Forum Post: Why not discuss job creation?
Posted 13 years ago on Nov. 23, 2011, 3:36 p.m. EST by zorno
(386)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Considering that the most common taunt hurled at OWS activists is "Get a job", and the most common reply is an explanation of the elimination of jobs in the US, I am surprised that there is not more discussion of job creation here.
For me, the best example of the job creation process was that practiced by Roosevelt in the New Deal. The jobs that were created were mostly in infrastructure development, such as building roads, electrifying the Tennessee valley region, etc.
Of course first, he bankruptcy reorganized the financial system, through Glass Steagall, which then allowed him to create credit for projects employing millions of people. Today, NAWAPA is advocated as the mega project that would create tens of millions of jobs and bring water from Alaska to the desserts of the lower forty eight.
NAWAPA would not only create first farmland and then new cities, but would replenish the dwindling underground water supplies throughout the US through an increase in precipitation.
Such a project would also create a large number of well paying manufacturing jobs to produce the innumerable products and materials necessary for construction on a large scale.
We could even sell this stuff to the Chinese who need such supplies for the development of their own country. We could balance our trade deficit and eventually get rich this way.
Any other thoughts on job creation?
Repealing NAFTA. We don't need to create jobs, we need to bring our jobs home.
Yes we do since our jobs are not coming home.
O.k. let me retract the piece of my statement that is causing my message to be discarded. Yes we do need to create jobs, without some job creation there won't be a job for the next 100 million people projected to be in the US by 2040. Now that having been said my point was suppose to be to stop sending American jobs out of the country whether by NAFTA, outsourcing, or what have you. With the country headed for overpopulation we are going to need to bring back every job, and create new jobs.
And my point is that the jobs that have left are not coming back no matter how much we want them too.
We could create a new United States infrastructure.
I prefer to be optimistic. But I appreciate your position.
Jobs are obsolete.
Break-dancing robot garbage men and social welfare for everyone!
NOW!
those jobs will never come back...until the labor markets stabilize,
I dare you. Gives us an excuse to charge $150 a barrel for oil.
Well we're getting there The year projection (according to http://www.oil-price.net/) is $110.
You hit the bail on the head. As long as we play the "free trade game" we lose. http://economyincrisis.org/content/our-country-serious-trouble-yet-solutions-are-very-simple
I think that's good too, but that we need both.
Contrary to popular belief, a business isn’t doing Good unless it produces so much that it begins to LOSE money. This is because money is a tool necessary only when scarcity exists.
Many businesses can produce more than we consume but it would be unprofitable for them to provide any necessity in abundance. And this problem is becoming increasingly common as agricultural, manufacturing, and service industries become automated.
Yet the traditional means of keeping business profitable is by intentionally limiting their productivity and suppressing innovations (for needed goods/services). As a result they are lowering the quality of life for everyone. Some go so far as to create and perpetuate problems for profit.
So if it wasn’t clear the first time, a business isn’t sustainable ecologically nor is it ethical unless it begins to lose money as its productivity increases. So ‘job creation’ itself must be done with the intention of allowing money to become obsolete as we create abundance.
very good idea. the abundance of products would make everything avialable. then a high end of things would emerge because of the limited production. i agree with fdr's idea of another bill of rigts.
I agree, we have been seeing this with the oil companies. They will shut down a profitable drill site to decrease supply and in turn increase the price of the product. The price increase reflects the companies attempt to increase profits, it does not reflect an actual shortage of product.
we need to do away with oil and go to a hydrogen infrasturcture.
Yes, businesses do this all the time.
It's an accepted function of companies to prop itself up at all other costs. e.g. layoffs, environmental destruction, hazardous (cheap) disposal of waste, no pensions/healthcare/longer hours, unsafe work conditions, outsourcing to 3rd world countries, purchasing low quality materials, holding back innovative technologies (trade secrets), price gouging, targeting children to sell unhealthy products (advertising), government bailouts/subsidies, product (crop) destruction, lobbying to regulated/deregulate market, economic hitmen, economic saboteurs, and of course at a national level... war
Now the hard part, how do we stop it. I have a few opinions like lobbying needs to be called what it really is "bribery" and be prosecuted as such. We as parents need to teach our children through talking to them and through our own actions. If kids see us sucking down our lattes, drinking booze, smoking cigarettes, unnecessary/over use of cosmetic surgeries, texting every 5 min., taking a pill for every ill, etc. that's what they are going to grow up trying to emulate. The collective citizen body has to decide to purchase goods and services from the business we wish to see succeed (this is expensive and difficult for low income families), end subsidies for the for-profit sector like sport stadiums. I don't know maybe I'm just dreaming of the impossible, because I know how hard it is to wake up from the consumption coma and I don't know if we can do it.
Simple answer.
Live simply. I know people that go on vacations, eat healthy organic food, have an active social life, contribute to their communities, raise healthy children, work in occupations that help society, and do this all on less than $30,000 a year.
The key? Live simply and become self sustainable. Grow a garden, filter your own water (rather than buying bottled water), make informed purchases, move close to mass transportation/facilities, concentrate on preventative healthcare (exercise, healthy diet rather than pills), use sustainable alternative energy sources, limit vampire energy, limit exposure to mind-numbing media (seek out educational programs that interest you/family), and perform activities that give you a sense of passion/purpose. All these things can save you $$.
On a social level promote automation (technology creates abundance), open source movements, get money out of government, promote evidence-based decision making, promote community projects which help it become self sustaining, protest projects which harm the community (make it more dependent), and most importantly learn/communicate.
u r funny. there is people in the country who live below 10k a year because there isnt any work.
The difference is, many of them didn't choose their lifestyle. Heck there are people that live outside our monetary system without making ANY income at all yet, they are able to sustain themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uliLfykURYo
they didnt choose that way of life thats for sure. but beeing from poor beginnings i learned one thing. the rich will always get richer at the expense of the poor. they will fight to keep the poor man down so they can keep taking for themselves.
I completely agree, I grew up poor, without a meal every day, using a 20 cent bar of soap to clean dishes, our bodies, and our clothes. The most money my husband and I ever made was 41,000. But that was only for 1 year. We make about 30 thousand, we burn wood to heat our home, we garden and can our food, we hunt, fish, and exchange with others in our community for things like eggs, and rabbit. So while I understand the need for simplicity, my question still remains, how do we get others to see what we see. I feel like trying to get Americans to see how they can help themselves is like trying to get a whole country off crack, because people are blinded by their perceived sense of success being the accumulation of more stuff. Stuff is the drug and as long as the goal is the accumulation of wealth (and stuff), whether by corporations or individuals, we are doomed to fail. I don't like to fail.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
This is why OWS is powerful. It requires many people to get involved.
As for teaching people how to live simply here's a presentation showing a few ways the affluenza can be reversed. But to catch their attention initially, the money savings must be emphasized.
http://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_botsman_the_case_for_collaborative_consumption.html
Contrary to your believe. I've been in business for 20 years, not briefly lectured on it by a socialist professor, and your definition of doing "good" is ignorant.
