Comments on: The Other Reason Stimulus Won’t Work

By: djaces

djaces — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:01:17 +0000

For the 8-9 Trillion dollars the Congress and the Fed have pumped into this fiasco since last summer the government could have sent a check for 25-30 Thousand dollars to every man, woman and child in the country. This wouldn’t necessarily have been a wise thing to do, but it would certainly have done more to resolve the problem than their past and continuing blundering efforts. The negative consequences of either of these approaches are probably quite severe, but as it stands, we;ll have to face them without the benefit of seeing any of the cash.

By: Scott Wiggins

Scott Wiggins — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 04:43:35 +0000

The country will learn that electing persons to high office who have “no experience” running anything will bring certain perils with it. Of course, the press will continue to shill for him and our electorate are becoming increasingly confused and befuddled by anything coming from the government so that Obama’s stimulus will be just another event of which they have no control and they will merely hope for the best. Here are a couple of random points with regard to infrastructure spending. Yes, it will take years. As a retired military officer I have seen up close how some of this stuff happens. I was based at Tustin, CA. It was on the base closure list in the mid-1990s even as the government was building new family housing units which were completed a year or two before the base closed for good. Well, the money had already been alotted so it had to be spent, right? Another thought with regard to infrastructure spending. Construction jobs are heavily represented by illegal aliens nowadays. Are we going to spend money for jobs, many of which will go to persons in this country illegally? Paying for jobs Americans won’t do? It is my firm belief that we will get 5 cents of value for every dollar the government spends. A handful of companies will get rich and state and local governments will get a few new parks and bridges. In the end, you will be hard pressed to see where the money went…My two cents…

By: Heretic

Heretic — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:06:29 +0000

You’ve hit on it. The infrastructure aspect is a farce. The intent here is to stimulate the starving constituants in the legal profession and the regulatory state as a whole.
Imagine how many lawyer-ready infrastructure projects there are!

Then imagine how many government and activist jobs will be created to regulate the projects into stalemate. Look at it this way, and the “stimulus” is instantaneous. Heck, the lobbyists are already being “stimulated”, paid to fight for their bit of slop at the trough.

By: elambend

elambend — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 06:34:28 +0000

Getting your piece of the infrastructure pie

http://blog.seliger.com/2009/01/18/getting-your-piece-of-the-infrastructure-pie-a-how-to-guide-for-the-perplexed/

By: ElamBend

ElamBend — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:02:29 +0000

And they’ll blame someone else when the lights go out

By: John Moore

John Moore — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:44:26 +0000

The inability to start these projects soon has always been an obvious fly in the ointment.

Anyone who has watched how the left obstruct progress should know this. The telescopes on Mt. Graham, AZ were delayed for ages while an environmental ESA suit was battled (and won, of course, by the astronomers). As soon as the environmentalists gave up, the Indians raised religious objections, delaying it still more.

The same tricks are now being used to try to stop the renewal of Peabody Coal’s licenses in NE Arizona, at a time when coal is something we really need.

The Nimbys, the Enviros, and (with leftist recruitment) the Native American activists will seek to stop anything.

By: ElamBend

ElamBend — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:06:40 +0000

Obama could use some of the federal power to break through red tape and banana and nimby to cause the construction of more nuke plants or a true national grid.
In fact, drop the nuke plants; just a true national grid on the scale of the interstate system would be something he could hang his hat on. It won’t happen. In the end money will be thrown at small little deals that can happen right away (“shovel ready” connected deals) or sound right (green jobs [btw, how are all those ethanol plants doing now]). In the end, they will do no good for the economy in the short term and leave us without any tangible result to point to.
It’s all going to be the biggest hog trough in the world.

By: Chris Byrne

Chris Byrne — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:43:46 +0000

Well yes, but that presumes that the so called stimulus plans are even intended to work.

They are not.

Their real purpose is to a. increase governmental authority and control over the private sector and b. increase the patronage money and opportunities for politicans to buy votes…

… but I’m pretty sure you knew that already.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:38:08 +0000

Plus, there is only so many “infrastructure” projects that can be done at once. I live in Minneapolis and I would argue that we are already at the maximum capacity of road and bridge work that can be done. Any additional projects would create so much congestion and chaos that they cannot be done.

The idea for infrastructure that is by far the best is to build nuclear power plants. The “green” revolution will need electricity and nuclear is the best option for such green production. Without substantial increases in electrical power generation it will be impossible to convert to electrical powered vehichles or hydrogen powered vehicles.

But, the “geniuses” that are now running the government clearly cannot understand this fact.

By: morganovich

morganovich — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:17:41 +0000

oh, it will work all right. these projects will get off the ground just as the economic recovery gets into swing. therefore they will look fantastic in terms of efficacy and then be used to further the case for Keynesian intervention.

the best was to get your own parade is to find one already in progress and get in front of it.