Here, we get job creation, economic stimulus (developers will fight to be near a rail line and so will average consumers), and a chance to catch up with Europe and Japan. Eisenhower is still remembered for creating the interstate highway system. President-elect Obama could become remembered for connecting the nation with high speed, environmentally sound rail, and moving the United States away from its over reliance on the automobile.
People don't often take responsibility for their own actions especially irresponsible people. I know that sounds silly but it's true. An irresponsible person goes to a bank and they expect the bank to know how much they can afford in terms of a loan. The banks are responsible, it's their money. They own the property until the loans are paid off and they own the credit risk. I have a worthless cousin that will call and ask for money. I know he won't pay it back. If I loan him money is it his fault or mine that I never get paid back? What really scares me is these are the people that are supposed to be keeping our money safe. They take money I put in the bank an make crappy loans to huge credit risks? Damn skippy the banks are at fault.
The banks are idiots for loaning the money, but the homeowners can't be b****ing when they get foreclosed on either.
We need to have good high-speed free wireless everywhere. Trying to privatize it has done nothing but put us way behind other countries in coverage and cost and speed. We're moving off of oil, but the information economy is here to stay.
