From: jwh@citi.umich.edu (Jim Howe)
Subject: Re: YYYEEEEESSSSSSS!!!
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 09:00:59 EST
Organization: IFS Project, University of Michigan
Reply-To: jwh@citi.umich.edu

In article <1992Nov13.193441.8685@cs.ucla.edu>, frazier@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Gregory Frazier) writes:
|> Jim Howe (jwh@citi.umich.edu) wrote:
|> : In article <1992Nov12.205226.22312@vexcel.com>, dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
|> : |>
|> : |> Two comments on this.  If intelligent investments are made in a variety
|> : |> of infrastructure, then the efficiency of production will increase
|> : |> and productivity along with it and this leads to more jobs than just
|> : |> those directly involved with the government spending.  
|> : 
|> : What makes government employees any better judge of what makes a good
|> : investment than someon in the private sector.  A person in the private
|> : sector has a real incentive to invest in something that will yield a
|> : real return.
|> 
|> A person in the private sector only has the incentive to invest in
|> that which will directly benefit himself.  A bridge costs gazillions
|> of dollars, and will benefit no indivicual by nearly that amount.

However you are ignoring business.  Businesses may find it beneficial
to make infrastructure investments to lower their overall costs.  Of
course, if they can get government to do it they certainly won't take
on the task themselves.  In addition, certain laws may prevent different
coporations from pooling together lest they be guilty of antitrust laws.
The key point is that government will only invest in what is *politically*
popular, not what is necessarily economical needed.  Politicians want
to spend money on high profile items like bullet trains where spending
on more mundane items may be what is really needed.

|> Infrastructure construction and maintenance is clearly (to me, at
|> least), a responsibility of gov't, and one that has been neglected
|> for too many years.  

I've seen people claim this but I would like to see some examples.
In my state I haven't seen wholesale decay of roads and bridges.
I don't see goods being unable to move because of decaying 'infrastructure'.
If anything, the problem is more likely due to local politics than
anything else.

|> I'd much rather see our highway system, railroads,
|> sewage treatment, etc., maintained that see welfare distributed,
|> and if the people the gov't hires to maintain this stuff are people
|> who would have otherwise been on welfare, so much the better. 

However that isn't the case.  The people who get hire are generally
skilled and semi-skilled construction workers, not poor people on
welfare.  Also, who says that we should subsidize construction work
at the expense of other jobs?  Money taken from the taxpayer is
money that can't be spent on other goods and services, resulting in
lower employment in those areas that would have been providing the
goods and services that weren't purchased.

|>  Then again, all that stuff *could* be privatized - but it isn't, and isn't
|> likely to be in the next four yrs.
|> 

Very true.

|> 
|> : I believe if you do some investigating, you will find that speculation
|> : is an economically beneficial activity.  It is also ironic that you
|> : should mention lessened job creation in reference to the 80's.  The
|> : 80's were a period of tremendous job creation.  18 million new jobs
|> : is nothing to sneeze at (and they weren't mostly low paying either).
|> 
|> Interesting - I've heard that they were almost all low paying jobs.
|> 

Correct, many people have said that, but the evidence doesn't support
the claim.

Xref: sparky alt.activism:18902 talk.politics.drugs:7486