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Obama to Call for $50 Billion Spending on Public Works

Erod said:
Trotsky couldn't have said it better himself.
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The reason Trotsky had such a large following is because the world had a disproportionate ratio of the filthy rich few to impoverished millions, and not much of a middle class.
If the rich want to return to that, they should first read up on the French Revolution.
 
Since i didn't comment yet, now's as good a time as any. $50 billion is much too small. How much? About 15 times too small!:fueltofir
 
Well we've spent far more on far worse than this. I've maintained through this mess that if they're going to take my money anyway, they should put it to good use at least. Public works isn't the worst of all things during very bad recessions. Particularly if they are limited in time duration and can net out a positive for the rest of us as a whole.
 
MrVicchio said:
$50,000,000,000.00 wasted is still waste.
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What 50,000,000,000.00 equates to is roughly about 40,000 jobs 'SAVED' or created. granted thats another drop in the bucket...and sadly...for ever 1 drop in, 2 drops drip out..but...hey...dont worry about tacking on that 50 billion to the national debt...its not like the crippled and dependent pets that keep them in power will have to worry about paying it back.
 
j-mac said:
Nah, they're immune to it. What we need is less central government, and more accountability by the people.


j-mac
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More State rights is desperately needed, just as the founders envisioned. Having a government in DC, far removed from the people, can only make matters worse.

Hope the challenge by the States over Obamacare is continued, if only to demonstrate that the States should have more rights and any intrusions will be challenged, just as Arizona had challenged the Feds over their border issue. The States should work together on this.
 
UtahBill said:
The reason Trotsky had such a large following is because the world had a disproportionate ratio of the filthy rich few to impoverished millions, and not much of a middle class.
If the rich want to return to that, they should first read up on the French Revolution.
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What's this? Give us your money or we'll kill you?

How America has changed!
 
 
I don' get this. Looks like a just some campaign stop handout.
 
The problem with this new improvements bill is that it's not on the most optimal types of infrastructure the nation needs. It's essentially roads and airports, but nothing like what's actually needed: energy infrastructure, etc. What's needed is much heavier investment in rail technology, arcologies, and nuclear power plants. Roads are a bad investment, as are airports. I don't know what Obama is thinking here, but it will most likely get obstructed anyway.

The opposition party is there just to oppose, regardless of what it was. If the congress tried to enact a snow plowing bill during the dead of winter, it would take until June to pass it with "compromises" that made it useless anyway.
 
Goldenboy219 said:
American corporations are sitting on a ton of cash. To such an extent, the basic "tax cuts will spur demand" has not a leg to stand on. Non financial companies are sitting an excess of $1.5 trillion. Public works projects do not seem so bad now do they?
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They'd invest that cash if Obama would stop threatening to tax the piss out of them and dump healthcare in their laps, too.

Businesses like certainty. With this doofus in office, there isn't a playing field to examine and strategize for. He wants to destroy business, not encourage it.
 
Goldenboy219 said:
Since i didn't comment yet, now's as good a time as any. $50 billion is much too small. How much? About 15 times too small!:fueltofir
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So you want to steal it and give it to the poor.

Chavez, Jong-Il, Castro, Lenin..............it's been done before.
 
Actually, the healthcare bill known as "Obamacare" is overwhelmingly beneficial to the corporate backers of the plan. Through compromise, nearly everything good about the original plan was gutted. Now, we get the honour of being forced by law to get private care we mostly pay for anyway.

The alternative to Obama would unlikely have been superior.

Even with hgher taxes, they have come to the conclusion they can make just as much money by not hiring, firing, and then working the remainder harder.
 
Goldenboy219 said:
Since i didn't comment yet, now's as good a time as any. $50 billion is much too small. How much? About 15 times too small!:fueltofir
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Nah, to high GB, I think we could scrimp by on ten times, which it should have been in the beginning.
 
Ikari said:
Well we've spent far more on far worse than this. I've maintained through this mess that if they're going to take my money anyway, they should put it to good use at least. Public works isn't the worst of all things during very bad recessions. Particularly if they are limited in time duration and can net out a positive for the rest of us as a whole.
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I like the fact that a segment of our workforce will have jobs again.
 
pbrauer said:
This is an investment in America, the billions upon billions and lives lost in Iraq was a waste.
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Just billions and billions of lives lost? I thought it was trillions and trillions, for sure!
 
Erod said:
They'd invest that cash if Obama would stop threatening to tax the piss out of them and dump healthcare in their laps, too.
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That makes no sense at all, and i mean at all (im dead serious).

For this to be the least bit true, we would need to be experiencing above and beyond risk. During late 2008, firms rushed into cash as a means of hedging against deflation (credit spreads were at unprecedented levels) along with building a contingency in case of a global credit destruction. Now with spreads back to comfortable positions, these high levels of cash holdings still persist.

