High Risk Infrastructure Projects as the Solution to Economic Problems
I watched an interview of Bernard L. Schwartz on CNN. Very few recent hits on Google or Bing about him. The basic point he was making was that we need to spend about 1 trillion dollars to get the economy to recover, something about 40k jobs for every billion. I am not going to do the math because I find so many of these while positive, providing no details on what type of jobs to fund. Take for example building and repairing of roads, ok we get new roads, they ride better and often look better and bridges designed in the 50s are fixed and not rebuilt. The real issue is why are we investing in the past instead of possibly thinking about having the center lane on all highways become a conduit for super conducting cables as part of a national grid plan. Yes it is risky but I don’t see how repairing roads will cause the change we need. I also don’t understand why we wouldn’t invest in rail as the primary way to move goods, figure out how to do it twice as fast as any truck and ten times cheaper when operating. I will refrain from Sci-Fi and not suggest that the interstate highway systems and rail networks be merged. We need to take risks and we may fail or have a tremendous success. The possibility of an economy where there aren’t enough jobs as a permanent state is not something I think we are ready for as a society. I do appreciate smooth roads, and bridges that don’t fail.