I suggest you run a business before you profess to be an authority figure. the books you read and papers you wrote to give professor lefty a hard on do NOT give you any credibility.
The truth making you angry?
Businesses are not supposed to last forever. They exist to fulfill a need. Making money is not a need.
And like it or not businesses and money itself are only necessary today because of unethical practices.
where did you see i said I was angry?
and making money is not a Need?
ok fantasy boy. lol
yes college life must be good
Have you tried to eat money recently?
Money is the middle man preventing people from accessing what they need. Money has no intrinsic value. Food, water, energy. These things do. Money is just a social contract.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-bknltXSgE
so we should go back to trading a few furs for coffee and sugar? no money.
nope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mkRFCtl2MI
Thanks genanmer for this link, I have learned from you today.
Glad to help :)
We need job creation through sustainable economies. A good place to start:
http://www.geo.coop/
I would like to see the gov't use the Social Security program for what I believe FDR intended it for and quite sponging off it.My figures show that we are spending 15% more keeping people out of work than if we were to help someone retire.So that means for every 2 million people collecting unemployment benefits for just one year(about 32 billion dollars).We could have let 2 million people retire early, coming to about 27 billion dollars.This would have opened up 2 million jobs(probably more permanent or secure jobs) to these people on unemployment,not counting the effect it could have had on helping the deficit or increasing tax revenue or helping the economy thruogh spending power.It will take more than this to help the world but I think this would be a good start.
I like the idea of cooperatives, from your site. The Chinese improved their agriculture quite a bit using cooperatives. They used cooperatives to gain exposure for their produce in new markets as well as for developing new agricultural equipment.
The current global financial meltdown pales in comparision to what Roose had to deal with.
The leaders in this country know what coming. They are just trying to delay it as long as possible, and for good reason. We should enjoy this as long as it lasts.
I agree that the scope of our problems today is substantially worse than it was, but I do believe the same principles could be applied to get us out of this hole and into a prosperous future.
Things could start improving right away if we pursued the right path.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/rawls-on-wall-street/
We need to think about something much more basic than job creation. We need to promote "fair equality of opportunity."
yes, i have a feeling that there would be a lot less unrest if there were lower unemployment rates.
When the extended unemployment insurance ends given the super-committee failure, unrest will increase.
Certainly, we could have a booming economy with lots of jobs and lots of business for everybody if we did the right things.
What are the right things?
I believe that the right thing to do would be similar to what Roosevelt did when he got us out of the great depression. Its popular now for some people to say that Roosevelt made the economy worse, but this is just a part of the thinking that has created our economic problems today.
First, he put the entire financial system through bankruptcy reorganization, and passed the Glass Steagall law so that Wall Street could not use our deposits in the banks to do their gambling.
Then he created credit to invest in big infrastructure development projects, which put millions of people to work, improved our economy, and paid back the money that was invested in it through increased revenue.
We have to think of our times as like the great depression, and Roosevelt's policies, especially the "New Deal", as what would get us out of it.
The reluctance to do bankruptcy reorganization is exactly what binds our hands right now in the financial world. There are many financial institutions holding toxic "assets" which refuse to recognize their depreciated values and instead have most governments worldwide prop up "asset values" with massive creation of credit. So we keep on inflating the balloon to keep it from collapsing but economic sins almost always hit the fan. Things will happen so fast eventually; nobody will be able to do anything because no one will see and no one will understand. Then everybody including the masters of the universe are scared stiff and the balloon pops.
Yes, I agree. We would need a strong leader like Roosevelt who knew what he was doing.
There was a time when you could stumble through high school, graduate, or not, and stumble into a job where you could make as much as most undergrads were making. You could get a job putting the front left fender on a new chevy impala in a factory and make more than most teachers and cops. That scene is on the decline, and it is due mostly to 2 things.
Corporate greed. GM moved 10,000 jobs to Mexico and Asia because making $4 billion a year was not enough for their stockholders when they found out they could make $5 billion a year.
The other component is emerging labor markets where people will be happy to work for $1.50-$2.00 and hour.
I have been wondering lately if we could make a huge change in tax policy that would be certain to bring jobs back to the US. Eliminate all federal income taxes and replace them with increased tariffs on imports.
Some electronics, shoes, and cars would cost a bit more, but people would have a lot more money to buy anything.
It's a lot worse than $1.50-$2.00. Average manufacturing wage in China is about $.68. You are correct. We need tariffs.
GM lost money on cars for decade. All the profit came from GMAC Financial Services.
Instead of bringing back jobs, I think we should focus on producing higher technologies. The Chinese want to buy these from us to improve their own industries, but we can't produce and sell them because there is a high tech trade ban.
Also, a lot of the jobs in a Roosevelt style recovery would have to be performed locally, such as constructing roads, railroads and power plants.
Rather than exporting high tech to China, we should try to import Chinese capital to fund our Mid-West wind-power project, for example.
Well, yes that could be a two way process, our government could generate the credit to invest in China as well. I think the best projects would be those that connect the two areas, like the bridge/tunnel over the Bering Strait that would connect America with Asia.
i agree on this. it would open the world to quick trade.
Our government is really good at generating the debit, not credit. See the failure of our super-committee to find budget savings.
Yes, I agree. But I think that whole super-committee thing is not the right approach. I think that first, they have to reorganize the illegitimate debts that exist, so that the financiers that incurred them have to eat those debts. This would be just like what Roosevelt did with Glass Steagall.
The only external way to force the financiers to eat those debts is for the borrowers to default on those debts, perhaps through bankruptcies or simply walking away from underwater properties. The "elites" were smart enough to have tightened bankruptcy law (especially related to student debts) after the 2007 credit crisis (Bear-Stearns takeover by JP Morgan Chase backstopped by the Federal Reserve) but before the 2008 financial meltdown (Lehman Brothers collapse). The Federal Reserve propped up markets for sufficient time (~1.5 years) for most adjustable rate mortgages and credit card debts to reset to higher interest rates to absorb the full impact of the credit quality scare near the beginning of 2007.
Glass-Steagall's return from the dead will cause the bankers heartaches because they will not be able to run highly profitable (head-up banks win and head-down taxpayers lose) off-the-book gambling schemes like some hedge funds do. Of course, hedge funds mostly live or die on their own without government bailouts so they are different from the banks unless the hedge funds become "too big to fail", too.
Revision of the bankruptcy law or sale of underwater properties so the creditors take the losses may help with freeing those people who can have jobs in other parts of the U.S. but are tied down by their not able to sell or walk away from their underwater properties.
I think Glass-Steagall would also transfer the responsibility for the huge debts created by investments in derivatives away from the government and back on to the traders who made those investments, isn't that right?
Something like that may help but it is mostly unworkable because the derivatives are so entangled that it is nearly impossible to unravel the Gordian knot unless governments take Alexander's swipe-of-the-sword approach to it. Governments have NO will power to do that. Time will heal though - give it up to thirty years for the mortgages to be paid off or defaulted and we will be out of shadow of the mess by then. The "elites" did not really see it desirable to unravel the Gordian knot because they were already given government inducements, incentives, and pressures to do so and they refused to comply. They largely used those as additional excuses to entrap borrowers instead of earnestly refinancing the debts.
