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Biden did what Trump should have done out of the gate — 2x the executive orders of his predecessor and three consecutive multi-trillion dollar bills passed by a captive and more-or-less willing Congress.
Peggy Noonan says it’s a big gamble (it is). I don’t see how this doesn’t lead to massive inflation and unemployment.
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Not a bad take by Noonan. She’s way too easy on Biden but then again so is everybody in the news.
Talked to the president of a concrete business with ops in the southeast. His take on the infrastructure spending is that there won’t be people to do the jobs. They can’t find people today and things are blowing and going.
Remember that Biden was in charge of “shovel ready jobs” back in the day…and there was no such thing. Just another political slogan.
The Dems are in power. They get to call the shots. Those are facts. In an era where it’s increasingly acceptable to just call the opposition stupid and then do what you want without them, those facts are going to lead to some really ugly places.
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Sic transit gloria mundi (so shut up and get back to work) -
[quote quote=4568]Not a bad take by Noonan. She’s way too easy on Biden but then again so is everybody in the news. Talked to the president of a concrete business with ops in the southeast. His take on the infrastructure spending is that there won’t be people to do the jobs. They can’t find people today and things are blowing and going. Remember that Biden was in charge of “shovel ready jobs” back in the day…and there was no such thing. Just another political slogan. The Dems are in power. They get to call the shots. Those are facts. In an era where it’s increasingly acceptable to just call the opposition stupid and then do what you want without them, those facts are going to lead to some really ugly places.[/quote]
Biden’s already taking care of that, just look to the Southern border. Talked with a CEO of a similar infrastructure company, he can’t find employees, either, and every time there is a stimulus check, he loses employees for weeks.
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Yeah, the stimulus checks are an interesting thing. I’ve had a couple of other employers mention to me that the stimulus checks actually hurt their ability to employ line workers…turns out when you give people money, they realize they don’t have to work for it. Same for boosting unemployment. It’s all done in the name of “humanity” but actually hurts the search for gainful employment.
I would bet that many of us know family members or friends who stayed on unemployment rather than actually looking for a new job. I certainly do.
That said, it means the money hits the economy faster that it does when the money is given to you and me, but it certainly creates different incentives among parts of the workforce.
Construction is an interesting sector when it comes to stimulus. Our workforce has gotten continually less productive when it comes to construction, meaning we actually create less real output today per unit of labor than we did 20, 40, and 60 years ago. It’s the ideal place for government to spend, because politicians can blow more and more dollars for less and less output, pleasing unions and creating employment opportunities.
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Sic transit gloria mundi (so shut up and get back to work) -
As best as I can tell, the law of gravity still applies?
Lower/globally competitive corporate tax rates generated capital inflows for investment in capacity which increased labor productivity, middle class wages, employment and strategic security benefits in supply chains.
So this administration reverses the policies that drove favorable outcomes. What goes up must come down. They substitute policies that increase government’s share of GDP. Higher taxes and expanding deficits driving “investments” in the economy. That too is a rerun; Solyndra, Fisker, cash for clunkers. Political “investment” generally produces lower returns. This is magnified as the Chinese and the Indians focus on the exploitation of our flawed policy. Capital flows and productive capacity, like water, are reversible as they seek the highest return. Asymmetric disarmament will, as always, prove problematic.
Here's a toast with one last pour, may it last forever and a minute more;
Good fortune seems to you have sung, to live and love way past long -
Gravity applies in reverse too. I give you the Big Dig in Boston which was started around 1990 and was scheduled for completion in 1998 at an estimated cost of $2.8 billion.
The project was completed in 2008 for an estimated $8.08 billion. The project will actually cost $22 billion when it’s paid off in 2038. $22 billion. The traffic problems were epic for almost 20 years. Multiply that by 400.
The government can work well as we saw with Operation Warp Speed which had vaccines ready in less than a year. But that was mostly private enterprise doing what they do best. Stellar without precedent. Far smaller scale. They moved like greased lightening with the total backing of the President.
The problem with this kind of legislation is the magnitude and the number of politicians touching it. The corruption should be breath taking and the pace sub snail. Good time to be a union heavy equipment operator though. And the lawyers of course.
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