They say that Patagonia has become a mecca for “wealth refugees”. There is a lot to like down there.
Very true. As a nation we have already fallen behind many other nations in important measures except defense spending and excessive health spending because of an inappropriate system.
“What infrastructure really is” is the key bone of contention in this new $2-trillion spending bill. The meaning is being broadened to find more reasons to spend public money.
Infrastructure traditionally means public sector facilities and systems such as roads, bridges, dams, etc. The key feature of this new grand infrastructure plan is a broadening the definition of infrastructure to include private sector facilities and systems such as freight railroads. And also, all public sector social programs such as a guaranteed living wage, child care, free college, affordable housing, and The Green New Deal are now considered to be infrastructure.
So the new bill will include anything that the government spends money on plus newly assumed tasks such as repairing private freight railroad bridges and more. Spending money is the point, so the more reasons to spend it, the better.
The actual infrastructure is now the unlimited ability
[quote user=“Euclid”]
BaltACD
Your view of ‘infrastructure’ and what infrastructure really is are at variance.
Infrastructure is both above and below ground and in many if not most cases are things we take for granted and never think about.
A healthy and educated population is more productive and less costly than a sick and uneducated population. A healthy working population generates tax income, a sick, unemployed population consumes taxes.
“What infrastructure really is” is the key bone of contention in this new $2-trillion spending bill. The meaning is being broadened to find more reasons to spend public money.
Infrastructure traditionally means public sector facilities and systems such as roads, bridges, dams, etc. The key feature of this new grand infrastructure plan is a broadening the definition of infrastructure to include private sector facilities and systems such as freight railroads. And also, all public sector social programs such as a guaranteed living wage, child care, free college, affordable housing, and The Green New Deal are now considered to be infrastructure.
So the new bill will include anything that the government spends money on plus newly assumed tasks such as repairing private freight railroad bridges and more. Spending money is the point, so the more reasons to spend it, the better.
It is because of our defense spending that other countries don’t have to spend so much for themselves. That is one thing (about the only thing) that I agreed with the former president who shall not be named.
Well, I think we can all rest assured that there will be dire solicitation for the money needed to pay for whatever work is to be done, I can sense the violinists already tuning their instruments in anticipation.
The biggest objection I have is that there are already so many black holes out there where money once appropriated to worthy causes has been hijacked to fund special interests. Our system is “rigged” that way.
For example just to illustrate, 50+ years ago our local fearless leaders may have made a successful appeal to fix our schools, and bulid new ones. Giving junior the opportunity he is “entitled to”, being a well-worn heartstring always good for a tug now and then. So, they devise a $50 million program to be paid for though the sale of 30 year bonds, and pass some local tax earmarked towards retiring the bonds.
Once those bonds are retired, is the additional assessment retired along with it? Not that I’ve ever seen. In Indiana there is actually a law on the books forbidding the practice. Once the worthwhile cause has been completed, the cash flow once dedicated to the nominal worthy cause is thereafter directed to the state’s general fund, to pay for “whatever” the authority deems fit.
They depend upon the short attention span of the payers funding th
Traditionally, spending plans are limited by the following two forces:
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A sense of how much debt is safe for the country to take on.
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Opposition from those who have no desire for the things the money will be spent on.
Both of these mechanisms to limit spending are suddenly gone. That is why we are suddenly seeing trillions flying out the window.
The spenders are not just neutral arbiters doing the Country’s bidding to buy what we need. The spenders also spend for their own benefit. So their motive is often just to spend money regardless of what it is spent on. There is nothing now to prevent reckless spending that endangers the country. And there is no end to ideas about what needs funding. We are buying Utopia on a credit card.
Euclid,
I don’t think it’s merely an issue of adding to the national debt. How are they ever gonna pay for all this stuff? Taxes, yeah, and maybe sell more bonds to the Chinese, but I think the biggest thing they’re gonna do to pay for all these schemes is by simply printing money.
Printing money is something that the government can do to pay off debts that no one else can do! It’s a stealth tax because it will devalue the dollar. So, we will pay dearly for anything and everything that we need to buy.
Can anybody say Weimar Republic?
When you owe the bank $100 you have a problem. When you owe the bank $30 trillion the BANK has a problem!
And when you are a sovereign country you can print money to satisfy all debts both public and private.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm: “We don’t want to use past definitions of infrastructure.”
One-fifth of the new infrastructure bill ($400 billion) is for revolutionizing home health care for the elderly and disabled.
Spending infrastructure money on non-durable services (health and child care) is a sure-fire way to bankrupt a country, both monetarily and morally. This “redefinition of infrastructure” is high-handed obfuscation so taxpayers can’t tell where their money is being spent. Soon, there won’t be enough money to run fuel efficient trains. Better start learning Mandarin.
You trying to ramp up gravestone manufacture? A healthy population is more productive than a sick an dying population. A educated population is more productive than a poorly educated population.
Want to guarantee reporting the Bejing - just keep the USA sick and dumb.
The issue is claiming the spending is for infrastructure. If the spending is for healthcare or education, then call it that.
Healthcare and Education IS part of the infrastructure to build the country. The country is no good without people. People are the MOST CRITICAL infrastructure of all.
So what isn’t infrastructure?
Additionally, the country is no good without a currency that is accepted as credible by your creditors. So at some point when it comes to investing money for the future the projects that lend more credibility to your currency should rank higher than the ones that do not. Our national bond rating and the marketability of our bonds is not only tied to ability to repay but also on how we prioritize our spending in regards to investments. I believe there was one country not too long ago called Greece who would prioritize spending primarily on people and got into quite a bit of trouble in the process along with losing the confidence of it’s trading partners.
Back to the topic. The spend on Amtrak is directed at Corridors and Corridor development and once again the Long Distance network is ignored if you look at the current proposal and look at the spending intent for Amtrak. From what I understand Biden views LD trains only as a political expedient to garner a larger voting block for Amtrak vs LD trains as a investment direction. So that is a way of prioritizing spending within Amtrak.
If done right an infrastructure investment will payback the investment plus more and I think that as a country should be our goal. If done wrong an infrastructure investment is a one time hit with little or no future returns and the money is largely wasted.
The recent example of Greece. People spending is nice but realistically someone has to work to pay for it and needs the concrete fixed type infrastructure to do so efficiently.
I am not limiting my concern just to the fact that debt has to be paid back. I know that on a personal level, many people just don’t like the feeling of owing money, so they long for day they will be mortgage free. With that kind of debt people are at least limited by their creditors as to how much debt they can assume. Nevertheless, they are sometimes ruined by easy credit, the natural lure of money, and the things the desire.
At a national level, the lure is often for power, and that can be acquired merely by spending public money while cloaking it in pretexts and rationalizations that spending public money makes us all wealthier.
Thankfully, there are usually counterforces to at least push back against this reckless tendency. Obviously, that is not completely sufficient because the debt continues to rise, and the spenders get bolder when they see that can raise it and the sky does not fall. This alone is precarious, but now suddenly we have arrived at the point where there can be no pushback against reckless spending. Both spending ability and the desire to spend are sud