Construction Informer

Perhaps one of the most compelling things to come out of a recent conference gathering of U.S. mayors was a call for a stimulus package aimed at infrastructure. Apparently cities have a bundle of projects ready to go and just need what of course everybody seems to need these days- some money. 

By one estimate there are at least 4,500 infrastructure projects ready to be built in 2009 that need more than $24.4 billion. Moving ahead with those projects is expected to create about 250,000 jobs, according to the mayors. The group further contends that metropolitan economies create 90 percent of the gross domestic product and that infrastructure build-out will go a long way toward alleviating a sour economy. According to Tom Cochran, the conference event CEO:

Mayors tell us that the job situation is dire and only getting worse. The unemployment numbers indicate a rapid deterioration in the job outlook for Americans, and thousands more jobs will be lost as each month passes with no action from the lame-duck Congress. Main Street is hurting. Metro economies of America need jobs now and our economy desperately needs help at the Main Street level. Our Main Street Stimulus is the answer.

The projects include transit, highway, green jobs, schools, public safety and public housing. The mayors have asked Congress to approve $89.8 billion in a visit to Capitol Hill on Oct. 29th.

From my vantage point however, it doesn’t seem Congress has moved beyond the haze of inaction that has stifled it for so long. Perhaps it will wake up momentarily but the bets are that not much will happen until after the holidays.

This post doesn’t have anything directly related to construction. But I’m building here so be patient. Future posts will pick up on some of these ideas and carry forward.

I’ve been watching American politics with discernment now for at least 35 years. That accounts for nine presidents, (a few had two terms), and countless Congressional sessions. During all of those years, and political intrigue, this is the first time I’ve seen the federal government living in crisis mode most of the time. Making laws out of fear isn’t very enlightened, and when it becomes the modus operandi of a government it doesn’t inspire confidence.

It’s hard to say if there is anything left of what Adam Smith aficionados call a “free market.”  Most days now I just read the financial headlines and shake my head. I believed there were people who were educated about economics, and who were devoting their lives to keeping track of important concepts like this and would blow a whistle or something when things got out of hand. But apparently that hasn’t been the case. You can get any story you want from economists, you just have to ask the right ones. Suffice it to say there is nobody, and certainly no government, that can anticipate the trillions of transactions occurring on a daily basis and “manage” a national economy.

I’m NOT an economist so if that’s important to you then read no further. It could be that the free market evaporated a long time ago when the Great Depression caused the government to start meddling with Smith’s utopian dream. It could be that the free market slipped away even more when the currency was divorced from precious metals. But now, we have the government buying up companies, guaranteeing an onerous flow of capital, and purchasing the private assets of citizens who can’t pay for them. Forget about a free market, what does all of that eventually mean to individual freedom?

Most people who have lived long enough, or studied economics 101, know that if you spend more than you earn there will come a time when everything you earn is owed and you don’t have anything left to live on. The “bailout” bill that was just NOT PASSED in Congress (yesterday at 5 p.m. EDT) had a provision to allow Congress to increase the national debt to $11 trillion. Later on, the text of the bailout plan made it clear that the cost of the bailout plan was NOT INCLUDED in the $11 trillion. Okay, so let’s round it up to 12 trillion. That’s about $40,000 for each American (310 million, Mas, Pas, Gram, Pap and kids …everybody is included).

Here are two potential truths I have observed:

Societies based upon consuming may have short lives because rather than adding value they are devouring it.

Governments will always tell the citizens only what they need to tell them.