So this thread really is still open for postings? I was reminded of it while listening to the US TV news this morning and the old saying that "those the Gods will destroy they first make mad" crossed my mind.

At a time when automobile sales in the USA have dropped to the point at which only a massive injection of US government funds can keep the 3 major US auto companies solvent, the Obama administration is about to pump billions into road construction and repair of the existing roads. They must be mad already!

After all that pious talk from both Obama and McCain about doing away with pork barrel projects in Washington after the election once and for all and the condemnation of Mrs. Palin for Alaska's record in doing well out of pork-barrel earmarks, Obama himself can be seen pushing his US$819 billion "stimulus package" which, according to the US government's own budget office, is only one-third stimulus but a good two-thirds pork benefitting only those same special interests!

Notwithstanding all that talk about CHANGE in Washington, it appears that government of the people, by the elite, for the special interests, is still very much alive.

Either somebody is intent on making it very easy for the Gods or else the ones to be destroyed were already well on the way to being mad before the Gods ever started work on them.

As the joke goes:

"What's the difference between the United States and [Insert Country]:

In the US, they have Barack Obama, Stevie Wonder, Bob Hope, and Johnny Cash.
In [Insert Country], they have [Insert Name of Current Political Leader], No Wonder, No Hope, and No Cash."

Originally written by Derek Thornton on February 3, 2009 3:52 PM   ...the Obama administration is about to pump billions into road construction and repair of the existing roads. They must be mad already! Derek

I do not see anything mad about providing jobs for millions of workers in the construction industry. These workers will, in turn, indirectly provide jobs for others. In a country this big, construction and repair of bridges and roads is certainly a good way to jumpstart the economy.

So far, Obama is doing a pretty good job and he is currenly being supported by a great majority of Americans.

Bertha

That sounds to me like making a massive attack on the environment for no other purpose than to reduce the jobless statistics. A government-financed work program, no less. The jobless statistics in the old communist GDR always looked very good, too. Practically zero, in fact. People were paid just for doing something, anything, so long as there were no unemployed. It is not economically viable - sooner or later somebody has to foot the bill and that will be the taxpayers some time in the future.

At a time when very few new cars are being sold and the car manufacturers are going down the tube and the talk is about cleaning up the environment and reducing emissions, why does the US need more roads?

Isn't that what caused the problem in the first place, government and consumers alike spending money on things that that they do not really need and financing that with debt?

Sure, Bertha, I can see that but didn't he promise to reduce taxes on all those earning under $250 thousand/year? What happened to that one? I do not recall that he promised to rush in to office and build more roads and bridges at the taxpayers' expense.

Dare I ask how many of those bridges and roads will be earmarks and lead to "nowhere"? Time to call on Mrs. Palin. She must have a few likely locations in mind. Somebody is going to get very, very, rich out of all this.

Derek

Originally written by Derek Thornton on February 4, 2009 12:13 AM   Dare I ask how many of those bridges and roads will be earmarks and lead to "nowhere"? Time to call on Mrs. Palin. She must have a few likely locations in mind. Derek

This is an extremely beautiful country and no roads lead to "nowhere".

Concerning Mrs Palin, we are all used to her "brilliant" ideas. Unfortunately, more often than not, Mrs Palin's ideas are all about murdering Alaska's innocent animals. Whether she and her family do it for "fun" or she pays a bunch of idle idiots to do so, it looks like this is all this scholar is able to come up with.

Bertha

Well, if it really was a farce that wouldn't be too bad but what worries me is that it could turn out to be a tragedy.

I see that phrase "jump start the economy" at least once a day now but where is the scientific evidence that a national economy can be "jump started" at all? I don't see any and I have done some searching.

What does it mean? "Get the economy to revert back to the bad old ways we had before in a hurry" or "Dump a lot of borrowed Chinese money out there in half-thought through construction projects embedded in masses of pork-barrel earmarks in the vague hope that happy days are here again, the skies above are clear again, so let's sing a song of cheer again?"

Until I do see some evidence that "jump-starting" works I will have to assume that "jump starting the economy" is a euphemism for "borrowing a few more hundred billions from China and throwing it out of the window to placate the Gods". Why don't they just sacrifice a few goats? I reckon that stands just about as much chance of placating the Gods, considering the mood that they must be in by now.

I had a feeling right from the beginning that this Obama adventure that the US has embarked on will end as a Greek tragedy. What if it turns out that the entire US economy has been nothing more than another huge Ponzi scheme all these years and that it is just about to collapse in a frenzy of unbridled government spending that will finally break the bank when the Chinese decide not to go along with it?

Somebody is playing with fire and Zeus is not going to like that at all!

PS: But what if it turns out that the present economic condition in which the US finds itself is its default economic condition and that the only way to get the happy days here again will be to start another massive national Ponzi scheme (euphemistically called "stimulating the economy") which will inevitably crash again some time later?

Somebody (and it does not look like being Obama unless he has merely started off on the wrong foot) has to decide that the days of living high on the hog on borrowed money are gone for ever and that the US national notion of their long-term standard of living needs to be adjusted sharply downwards after this recent reality check?

Derek

Originally written by John Bunch on February 4, 2009 4:54 AM  At the same time, yes, you are right, they don't really know what they are doing. This whole "priming the pump" thing is not backed up by anything. That is why they call economics "the Dismal Science". Robert Mundell, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics and is considered the "father of the Euro" said that the government should just cut taxes and let companies pay a 0 % tax for 2009, and then cut the long-term corporate tax to 15 %. That would do it, but that will not satisfy the Democrats because that plan would create millions of jobs without transferring power to D.C. and to them, and it would do nothing to increase socialism or the power of the state, so they will reject it and keep talking about public funding of "infrastructure" (which means, whatever pork project they like).

One democrat called Bill Clinton is the best US president I have witnessed - probably one of the best anywhere. His policies left a surplus, and had they been followed America would have be free of debt by 2013 or thereabouts I believe.

Cutting taxes is just dogma, I would imagine in a budget One should know how much they intend to use and how to raise it. Reagan had his 15% interests rates(if I recall correctly) and deficits that scared congress into passing Gramm-Rudman-Hollings-If I recall correctly.

Democrats in my opinion are less emotional on economic issues. As for Obama, I doubt whether he will be another Clinton, but barring Aquarius colliding with Jupiter, Mars going out of orbit and Anglo-Saxons persuading him to become an Afro-Saxon by engaging in one of their daft wars, I think he is unlikely to be among the worst or the best. He will probably be remembered as a rather condescending but disciplined guy with lots of academic friends.

I would imagine Obama's presidency will be similar to Bush 1. If Americans have been so busy beating up on guys that they have not expanded on the road network since Eisenhower, roads might be a good idea.