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Termyn8or -> RE: Your Stimulus Money at Work (6/16/2009 8:31:35 PM)
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FR
This would not be so bad as a part of a larger project to improve the infrastructure. If it is stand alone it is about as useful as teaching people to weave baskets. And folks we do need some improvement of infrastructure. While stimulating the economy was not intended to be the charge of the government, infrastructure was. (sorta)
I don't know that much about the rest of the dirty cities in the US, but Cleveland could sure use some help. We have bridges closed to trucks because they can no longer support the weight. We have periodic water main breaks and the resultant sink holes, which turns into thousands of cars sitting there idling with the AC on, with a person inside who is no doubt going to be late for work. Their car exuding heat and CO2, and them hating every minute of it adding to their aggrgravation quotient for the day. There is also property damage caused by those not paying attention, as well as those who are more prone to road rage after traffic finally gets moving.
Another thing they should do is get a handle on all the taxes and restrictions put on trucks and truck drivers. With all this regulation in place some of them still drive like yahoos, it has done no good. Why was deisel always less than gas for decades and now the situation is reversed ? Because truckers HAVE to pay. This is so patently unfair it is ridiculous. Everything you own comes in on a truck, EVEN YOUR TRUCK ! Don't tell me that it's the refineries, it is mostly road use taxes. Reefers and such that use deisel buy at a lower rate but the fuel has red dye in it. If they catch you with any of that dye in the main tank there are big fines. And the logs are ridiculous, some truckers now just pay the fine every time for not keeping one, and they want details.
All in all, the government has absolutely no skill in creating wealth or assisting there at. The best they can do is provide a sound infrastructure to facilitate those who do have a knack for it. Let us get our parts and materials in time, without alot of fuss and someone will probably come along with enough moxie to get some real money rolling. But if he has to literally build the roads to his factory and teach all the potential employees how to read, this does not help.
One might ask for example; What does Germany have that we don't have ? First and foremost a better infrastructure. A very close second is a superior educational system. These things might take two decades to develop here, it does not happen overnight. Even if we put the best schools in the world here tomorrow at sunrise, it will take two decades to see any significant improvement. The government does not like to think in decades, and that is part of the whole problem.
The highways, they are already funded. They could build roads that last for decades but they do not. This because ditch diggers and road workers are hard to retrain after the job is done. This is fact. How can you think about a rise to economic success under these conditions ?
In other words, we are not going to solve these problems by using the same mode of thinking that created them.
T
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