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It's fine to create jobs when they make sense. But just creating jobs for the sake of jobs alone seems pretty pointless to me. The simple truth is that jobs get replaced with automation at an accelerating rate. It's unrealistic to think we could create enough useful jobs to make up for that.
People don't need jobs, they need a way to make a living.
Yes, making a living and re-circulating the money are needed. The concentration of wealth in the few often kills a healthy economy. The wealthy few simply cannot consume fast enough with a high enough volume to re-circulate the money to the masses. With productivity increasing, there are even more goods available for the same work setups, not to mention automation replacing human workers. Our economic model based on jobs has broken down to an intolerable level. A new model must be found and implemented fast or else chaos will engulf our society.
Many people speak about economics primarily in terms of consumption, but I think it is more important that we think of economics in terms of creation.
Managing the economy as a creative, scientific process would continuously develop whole new industries that people could be employed in. That's what our space program once did for us, it created the aerospace industry, which now is in decline.
We used to be an export country, and now our consumption out weighs our production, we have now become an import country. We have gone from productive to consumptive and now we're reaping it. We have to start thinking of ways to bring money back to our country and stop the consumption binge we've been on for decades.
I agree, we need to become a producer country again.
new economic growth theory...
The U.S. had money galore in the JFK/LBJ days to fund the space program. We are nowhere near that state right now although we still have our innovative ability. It is probably more important to give incentives to entrepreneurs to start new industries. A distributed widespread search may turn out more new things.
We can create as much money as we want to invest in programs. The important thing is that we invest it into the right kinds of programs that would pay off. First we would have to do a bankruptcy reorganization on the existing financial system, like Glass Steagall.
I think a lot of the reason that we had money in the JFK/LBJ days was because Roosevelt did his thing before them.
Creating money can be disastrous if not done with prudence. Mind you that our national debt is about 15 trillion dollars. Scaring investors with creating money will raise interest rates on our national debt. An increase in interest rate of 1% will mean an additional 150 billion dollars a year in interest payment. For 10 years, it will be 1.5 trillion dollars more. On the other hand, if we calm down investors enough through our political/economic kabuki, our savings on the interest payments can be 1.5 trillion dollars in 10 years for 1% decrease in the interest rates. That is more than enough to tell our super-committee searching for >1.2 trillion dollars in savings to retire.
I think it is really the destruction of World War II that let the U.S. have the intact manufacturing base to produce the goods that the world sorely needed so that the U.S. gained the money. Of course the tax rates had to be sufficiently high to allow collection of significant amount of taxes from the post-war economic boom. The trick is to put relatively high tax rates in place and work really hard to revitalize the economy to generate the tax revenue. Everything when done in excess becomes worthless so I do not subscribe to the tax-cut mantra nowadays nor a continuation of the Bush tax cuts but it can work in a different situation. All of that job-killing talk about drastic consequences if the Bush tax cuts were to expire is bogus. We had the cuts for about a decade. We would be drowning in jobs by now if it were so positive in creating jobs.
I think Roosevelt developed a definite competency in the US for manufacturing. What do you think that we have to work really hard at doing to revitalize the economy and generate tax revenue.
I agree that tax cuts in themselves are not really the key to economic growth. There need to be projects that produce significant improvements to the economy.
I agree with you here. I'd like to add though that a lot of corporate fat cats and the super rich don't even live in the U.S. so what they are spending isn't recirculating through our economy. Even those who do live here spend large amounts of American money in other countries. It is a direct funneling of American money out of the hands of Americans.
It is important that we push other countries to re-circulate their money here in the U.S. We may not be able to control the fat cats and the super rich but they may not have the heft anyway. If foreigners spend more money on American goods and services, things will become more balanced and stable. China, for example, in a sense is behaving similarly as the fat cats and the super rich in that they consume overseas but earn in the U.S. The proper way to stabilize things is for China to buy more American goods and services, rather than the U.S. unilaterally printing more money to buy Chinese products. One day, China will realize that all China has got is a bunch of IOUs on fancy paper but they will have a hard time collecting on them as long as the U.S. is militarily stronger.
The catch here is that we would have to go back to being a production country. We are the worlds 3rd largest exporter BUT we are the worlds #1 importer. So not only is our money being spent abroad, we don't sell enough product to cover what we are buying. We are literally spending more than we're making, as a country and as individuals, look at individual credit debt.
We should try to get off of oil. It is the reason why we needed to deploy a global military force that intervened in many Middle-Eastern countries and provoked attacks on our home soil. Even the reason why the multinational corporations can get foreign tax credits to reduce paying taxes to the U.S. is traceable to oil. Our pump price for gasoline excluded the cost of maintaining our global military force but many people in the U.S. probably do not know or care about that at all as long as it is other people's boys and girls dying or getting wounded overseas.
I agree. My husband and eldest son are both veterans. My husband fought in the Gulf war over oil, and my son just returned from Iraq, which we know was over oil. But our dependance on oil will come to an end and not by choice. We have already past peak in our consumption and with the constant increase in population, and drive for more stuff (which uses oil, even in your disposable razor) we will run out of this nonrenewable resource soon enough. And for those who don't believe it, do the research, look past the rhetoric that oil tycoons have out there (including members of our government, past and present). They are "banking" on our collective skepticism keeping us from change long enough to make as money as possible before that bubble pop's.
It is really refreshing that I find someone who understands the blood, sweat, and tears behind our oil. I have never been to the front-line (Thank God and the braves ones among us like your family members!) but I can relate to the chock full of dust and wearing a wet diaper on ones' head to keep cool in Kuwait and Iraq. At first, I laughed at the diapers but on second thought it made a lot of sense; there ARE some smart people in our military force who can improvise even in living hell.
I'd hate to see our standing in the world sink if we tried to flex our military muscle in order to avoid paying our debts...
We definitely should try to avoid doing that if at all possible but it is the "bottom-line", isn't it? It should really provoke thoughts. To quote China's Chairman Mao, "Power comes out of the barrel of a gun." I am sure that the Chinese understand their education.
Actually, there is absolutely no need to flex our military muscle at all. Just print the money needed because that is the term of the IOUs. Whether the money will be worth anything is a whole different matter.
Well, let's hope we can make a difference before the dollar standard is a thing of the past and the only thing between what's left of our system and domination by China is the military.
Amen.
I agree, our population is careening out of control and retirement age keeps going up. It seems like an unrealistic expectation that at the current rate of expansion there can be a job for each able bodied person of working age. So how do people live? There needs to be some form of self sustainability. This is where the brilliant minds need to come together and figure out how to sustain a country, and its people, that cannot provide a job to all of its citizens.
These jobs would indeed "make sense" specifically for the reason that they would generate increased revenue. Having affordable electricity, for example, allows people to do many new commercial activities, which creates wealth for individuals, as well as tax revenue for the state.
Investments in infrastructure are to be made to improve the efficiency of society and the economy. The efficiency facilitates increased activity which generates revenue to pay off the original investment.
