Rich has already written about how 1930s New Deal stimuli projects will not help this country prepare for the 21st century global economy. Bloomberg has an incredibly insightful article on the Obama stimulus package. In effect, all the funds that will be appropriated for infrastructure will go for fixing old roads and building new ones to open new open spaces to crackpot development. Whatever one believes about global warming, this is certainly environmentally irresponsible and a step in the wrong direction. Moreover, it will cost cities, which, as Rich, Ed Glaeser, and many others have shown, have subsidized suburban development in the past. Now, U.S. “leaders” want to give us another dollop of past solutions. Optimistically applying old solutions (like ever greater indebtedness) for a debt and insolvency crisis is definitionally “crackpot.”
Can Obama translate his vague promises of change into a real change of direction for this country? To those that responded to my posting about taxation decisions, thanks.
I hope you all have great holidays. Rest, have fun, and prepare to put your thinking caps on because next year will be the most important for the global economy since 1933. We need to be there with alternative solutions and open the space for debate. Otherwise, the economists with old failed theories, some of whom claim to understand the Great Depression, will continue to provide crackpot solutions… to be discussed in the next posting.