Investments in the future have dried up

MarketWatch ^ | June 1, 2012 | Rex Nutting

[C19fan]

When I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, the legacy of the Great Depression was everywhere: Dams, bridges, roads, airports, courthouses and even picnic areas and hiking trails. Leaders of that dire time — Democrats and Republicans — took advantage of the Depression to put millions of Americans back to work, building the infrastructure that we still rely on today.

They had lemons, and they made lemonade.

[C19fan]

The author seems to have left out the fact that there are now so many more bureaucratic and legal hurdles to build anything in this country and Davis-Bacon jacking up the costs of public infrasturcture. Just look at the Bay Bridge Eastern section which is still not fully completed 22 years after the Loma Prieta. This year is the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate bridge. I doubt such a bridge would even be built today.

[skeeter]

The only thing this Administration intends to make shovel ready are the Boomers.

[Servant of the Cross]

The only thing this Administration intends to make shovel ready are the Boomers.

Good one. Reminds me of this good video/ad from the AmericanDoctors4Truth.

[donna]

Milton Friedman said, “Roosevelt’s policies were very destructive. Roosevelt’s policies made the depression longer and worse than it otherwise would have been. What pulled us out of the depression was the natural resilience of the economy plus WW2.”

“Hoover-nomics and FDR’s New Deal created the longest and deepest economic downturn in U.S. history.” Raymond Keating

[cripplecreek]

There’s also a kneejerk opposition to doing anything with taxpayer dollars. In most cases I agree but there are a few infrastructure projects that should be undertaken.

Personally I think a second span over the Detroit river should be built. Unfortunately the club for growth has sided with Detroit’s biggest democrat donor, slumlord, and owner of the Ambassador bridge (Matty Maroun) in opposition. Canada wants it so much that they prepared their end 20 years ago and wants to loan us the money which will be repaid through tolls. On our end, business owners want to build shipping terminals and warehouses. Detroit is the second busiest freight crossing in the country and that will increase when trucking companies stop going out of route to avoid Maroun’s ancient bridge.

There’s a big difference between needed infrastructure and crap like high speed rail. Infrastructure is built where growth is hindered by its lack not on the vague hope that there will someday be growth.

Another issue is that so much of our legitimate infrastructure funding is skimmed off for crap like bike trails and inner city transportation that is almost completely funded by taxpayers rather than riders.

[Sequoyah101]

The Pentagon was built in less than 16 months. A small bridge across an inlet to the Potomac has been under construction for years.

Just another example of how right you are.

[cripplecreek]

3 years in construction with no work during winter. Started in 54, opened in 57. Pretty damn astounding in my book.





Facts and figures.

[Sequoyah101]

Pretty much isn’t it? I was there, my Dad surveyed in the route for the new Consumer’s Power lines across the Straights in the summer of ‘56 or ‘57, can’t remember exactly.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

The author

I believe Nutting is the guy who tried to spin Obama as the most fiscally-restrained president in recent history.

[bgill]

Too many of those dams and bridges have outlived their life spans and are in need of serious repair. Those repairs aren’t happening and won’t happen until their collapse cause dozens or thousands of deaths.

Here, they spend all their time and tax dollars reworking road drainage ditches when we’ve had the worst drought in decades. Frankly, I don’t see the ditches have changed at all. They put in a second fire station when we can’t keep the first one funded. Of course, instead of running the water pump into the river, they spent more dollars on drilling a well. With all that, not a dime has been spent on repairing the cracks in the dam to protect the hundreds of thousands of souls downstream.

[cripplecreek]

My great granddad did surveying in the UP back in the 1920s and when he was done he went back to where he started and learned to hang electric lines. When that was done he came down here and did the same around the hometown with a crew of local teenagers and young guys.

He would survey and mark a roadway and the young guys with chain saws would follow cutting trees while leaving the occasional tree standing as a power pole. When they were done cutting they would go back and help hang lines.