Like i said. I'm fine with that if it makes sense. It just will never be enough to account for increasing technical unemployment.
I don't know about that. Remember, technology can make the whole universe available to us, and their are a lot of opportunities in the universe.
In fact, JfK's space program created a lot of high skilled jobs that people had never imagined before. If society is reconfigured to function at a higher level scientifically, I believe it can create an indefinite number of jobs.
Not much more i can add that i didn't say already. So, lets agree to disagree then.
Thank you for the discussion. :)
Thank you as well.
This is an entry from the O.W.S. blog;
I hope this helps all ;
There is unlawful assembly when a judge says there is. They get to interpret things and balance them when your rights conflict with those of someone else. Besides the Occupy movement has been allowed to assemble. The argument arrises over the living arrangements of the groups. ↥like ↧dislike reply permalink [-] ChristopherABrownART5 (Santa Barbara, CA) 2 points 3 days ago
Correct, no violation of law. What is happening is that citizens are trying to defend the constitution, . . . but they don't know it. If they make a demand for an article 5 convention then law enforcement and municipal leaders will have to back off.
Protestors are actually trying to gain acountability for very serious crimes and treason, but they don't know that. They only know the impacts of the crimes and their demands relate to that. Congress has bee violating the constitution for 100 years by failing to convene delegates.
Bill Walker sued all members of congress and learned quite a bit. Video and general resources on article 5.
http://algoxy.com/poly/article_v_convention.html
Lessig power point on article V http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gpbfY-atMk
Lots of facts here about Article V. http://algoxy.com/poly/article_v_convention.html
Article V conference, Lawrence Lessig at harvard 9/25/11-other attendee video comments http://vimeo.com/31464745 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-7ikbvu0Y8
We need to Occupy Congress and put them on notice with a petition of greivance. That starts the clock ticking on the 45 day contractual period of notice for them to begin to call state delegates for a convention to propose amendments.
This is a letter that actually cites the violations of law that congress is conducting at this moment having neglected, non feased and mal feased for so long we are seriously needing to engage remedy. This could be legitimately be used to Occupy Congress in constructive notice.
Then go to the state
http://articlevconvention.org/showthread.php?3-Letter-to-your-Representatives
Now it comes to finding who understands that protests need to be organized upon states legislatures. They need to understand some legal aspects too. Here is a letter template, resolution form that can be sent to state legislatures asking them to work for an article V convention.
http://articlevconvention.org/showthread.php?10-Templates-Letter-to-State-Representatives-request-for-house-resolution
Article 5 is our first and last constitutional right. If we don't use it now, we will not have any rights.
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Why limit government job creation to infrastructure development? The government should use state capitalism to create more jobs. Let the government open up businesses.
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Consider me skeptical of Keynesian economics. I suppose that massive infrastructure projects might give benefits, but eventually we'd have to pay the bill.
But then, our corrupt Congress decided to bail out the "too big too fail" financial institutions. So infrastructure spending would certainly be better than that.
Let's get rid of ridiculous trade agreements that have gutted our industry in the name of attaining a "post industrial society".
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Jobs are Obsolete:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/09/labour-markets
http://www.rushkoff.com/blog/2011/9/7/cnncom-are-jobs-obsolete.html
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-09-07/opinion/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete_1_toll-collectors-robots-jobs?_s=PM:OPINION
http://www.alternet.org/story/152383/are_jobs_on_their_way_to_becoming_obsolete_and_is_that_a_good_thing/
http://www.metafilter.com/107212/Are-jobs-obsolete
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124251060
We have been:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/if-the-rich-are-jobs-creators-where-are-the-jobs/
The distributed nature of renewable energies necessitates collaborative rather than hierarchical command and control mechanisms. This new lateral energy regime establishes the organizational model for the countless economic activities that multiply from it. A more distributed and collaborative industrial revolution, in turn, invariably leads to a more distributed sharing of the wealth generated.
Three of the four largest companies in the world today are oil companies — Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, and BP. Underneath these giant energy companies are five hundred global companies representing every sector and industry — with a combined revenue of $22.5 trillion, which is the equivalent of one-third of the world’s $62 trillion GDP — that are inseparably connected to and dependent on fossil fuels for their very survival.
The oil business is one of the largest industries in the world. It’s also the most costly enterprise for collecting, processing, and distributing energy ever conceived. Virtually all of the other critical industries that emerged from the oil culture and feed off of the fossil fuel spigot — modern finance, automotive, power and utilities, and telecommunications — were, in one way or another, similarly predisposed to bigness in order to achieve their own economies of scale. And, like the oil industry, they require huge sums of capital to operate and are organized in a centralized fashion.
Sign a State Constitutional Amendment for Renewable Energy Targets!
Put the discredited oil & gas industry out of business. We can create our own energy – right here and now. We can create a new collaborative lateral energy regime owned and created by the people.
The problem is massive inequality. For prosperity to endure it needs to be shared. Mass production, demands mass consumption, but people can’t afford to consume if the wealth an economy generates is concentrated at the top. In consequence, as in a poker game, where the chips are concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other people can stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit runs out, the game stops.
Get us out of the WTO,GATT,NAFTA,CAFTA,KORUS,Columbian FTA,Panamanian FTA and we will do much better. http://economyincrisis.org/content/protectionism-mater-self-survival-if-we-ever-intend-regain-any-semblance-american-dream
I have a plan that would create more jobs than economists could dream of... If I'm right... Give it a read...http://occupywallst.org/forum/yourtopia-your-official-final-beginning-perhaps-no/
No. Just no. That project will NEVER get approval from British Columbia, or Canada. Even if it did you better believe we're charging an obscene royalty for every liter. We also don't need more jobs out west. Heck, we have to build 1.5 million beds in the next five years just to accomadate the oil workers. Why would we pull all those workers from the patch in order to build a water system we have no use whatsoever for?
I believe if you if you want to create jobs it is going to cost us alot of money just to give people some work to do.If you want to give people more secure jobs and help the system you need to focus on numbers and FDR's administations creations,such as Social Security program.The avg.retiree makes about 15% less than the person on unemployment. So why aren't we trying to lower the age of retirement instead of raising it?That comes out to about 5 billion dollars savings for about 2 million people exchanging jobs.Not counting what it does for the economy as far as spending,and taxes.
Since we are dealing with a world economy then all of the borders in every country that participates in it should open to allow us to migrate freely all over the world. its a stretch, I know, but in America we are already flooded with immigrants so why not allow the citizens the ability to migrate to other countries without resistance from that country?
We need to teach new generations of high school students basic business skills. This is not so much job creation as it is passing on basic survival skills. When there are no jobs, people can be their own employers.
The Department of Education to work with State and local governments to incorporate the teaching of basic business and entrepreneurial skills into the curriculum for all high school students.
This could be a one term course with topics on basic marketing, customer service, how to write a business plan, basic bookkeeping, and basic leadership skills.
We need to teach future generations of Americans that they be their own employer and imbue them with the skills to survive as such.
