It’s more expensive rebuilding it a bunch of times than doing it right the first time. We have a shit load of money. And it would be a proper use of borrowed money for a change, investing in something that pays for itself in the long run. As opposed to borrowing to buy tanker ships full of lube to stroke off investors like we do now.
Yeah but you forgot that we live in a world of very short term thinking. The must noticable expressions i are how politicians plan election-to-election and business think quarter-to-quarter and year-over-year. We all do it though. It feeds into credit nightmares for everyone. If people are asked “do you want to/ can you pay $1,000 right now or $120 monthly for 10 months” most will (usually by necessity) take the second option. Now blow that up into the millions for infrastructure. Thus a road that’ll last 500 years become a replac- it-every-50-years problem.
But we are borrowing trillions and trillions to simply buttress businesses, to prevent the rich from losing money in a downturn. In 2008, both parties, then 2020, both parties, borrowed as much as they possibly could. What did we get out of that money? Nothing, the rich have never been richer, working people got dick. PPP loans were forced to be paid back by small companies that kept people on, the big corporations got exponentially more of it, laid off people anyway, and had those loans forgiven, because they knew whom to bribe I presume.
It’s not going to get better, but instead of borrowing to subsidize the profits of the rich, and to prevent companies from losing money, how about we borrow to actually do things. To build stuff, to build our prestige, to give jobs to people, and to make us more competitive. Roads that never have to be rebuilt, they could have snow melting built into them. We could bury really solid electrical and sewer and fiber optics in tunnels beneath them while we are at it.
Even better, we could build an interstate freight and passenger rail. While the eminent domain would be a nightmare, it has to be done, and we have defunct lines all around the country we can reboot. Except instead of making it private, we could make a sort of benefit corporation to operate it. One where investors get a reasonable return, but they have other reasons for being other than maximizing revenue, providing the good service at cost plus 5 percent or something, 8 percent tops maybe.
We could sell bonds to do it, the benefit corporations to run them, whose mission is mainly to provide that service. I am getting real pie in the sky here, not a fucking chance we do that. Democrats are too weak, and would only even think about such a thing if the republicans gave them permission first and tried to do it. They won’t either. The roads would be an easier thing to ease into a little bit even with our, ahem, government.
But a WPA, Works projects Administration, like in the great depression, that trains people for jobs, in building these projects for the common good while providing good solid jobs to people. Forget saving those big companies, let them fail, it’s not capitalism if they don’t fail when they fail, it’s a type of communism when losses are socialized in a system where those rich control the government and are above the law, and it’s fun to call them communists. Try it, it’s fun. It also throws them for a loop.
We bail out workers, not companies. We hook up workers that lose their jobs with some benefits, we give millions of other workers jobs to build stuff we need, that will save us money, and that builds our prestige, and makes us more competitive, and we let gigantic corporations fail. And we still save money, directly from what it takes to save the rich, and indirectly in not having those same rich bleeding us, not paying taxes, and of course perverting our politicians. Pie in the sky I know, if you wanted to tallk about what can get through this government, I think it would be a very short conversation no? Nothing new, if they change/build anything new it will be privately owned. They are trying to privatize roads, pay to play.
It’s more expensive rebuilding it a bunch of times than doing it right the first time. We have a shit load of money. And it would be a proper use of borrowed money for a change, investing in something that pays for itself in the long run. As opposed to borrowing to buy tanker ships full of lube to stroke off investors like we do now.
Yeah but you forgot that we live in a world of very short term thinking. The must noticable expressions i are how politicians plan election-to-election and business think quarter-to-quarter and year-over-year. We all do it though. It feeds into credit nightmares for everyone. If people are asked “do you want to/ can you pay $1,000 right now or $120 monthly for 10 months” most will (usually by necessity) take the second option. Now blow that up into the millions for infrastructure. Thus a road that’ll last 500 years become a replac- it-every-50-years problem.
But we are borrowing trillions and trillions to simply buttress businesses, to prevent the rich from losing money in a downturn. In 2008, both parties, then 2020, both parties, borrowed as much as they possibly could. What did we get out of that money? Nothing, the rich have never been richer, working people got dick. PPP loans were forced to be paid back by small companies that kept people on, the big corporations got exponentially more of it, laid off people anyway, and had those loans forgiven, because they knew whom to bribe I presume.
It’s not going to get better, but instead of borrowing to subsidize the profits of the rich, and to prevent companies from losing money, how about we borrow to actually do things. To build stuff, to build our prestige, to give jobs to people, and to make us more competitive. Roads that never have to be rebuilt, they could have snow melting built into them. We could bury really solid electrical and sewer and fiber optics in tunnels beneath them while we are at it.
Even better, we could build an interstate freight and passenger rail. While the eminent domain would be a nightmare, it has to be done, and we have defunct lines all around the country we can reboot. Except instead of making it private, we could make a sort of benefit corporation to operate it. One where investors get a reasonable return, but they have other reasons for being other than maximizing revenue, providing the good service at cost plus 5 percent or something, 8 percent tops maybe.
We could sell bonds to do it, the benefit corporations to run them, whose mission is mainly to provide that service. I am getting real pie in the sky here, not a fucking chance we do that. Democrats are too weak, and would only even think about such a thing if the republicans gave them permission first and tried to do it. They won’t either. The roads would be an easier thing to ease into a little bit even with our, ahem, government.
But a WPA, Works projects Administration, like in the great depression, that trains people for jobs, in building these projects for the common good while providing good solid jobs to people. Forget saving those big companies, let them fail, it’s not capitalism if they don’t fail when they fail, it’s a type of communism when losses are socialized in a system where those rich control the government and are above the law, and it’s fun to call them communists. Try it, it’s fun. It also throws them for a loop.
We bail out workers, not companies. We hook up workers that lose their jobs with some benefits, we give millions of other workers jobs to build stuff we need, that will save us money, and that builds our prestige, and makes us more competitive, and we let gigantic corporations fail. And we still save money, directly from what it takes to save the rich, and indirectly in not having those same rich bleeding us, not paying taxes, and of course perverting our politicians. Pie in the sky I know, if you wanted to tallk about what can get through this government, I think it would be a very short conversation no? Nothing new, if they change/build anything new it will be privately owned. They are trying to privatize roads, pay to play.