What the gilded people who are claiming that workers are responsible for the problem are missing is exactly why Henry Ford gave his workers a 20% raise above standard wages at the time. If your workers are making money, then they can buy your product. Raising Ford workers’ wages put pressure on other people to follow so that more people were able to live a middle class life. When on the other hand, the gilded people suck off all the profits for themselves (as has been occurring in the last several decades), then normal people don’t have the money to buy stuff so the whole system goes to hell.

For the last six years the “News” spent more time announcing Brittney’s latest meltdown, and stuff about Paris Hilton’s new “accessory” pet. That is, when they weren’t pushing the miracles of home ownership and infinite credit.

Though I must admit the economy is now newsworthy. And they are somewhat more “honest” about it.

They said we could leave the potholes. That wouldn’t cost the City anything in actual cash. However, it contributed to damages to automobiles and their tires of about $365,000 per year! That in turn led to missed days of work, lower productivity among workers, and in some cases, actually eroded the tax base. The problems with the streets also led to decisions by new companies not to either locate here or build here because of the ‘infrastructure’ problems – an estimated loss of about $127,000 in city revenue per year.

Cost to fix the potholes? $86,700.

Infrastructure – yes!

That bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis? Instead of repairing the bridge at a cost of maybe $20-35 million, got a whole new bridge for $587 million. Plus the cost of lawsuits from the killed people and injured ones as well. Plus the cost of re-routing all the traffic in lost time, wages, fuel both gas and diesel, wages for professional drivers, and Who knows what else.

We have reportedly 137 more bridges that are just like that, in some cases worse, and it is just a matter of time before one of them collapses. And in some cases it would be better to build a brand new state of the art bridge like this than repair the old one that is probably overstressed by traffic loads 3-10 times the design capabilities.

Infrastructure – yes!

My list for investment and good returns:

Roads and Bridges
Rebuild electrical grid using newest technology
along with this – build in better more far-reaching broadband capability
use undergrounding of most wiring into existing right-of-ways.
Rebuild our rail system
Double rail systems so passenger trains have a dedicated rail separate from freight.
Use high-speed rail for intracity travel in heavily congested and heavily traveled corridors (Boston, NYC,DC) (Houston,Ft Worth,Dallas) for example.
School construction. Rebuild schools that are more than 50 years old (we have thousands of these!) using green technology.
Rehab schools that are less than 50 years old – including expansions if they have ‘trailerhouse’ classrooms on campus
Modernize major ports, including set up to power docked ships from land to reduce diesel exhaust
Help with construction of wind farms, solar farms, algae farms, etc.
Help with decommissioning old nuke plants (like Humboldt Bay in California)
Begin ‘Medicare for All’ by fully funding SCHIP and providing a mechanism whereby kids never age out of the system and each year reduce the age by one year of those eligible at the upper end. The gap will close over a few years – allowing transition for the insurance companies out of the business and allowing the financing to keep up with the new added population (yes everyone pays premiums for this)

That’s my list.

Mumbai rocked by deadly attacks

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7751160.stm

Aloha,
Bob

And please don’t neglect to follow the link on the “Overton Window.”

This is an important contribution, IMHO.

Bob in HI