These are useful survival skills whatever the students vocation, whether it is a scientist, an engineer, an artist, a musician, a physician, a nurse, a mechanic, a cashier, or even a secretary,
This is not so much a job creation program as an investment program.
You are absolutely correct! I would like to see this implemented so people could have the skills necessary to market their talents. Even better would be a civics class that teaches media literacy and shows how voters and consumers are manipulated by various propaganda techniques, how the messages are geared toward appealing to our emotions, and how our shortness of attention span and shallowness in thinking truncate the possibility of reaching rational conclusions. The world is truly a bewildering place if one views it only through a slit and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle governs our conclusions.
But if people have business skills, and the consumers have no money, we still have the same problem, right?
We need something that will provide the money to consumers so they can buy what your business men would be selling. I think big infrastructure projects would provide good paying jobs to millions of people, and would pay themselves off by improving the economy.
They may have not money in their immediate vicinity, but they have ingenuity, and there's always money somewhere. The money may just be overseas. With the right skills we can travel and work overseas if need be.
I don't see the point of infrastructure projects just for the sake of creating jobs. The big examples given of such projects are building new passenger rail systems and resurfacing roads and bridges. I think these will end up being a waste of money. That sounds like spending rather than investing. When money is scarce we need to spend and invest wisely.
Building a high speed rail system would be like me building a swimming pool in my back yard. It creates jobs but it won't increase the value of my home because the rest of the neighborhood is crummy. It's just a waste of money. The return on investment is very low.
Instead of job creation, we need to be talking about investing in our future.
Yes invest in infrastructure, but spending tons of money to create jobs to get slightly improved roads is a waste of money and not investment. The traffic log jams is enough to decrease productivity and decrease GDP.
We need to choose the right projects.
See other comment below: http://occupywallst.org/forum/why-not-discuss-job-creation/#comment-421632
I believe that the reason why certain countries, like China, have money is because they invest in infrastructure, and that if we did the same here, such business men would find more opportunities here, as well as abroad.
The point of infrastructure development is not just to create jobs, but to raise the whole society to a higher level of efficiency. If this were to be done on national level, it would improve the entire area of the US.
I think NAWAPA is a great idea. The Third World War, heaven forbid, will probably be over potable water, or access to it. We can live without oil, but without water we will die in about 4 days.
Not 4 days but about 7 days. Nevertheless, your priority is absolutely correct. Water should be near the top of our priority list. Re-routing the Keystone XL oil pipeline to avoid the aquifer used for agriculture in Nebraska is a great idea. NAWAPA seems gargantuan in scope and will go through a foreign country (Canada). Did we make sure that the water will be almost completely gravity-driven all the way to the Colorado River? Any pumping of water will be very expensive. The environmental costs will be humongous. Not to mention that our political system will most likely produce the greatest dry trench on planet Earth because we simply will not have the will or staying power to make it work. It may end up being the most fitting monument to the once-greatest country on Earth on a par with the great pyramids of Egypt that will be visible from space and for millenia hereafter by all.
You raised good points. It occurred to me after more thought that we need to look at the environmental costs of NAWAPA as well, or to put it another way, to look at the total cost of the project and not only to humans immediately.
I think NAWAPA would be a boon to the environment all over the US. Much of the water that it would bring would be distributed all over the US as rainfall, benefiting both agricultural land and natural areas. It would also replenish our underground water supplies which are rapidly being exhausted.
Protecting our underground water supplies and improving irrigation practice to reduce water usage and salination of the soil should take precedence over NAWAPA. Expanding the water supply with a gargantuan project looks glorious for a politician (LaRouche) but we should think about any hidden costs, too.
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Glad to hear this interests you, I think we need more people here talking about job creation.
I think job creation is the wrong route to go. I think it's best to acknowledge why the jobs are leaving (in my opinion: due to automation) and then focus on changing our society to adjust to the new paradigm.
Maybe you've seen some of my posts before? Here's a link to a recent thread I started: http://occupywallst.org/forum/jobs-are-becoming-obsolete-due-to-advances-in-tech/
Thanks for your comment. I'd like to suggest though that a creative, scientific approach could open up whole new industries, employing many workers. The space program, for example, created the aerospace industry which provided a lot of well paid employment.
I think we need to rebuild our scientific and technical capacities to create new jobs that nobody has imagined before.
You're welcome! I think so too in the short run, but I think they would eventually be phased out, in the long run, due to automation as well. I agree that we need to focus more on scientific industries and there's no logical reason why we're not, aside for the cost. As a society, instead of thinking 'how much does it cost?', we need to think in terms of 'do we have the resources?'
Yes, but as some jobs are phased out, new discoveries could phase new jobs in. And concerning the resources, we can create as much money as we need, the important thing is that it be invested in the right projects that will create a return on the investment.
Cool! Are you familiar with a resource based economy? Here's a pretty good video explaining it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDhSgCsD_x8
From what little I just read on NAWAPA, given my professional experience working for years in water-related projects, this astronomical scale type of project will fail.
I support local domestic jobs that do not rely on other countries. I currently live in a city where timber companies bid for contracts to ship lumber to China. Well, China figured out they did not need a "middle man" anymore (the lumber mill) and only bids on raw lumber. Mills are letting people go or shutting down. All we ship are raw logs. My point - Getting into a contract with a foreign country does not necessarily mean more jobs, it can mean less jobs.
My husband is a lumber grader and says your right on here, they are buying our trees and milling them in China. We also support local business and this is where the new jobs should come from. We don't need big business to create jobs if we can come together in our communities and start figuring out how to get people to work.
Yes, small is beautiful because it can be done very quickly without fuss. The big businesses are frozen stiff. Small communities must take over and lead.
Like to get in touch with you and your hubby, Crystal. John (my hubby) and and I are on http://www.facebook.com/LizandJohni
I will send you a FB message
I believe NAWAPA was originally envisioned by the army corp of engineers during JFK's presidency. Those people with years or decades of experience thought that it would be feasible.
A lot of these ideas are not practical, and exporting high tech beyond a designated level falls under national security laws. It's illegal. A lot of lower level technology has either been sold or leased overseas, then the products sold back to us.
Federally sponsored infrastructure repairs should provide short term jobs, but IMO a major restructuring needs to be done for the long term.
Tax breaks that give corporations an incentive to move jobs overseas need to be removed. I'm sure that you're aware that there were corporate entities that paid $0 in corporate income taxes while making huge profits overseas? We're rewarding them to take both money and jobs out of the U.S.
W/o federal subsidies, you can't expect corporations to invest too heavily in alternate energy. If there was a profit in it, don't you think they'd already be doing it? The investment put into alternate energy by most countries is being done to reduce their dependence on foreign oil. Depending on which figures you look at, we're the second largest producer of oil, but consume the most. According to the CIAs figures, we produce almost 11% of the worlds production, but use 25% of the total production. This is the fault of ALL of us. There's absolutely no reason for the energy companies to invest in alternate energy when they're making a killing in oil already.