If what you state is in fact true, one of two things would have to be happening. 1.) Interest rates would be abnormally high in private credit markets (not anymore!). 2.) Inflation would be above 2008 levels. Since neither of these are the case, you are simply incorrect. The question is, do you have the stones to admit it?

Businesses like certainty. With this doofus in office, there isn't a playing field to examine and strategize for. He wants to destroy business, not encourage it.
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I can only take so much nonsense in one post; and where all used up here!
 
Grant said:
Think it might be more that $195,000 per job created this time or less?
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Depends on what the public works job is and how much bureaucracy is involved. Bureaucracy always consumes money. I'm not normally a fan of public works projects; under normal operating conditions I find them well too wasteful for what they can get. Still some stuff is better off on the aggregated level of government. Yet in times of big recession, it's not always unwarranted. These can't be permanent positions mind you; but something temporary to actually create jobs while we wait for the private sector to be finished. We could make things like an actual high speed rail system to link major cities. If it could take a few hours to go from NY to Chicago or something, that becomes a mode of transportation which can be good for business and great for tourism. There would be many benefits to having an actual high speed rail system. You could have built a backbone for high speed internet or something. Then companies could charge for access services, but since the infrastructure was paid for by taxpayers; the internet becomes truly neutral and they can't throttle your speeds at their whim. That would have been ok too. None of which is permanent, but could net out something positive for all of us.

They're going to take my money regardless, it's just the way it works. We can either spend it on public works or give it to Goldman Sachs. I'd rather it go to actually making jobs and more directly benefiting the middle and lower class; since they were the ones bent over the barrel. If you're gonna take my money, I'd rather it go to public works than bailouts.
 
Grant said:
Just billions and billions of lives lost? I thought it was trillions and trillions, for sure!
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Read more carefully, the word is AND, not of.....
 
Ikari said:
Depends on what the public works job is and how much bureaucracy is involved. Bureaucracy always consumes money. I'm not normally a fan of public works projects; under normal operating conditions I find them well too wasteful for what they can get. Still some stuff is better off on the aggregated level of government. Yet in times of big recession, it's not always unwarranted. These can't be permanent positions mind you; but something temporary to actually create jobs while we wait for the private sector to be finished. We could make things like an actual high speed rail system to link major cities. If it could take a few hours to go from NY to Chicago or something, that becomes a mode of transportation which can be good for business and great for tourism. There would be many benefits to having an actual high speed rail system. You could have built a backbone for high speed internet or something. Then companies could charge for access services, but since the infrastructure was paid for by taxpayers; the internet becomes truly neutral and they can't throttle your speeds at their whim. That would have been ok too. None of which is permanent, but could net out something positive for all of us.

They're going to take my money regardless, it's just the way it works. We can either spend it on public works or give it to Goldman Sachs. I'd rather it go to actually making jobs and more directly benefiting the middle and lower class; since they were the ones bent over the barrel. If you're gonna take my money, I'd rather it go to public works than bailouts.
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Be careful! A select few might be inclined to label you a socialist.

Nice post BTW.
 
Erod said:
So you want to steal it and give it to the poor.

Chavez, Jong-Il, Castro, Lenin..............it's been done before.
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None of those gave anything to the poor....you are thinking of Robin Hood, a fictional character...
 
Goldenboy219 said:
Be careful! A select few might be inclined to label you a socialist.

Nice post BTW.
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Well it's usually from those who don't really know what socialism entailed. We saw it during the healthcare "debate" as well. That's something I'm very skeptical of because I don't think government could actually make a system which wasn't just a gift to corporate America and less to do with helping out the common folk. But there's nothing wrong with asking the question; is this something we could legitimately use government for? Can it produce the desired results? These are valid questions, and the base answer to them is yes. Medical care has aggregated to extreme levels of technology and along with it costs. But there's nothing saying that we can't make a base system which ensures some amount of medical access to everyone. Probably nothing for the big things, surgery and limb replacement, etc. You can still have private insurance for that. But something like a doctor's visit, setting a bone, vaccination, etc. There's no reason you couldn't build a system to handle that. Instead of people putting off going to the doctor till it's too late; you'll encourage people to go early on.

Could it be wasteful? Well on some level because not ever cough we get turns into something serious. But sometimes the coughs we get DO turn into something serious and by having a base level of guaranteed health insurance for all; you'll go a long way into addressing these issues. Which further lowers costs to insurance companies by spotting major aliments early on when treatment is easier and cheaper. But we never even got that discussion. It was socialism this and death panels that. This abandonment of intellectual discourse and discussion has seeped into just about everything; even this public works discussion. There is immediate, knee jerk reactions which prevent intelligent discussion on the matter; and that goes a lot further into harming us and the future of the Republic than some temporary public works program could ever do.
 
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