I'm a big fan of automation, but it's a huge mistake to rely on automation when it's purpose is to solely replace people. It never creates as many jobs as it eliminates. We should understand this by now.
I believe the high tech trade ban is counter productive. In its thousands of years of history, China has never pursued an aggressive war against the west. I think these regulations are just intended, by big corporations, to keep both the US and China down.
I don't think that developing new energies sources should be done on a for profit basis. I think they should be financed by a national bank that doesn't make profit for private owners. Instead, the whole economy would profit from the increased efficiency and the creation of jobs.
To generate domestic jobs in the U.S., the coal-producing states that blocked the building of electricity transmission lines out of the upper Mid-Western states need to loosen up their stranglehold. Wind-produced electricity must of necessity be generated most-cost-efficiently by domestically produced wind turbines. The efficient turbines are too big to fit into most container ships and the construction jobs to erect the transmission lines must also be domestic. Coal is strangling wind power in our Mid-West by preventing electric power getting out of North Dakota to Chicago, for example. A national consensus needs to overcome this roadblock. China is probably laughing about this most-American states' rights stupidity but when the effect of anthropogenic global warming hits China, China may really cry.
Concerning energy, I would recommend solving the problems of nuclear energy primarily. Much has done to reduce the amount of nuclear waste generated as well as recycling the waste into useful products, such as nuclear medicine.
As higher technologies become available, there would be more ways to eliminate nuclear waste as well, such as the "fusion torch", a tool that would incinerate nuclear waste.
Fission energy can be an important component in our energy mix but after Fukushima it is next to impossible to convince people to sign on to it. The U.S. still does not have a national repository for nuclear wastes after so many decades and billions of dollars spent. Again, it is a lack of national will that we can really showcase to the world with big holes in the mountains and in our pocketbook. At Fukushima, the retained nuclear wastes were the source of much radiation leak but people probably viewed that as being safer than transporting the wastes as long as no leaks occur (which is very true indeed as so many disasters showed that they were "first of a kind" but really rhymed with history - the Japanese near Fukushima who heeded their ancestors' stone-carved warnings escaped the tsunami).
I myself have lost quite a bit of faith of passing on our knowledge to our younger generations therefore many distributed nuclear waste sites that need to be monitored for 10000 years will experience the breakdown of civilization much sooner than that. We cannot even get any coherent national consensus out of our Congress now. I see that the nuclear sites will be abandoned as soon as no one wants to pay for the monitoring.
As I understand, one cannot incinerate radioactivity because atoms are close to indestructible. I just looked up "fusion torch". Its assuming a fusion reactor will be its downfall. We will most likely never see an economical fusion reactor in the next 50 years. How will they regenerate the fusion fuel? If it takes energy to make energy, the process of extracting energy from the fusion reaction had better be really efficient.
Despite what happened at Fukushima, I think that you will see that countries like China are going to continue going full speed ahead with developing nuclear power plants. They plan to build quite a few.
Russia and other Asian countries are also quite actively developing nuclear power. If they continue do so, hopefully it will be a positive demonstration to the world of what is possible.
Good for them but the nuclear-waste problem remains and will only get worse because China seems tectonically more vulnerable than the U.S. to severe earthquakes. Perhaps they will go with it until they have a Fukushima/Chernobyl moment and then abandon it, too.
I don't think the Japanese will abandon nuclear, unless you know something that I don't know. Hopefully problems related to earthquakes can be solved. There is more capacity to predict earthquakes than most people are aware of. With advance notice perhaps they could shut the things down before they are damaged.
Automatic shutdown is not sufficient. At Fukushima, the necessity for months-long continued cooling of the shutdown reactors was the real problem. Radioactivity from atoms proceed at their own rates virtually immune to any attempt to shut them down. Japanese will not abandon nuclear because the choice is very clear when the lights go out, people will tolerate nuclear. I just think that the volatile political climate will make it virtually impossible to retain the technical ability to build nuclear power plants for long. Then nuclear will be abandoned for good even if Japanese change their minds.
I see, well, perhaps the technology can advance to the point at which it will be easier to shut down. And there is the possibility of eventually getting to fusion energy, which wouldn't have the same waste problems as fission. I've even heard that matter/anti-matter reactions are being considered as the next quantum leap in energy production.
I mean, if we don't maintain our ability to generate power, we'll eventually go back to the "dark" ages, right?
To tweak radioactivity coming from atomic nuclei, we need something like protons, neutrons, or gamma rays - all of them can make more radioactive isotopes and all of them in ray form can cause cancers. We can bombard the long-lived isotopes and perhaps convert them to the short-lived ones and wait them out but that is unrealistic for the big core of a nuclear reactor. Besides, we do not have much control over what new isotopes are created. If we had the power to generate these nuclear-interacting rays, we would have had the power to keep the water pumps going to avert meltdowns in the first place.
Fusion energy production will very likely have the same nuclear waste problem as fission because producing tritium using nuclear-interacting rays will inevitably create radioactive wastes because these rays cause "cancers" in materials, too, i.e., make them brittle, crumble, and radioactive. Collection of the fusion energy produced will need large amount of material which will become radioactive but there is no way around that because the released energy is mostly in the fast-moving neutrons. Extraction and concentration of tritium will also create more radioactive wastes.
Matter/anti-matter reactions are not realistic energy sources because we do not have antimatter readily available. To make antimatter consumes energy but if you have energy to begin with why not simply use that because cycling your energy through antimatter will only reduce the amount of energy that you have available.
There are many schemes for energy production but most of them just let you buy a 70-cent coupon for a dollar so that you, while standing at the check-out counter, can brag to the world how smart you are that you are getting a 70-cent discount. Remember hydrogen-powered cars? Are they widespread? Where is our "hydrogen economy"? Politicians love these schemes because many people are clueless about the dollar spent to get the coupon. Researchers also love them because they will provide gainful employment. The best research jobs are eternal research jobs that have unreachable but promising goals. Try converting the wood ash from your fireplace into wood and oxygen and burn those to keep warm in the winter. That makes as much sense as many energy-production schemes touted by politicians.
We must maintain our ability to generate power to avoid going back to the "dark" ages but our financial and political types will come up with hare-brained schemes to save us a buck or make us feel good in the short run and drive us off a cliff in the long run.
Sounds like you know a lot about science. Are you a scientist or engineer, or just interested in it?
I was "interested in it" but not "just" - I learnt long time ago that our modern world's foundation IS science and engineering. Those who understand "it" hold the key to our modern world. Understanding the scientific method allowed me to transcend my upbringing. Yes, I can be conversant in religious matters but I now understand those simply as mental models of reality just like finance is just a model. Religions and finance (even science and engineering to a smaller extent) are often subject to propaganda because they are just models and should be treated as such, revised and discarded as needed to fit reality.
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With regard to NAWAPA, then in Russia, the water even more. And, if to hold the water to Central Asia, it would be beneficial and for Russia - the our climate would become softer. But this is nonsense! ... And about unemployment, I have already written. http://occupywallst.org/forum/world-financial-crisis-and-unemployment/
The projects in Russia could also be connected to the projects in America by a bridge over or a tunnel under the Bering strait. Such a route would be primarily for bullet trains, but could also exchange electricity, gas and oil.
Who would be taking the bullet trains? Alaska and Siberia are very much no-man's land. Few people would want to go long distance on trains (unless you were the North Korean dictator) instead of flying. Both have too many similarities such as abundant gas and oil. An exchange of electricity can be helpful because of the different time zones so generating capacities can be shared for mutual benefits but building the transmission line would be a major undertaking that few would fund.
These trains would connect all of Eurasia with both of the Americas. So the Chinese could visit Argentina by train if they wanted to take the scenic route. Actually, such trains may be used more for trade than travel, being able to carry certain kinds of products faster than ships and cheaper than airplanes.
I lived in China for a while, and there are already trains there that are taking customers away from the airlines because they are cheaper and more convenient. And you are right about sharing the electricity.
China's trains connect major population centers competing against somewhat poor road infrastructure and there is the population density for enough well-to-do customers to exist. Depending on customers loving scenic route is not likely going to work. Our Amtrak service is more scenic but really slow and inconvenient relative to our car-centered travels. Needless to say it becomes another showcase of our national ability to sink money into things that people do not want.
The bullet train idea may not work for arctic climate due to the freezing and thawing cycles damaging the rails or their supports. To go fast, the rails had better be straight and flat but the arctic winter and summer would do drastic damage to any infrastructure. I see major long-term maintenance cost that will eventually do the business in.
In China, there is a new train route from Guangzhou to Wuhan. It used to take a full day by train, but now takes about four hours. Its taking customers away from the airlines.
There are some people who are very serious about the Bering Strait project, you might want to read some of the following articles to know more about it:
Bering Strait Tunnel Will Be Largest Rail Project Ever http://www.larouchepac.com/node/1558
Bering Strait Great Project on the Agenda This Year http://www.larouchepac.com/node/15587
Shanghai Expo Prize Goes to Bering Strait Tunnel Project http://www.larouchepac.com/node/16092
First, amazingly great idea. It should be done.
But to address the core of the problem....
I would do 2 things.
Eliminate the federal matching tax all employers have to pay for their employees.
Raise taxes on the 1% to maintain the same level of revenue.
Contrary to popular belief, (FOX NEWS), not everyone who makes more than a million dollars a year is a job creating money machine. It's more like 18%, and half of them may be counting nannies and gardeners as the jobs they created.
Raising import tariffs just doesn't work. It's protectionism, it invites retaliation in the trade market, The market in the US is very large, everyone wants to sell to Americans. We have lots of money to throw around, compared to most other countries, but,...and that's a big but, other markets are truly emerging.
It won't be long until companies sell their products every where on the planet, except here, if the cost is too high.
Markets need to be open, trade should be fair, and all will come together.
Why would you loons want to even discuss job creation, that is the last thing you losers would ever want, is a job
Considering the number of posts here, I guess you must be mistaken about that. And by the way, I have a job.
Ultimately talk of job creation is not the right thing. There is no point creating jobs just for the sake of creating jobs. That's like hiring people to do nothing, and that's just a waste of money.
When money is scarce, as it is now for state and federal governments, then we would be wise to spend carefully. The world has been happy to lend us a ton of money, and we should put that money to use in sound investments.
Fixing a few pot holes by resurfacing large stretches of road is waste of money. Instead we need to be thinking of where to put money in future growth industries that will give the best return for our tax dollars.
I don't unfortunately have any good answers to this, but NAWAPA that you suggested seems like a good ideas.
I agree about the make-work kinds of jobs, but do believe that we could create work that actually improves the economy, like the NAWAPA project.
Have you read my article called " Could high speed rail be the answer". This could be a 20 to 30 year project. That could pay for itself and bring millions of jobs. This could be a massive public works project. Like the Hoover Dam and we could leave contractors out of it to keep the cost down.And since corporations like GM , Firestone and Exxon Mobile all colluded together to bribe politicians to stop this kind of project from being built the last century then why not get them to pay for it.
That's exactly the kind of project we need. And if by "high speed rail" you mean magnetic levitation trains, that would be even better. That's the kind of train like they have in Shanghai that doesn't have wheels and "flies" on a magnetic field.
We could finance this by creating credit. Creating money is not a bad thing if it is invested in the right kinds of projects that pay themselves off.
Yes Ive heard something about this where the magnetic field underneath highways supply the energy needed to move the trains and to build it along the highways would reduce the cost of eminent domain. Its to bad we have chickenhawks screaming over the radio about how horrible High Speed Rail is and that it would cost to much . Who cares about the cost when we could get the whole population working again.This is something we could leave our children that they would be really proud of.
Here's a nice video on the Shanghai maglev:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT-mVT-ORww
Just imagine if we were to build a bunch of these running across America.
I don't have the answers, but I believe global commerce is moving away from roads and rail. Instead we need to spend money to build our next generation of Internet infrastructure, super high speed internet, including wireless internet in cities.
When money is scarce, investing wisely is important. Building a high speed rail system would not be investing, it would be unbridled spending. Someone in the Obama administration must have spent too much time in Europe.
Rather than building a completely new transportation system such as high speed rail, we should should enhance and build on currently available transportation systems such as air transportation, new equipment, improve airports, etc. revamp roads for better bus service, ramp-up incentives to encourage bus transportation in cities, etc. build bus terminals in suburbs with easy/free parking, etc.
Buy foreclosed homes to create low cost housing for students who are US citizens or PR's. An educated workforce is a large part of our future.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/why-not-discuss-job-creation/#comment-419449
The Chinese have been making substantial investments in high speed rail, and I believe they are doing this to literally distribute more of the wealth around the country. I think these kinds of investments are responsible for the growth we see in China while our western countries continue in decline.
The investment returns from high speed rail are not only extremely risky but not realizable in the near future. Those are both signs of bad investment risk.
If we want a better return on our tax dollars, we would be better off looking at our strengths, and putting money into those strengths. Our transportation strengths are air transportation and road transportation.
We will see a much quicker and greater return on investment by beefing up those areas. Hire more people to do security checks. It should not take more than a 30 minutes wait to go through security at an airport, from arriving at an airport to boarding a plane. That will increase productivity all around. The less time we spend at the airport the more time we can spend working productively producing income.
What is good for China is not necessarily good for the USA. China has next to no aerospace industry or know-how, but she has an existent rail industry. The natural choice for her is therefore to invest in rail.
Aerospace is one of our competitive advantages. Further it has a substantial barrier to entry. The railroads is no longer one of our competitive advantages (look at China, France's TGV, Bombardier (Canadian), the list goes on, the major rail companies are European.) We should be poring the money that would go into a high speed rail into aerospace instead.
Automobiles are (or were) another of our strengths. One possible investment would be more R&D to create better cars and buses. (I'm not up on the most recent research in the automotive industry, but maybe someone who is can chime in.)
Robotics maybe another example. Healthcare is another of our strengths. There are many things we are good at. High speed rail is not one of them.
We need to look carefully at our strengths, our competitive advantages and build on those, because those strengths will provide the best return on investments.
Trying to build an whole new industry such as rail where there are many foreign competitors just for the sake for creating jobs, is not only economically nonsensical, but profligate.
I think that looking for quick buck short term investments is what has caused a lot of the financial problems we face today. Big infrastructure projects should take decades to pay off, but this is just the way that real growth works.
I believe high speed rail is more efficient than either cars or airplanes. In China there was a train route from Guangzhou to Wuhan that took about 12 hours. Now that it has been replaced with high speed rail, it takes about 4 hours. So a lot of the airline passengers that used to fly this route are taking the train, because it is cheaper and more convenient.
The US is close to the size of China, so I believe many of the transportation needs would be comparable.
The idea would be to retool our auto industry to make trains. I think we could be the best in the world at this if we chose to.
Guess I just don't agree with you about that.
Sorry to hear you disagree, but I believe my business instincts are correct on this. To use the similar geographic size of China and US as a plug as to why high speed rail will work in the US is folly. More important factors are population density. China and Europe have higher population densities that can support large scale mass transit.
Just look at the history of the US. So yes, the Chinese came in droves to build the US railroads, but it has languished since. It would do well to look at the historical failure of passenger rail in the US, before we repeat that failure.
I am sure it was an oversight on your part, but return on investment is measured not only in terms of time to project payoff, but also the the amount of payoff, the net present value is the determining factor. Investing in industries that we have competitive advantages in such as aerospace will not only produce a quicker return than investing in high speed rail, but will continue to do so, when compared over the same time periods.
Yes big infrastructure will take a long time to pay off. But given a choice between a payoff of $1B in 30 years or $1B in 2 years, only a fool would opt for the payoff in 30 years, because we can take the $1B in 2 years and reinvest it to make even more in the following 2 years, and the following 2 years, and the following....
The White House economists have incredibly, incredibly poor business judgement, even the ones with John Bates Clark prizes. There's a reason why we are not further along out of the ditch of depression already: they are a part of the problem. (I'm not saying they got us in the ditch, but if they keep pushing high-speed rail, they would have mortgaged off the lives of future generations of Americans.)
Retool the auto industry to make trains? Why not retool the auto the auto industry to make the best cars? A square plug is made for a square hole.
By the way, if you've heard of Lyndon Larouche, I imagine you probably hate him, most people here seem to. But I like his thoughts on high speed rail. You might want to take a look at some of his articles on this topic:
Rebuilding U.S. Rail System Is Top Priority - http://www.larouchepac.com/node/14735
Build Rail, Maglev for Fast, Safe Transport - http://www.larouchepac.com/node/14729
Congress’s Mission for Bankrupt Auto: Build U.S.A. Electrified Rail Network - http://www.larouchepac.com/node/14733
42,000 Miles of Rail - http://www.larouchepac.com/node/14736
China Proposes to Build High-Speed Rail in the United States - http://www.larouchepac.com/node/14150
I might add that rail is very important in the US, but the importance is for commerce: freight not passengers.
Quote: China Proposes to Build High-Speed Rail in the United States -
It occurred to me that if the Obama admin gets its way with high speed rail, it wouldn't really create American jobs, but more Chinese and european jobs, the major train and rail companies are overseas as I mentioned.
This would be like the new Martin Luther King Memorial. Not only was the sculptor from China, most of the workers and even the stone were Chinese.
I don't think we need more cars on the highway, I think most people would like to see less. Commuter trains could help us cut down on traffic jams quite a bit. Too many people are wasting hours a day on the highways that they could be spending with their families.
Personally, I suspect the languishing of the railways was due to subversion by the auto or oil industries.
I guess I don't even think of these industries in terms of profit making, at least not for the private owners of some company. I think the payoff would be more in terms of jobs created and improvements to the economy.
I understand the concerns about having too many cars on the roadways, conservation and pollution being two of them. But wouldn't buses are a better alternative to trains? Airplanes would be better a better alternative too. They make use of existing infrastructure. Put more money into making better buses and airplanes.
Regarding traffic jams: why not spend money on improving the commute? Coordinated traffic lights, wider roads, buses for commuters, incentives for using buses, HOV lanes with penalties, etc..
But again we need to look at why buses have not succeeded in the US.
Quote: "I think the payoff would be more in terms of jobs created and improvements to the economy."
That goes back to my original point: spending money for the sake of job creation is wasteful. We are not necessarily talking about profits. We are talking about spending wisely. Who is paying for high speed rail? Tax payers of course. Before we spend someone else hard earned money, we need to be responsible enough to make sure we give them good value.
I am not against job creation or infrastructure spending. I am against public investment in high speed rail in the US, because my contention is high speed rail will not improve the economy as much as a similar investment in aerospace or cars and buses.
Re: "subversion by the auto or oil industries." I think the simpler explanation is that cars and oil are relatively cheap in the US compared to the rest of the world. I can speak from experience having lived in Europe and Asia and the Americas.
Here are some of Larouche's thoughts on suppression of high speed rail:
But our national highway system, as a mode of transport, is inefficient and backward relative to modern rail. Tens of billions of tons of freight must be taken off the roads, and put onto rails. The move away from railroads began at the end of World War II, when the financier oligarchs, in alliance with the oil cartel, the highway lobby, and real estate interests, enforced a policy of suppressing high-speed rail and maglev development, in favor of insanely high levels of petroleum-powered truck and car traffic.
These are some thoughts on damage done by trucks to the highways:
The damage that trucks inflict on roads and bridges is beyond most people’s imagination. The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHTO), has developed a function for the relation of axle weight (or truck weight) to pavement damage. According to the AASHTO, a five-axle tractor semi trailer truck, fully loaded and weighing 80,000 pounds, does the same amount of damage to a roadway’s pavement as 10,500 cars, with each car weighing 3,000 pounds. Thus, even though the cars weighed 31.5 million pounds, the single 80,000 pound truck did as much damage. The AASHTO study showed that as the weight of a truck would increase arithmetically, the damage to the pavement would increase by a power function; e.g., increasing the weight of the 80,000 pound truck by one-fourth, increases the damage by 200% (threefold). It is the concentration of the weight at each axle, that transmits the damage.
"Best example of job creation is Roosevelt and the new Deal"? Really? The best?
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the private sector is the best place for "job creation"? There can only be so many public projects supported by tax dollars.
"Job creation" is a consequence of economic activity, mainly in the private sector. As long as this administration is intent on destroying private business, unemployment will hover around 9%.
According to our constitution, it is the responsibility of the government to promote the common good. The purpose of a corporation is to serve a private good. Why don't we let the government and corporations do the things that it is their purposes to do?
Economic development is the greatest of the common goods, since it provides the revenue that is necessary for all worthy causes, so it should be the first priority of the government..
Government projects like NAWAPA would in any event create millions of good paying jobs for the public sector, who would pay taxes on their increased income which would pay these projects off.
Jobs are so passe maaan; part of the old system, like politicians and campaign reform. We're too busy burnin' it all down, duuude!
~cough~ power to the people! ~coff~coff~