How important is our infrastructure?

[kentuck]

Capitalism celebrates individualism. However, we do not live in a individualistic state of nature. We have created a social order which we call our government. Capitalism and individuality can only thrive as part of a social organization.

Although many capitalists see the government as an obstacle to maximizing profits, the truth is that capitalism is dependent upon the public for survival. Capitalists depend on the taxpayers to provide roads, airports, water, sewage, electricity, public safety, educational opportunities, research and development, etc. The capitalists will not invest in infrastructure. They depend on society to do that for them.

If the public sector were to refrain from investing in the infrastructure, the private sector would not invest and would collapse from the taxpayer's neglect. A good example is how private money built the railroads east of the Mississippi , where markets already existed, but public money was necessary to build them west of the Mississippi so the marketplace could follow.

This is an important point to make because investment in our country's public infrastructure has been cut almost in half over the last 25 years. What does this mean historically?

The Roman Empire went through similar patterns many centuries ago. In denying the need for government and social organization , the private sector gradually gained control of everything until the public sector virtually disappeared. The Roman people stopped building and maintaining their infrastructure. Their elaborate water and sewer systems were abandoned and had to be totally reinvented a thousand years later.

The Incas in Peru and the Moors in southern Spain were both once flourishing societies. They were dependent upon their efficient irrigation systems. They went into rapid decline when the Spanish stopped maintaining the irrigation canals.

Without public involvement and community interests, everyone will tend to be an "individualist". If there were no public interest, everyone would use as much water as possible and no one would take the time to repair the pipelines. Eventually, there would be no water system to use and everyone's standard of living would fall. The businesses and capitalists would collapse without the public support of our infrastructure.

What does this mean? If the government, i.e. the public, continues to neglect the infrastructure of this country, then individualism and capitalism will not survive. Unwilling or unable to recognize that they are both products of a social order called community, they will continue to misunderstand the necessity of government. Investment must not only be for the individual capitalist but for the common good of our society.

Remember this when the politicians tell you, "It's not the government's money - it's the people's money." It is also our society and our community. Neither can thrive without investment.

[RKP5637]

1. How important is our infrastructure? Apparently not very important. Somehow

it's supposed to be magically maintained. Maybe we need to pray more for those miracles.

:mad: :silly:

[CrispyQ]

5. That new show, America's Inspector or whatever it's called,

~gasp!! Interviews with people who state, "I won't drive on Bridge X during rush hour," or "Every time I'm on Bridge X I just hope it holds until I reach the other side." WHAT THE FUCK? How can anyone chant "We're number one!" when we have citizens making these kinds of statements? And, they are not alone in how they feel!

In my own community, there are two railroad overpasses that are old & seemingly ok, but who knows? One of them is in a position where traffic backs up beyond it, during rush hour traffic, & I have always been amazed at the number of drivers that will sit out a red light under the RR bypass. Not me. No way.

[RKP5637]

11. I hadn't heard of that program. I'll search for it. I know exactly what you mean. I get

nervous sitting on bridges around here feeling them bounce when stuck in traffic. I know they're supposed to do that, but I keep wondering how much of it is bouncing on a rusted substructure and failing concrete and rebar. We have this new thing here where sometimes the lights go off for about 5 minutes and then come back on. I have no idea what that's all about.

[Old and In the Way]

9. Apparently, the free market and tax cuts will fix any problems with the infrastructure..

Any public investments in fixing our crumbling infrastructure or developing non-hydrocrabon based energy solutions will mean people getting hired and, as we all know, that's a very bad thing to let happen. /sarcasm

[CrispyQ]

15. The same free market We the People have to bail out with our tax dollars.

I want a bumper sticker that reads:

Where's the Free Market
In Corporate Bailouts?


Our media never points out this inconsistency. Fuckers.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Infrastructure projects are soshullistic. Keep your government of my bridges!!

In point of fact, our infrastructure is in worse condition than every before.

Waterworks, transportation, electric and gas utility transmission and transport, all shot to hell, seriously.

And because the government is bought and sold and based only on short term profit at the expense of future generations, hell, it's the expense of ourselves just one or two years or an election cycle out, we've let it all go to shit.

Fuck.

Bring back real jobs, go green, go renewable, rebuild America, bring back the middle class!

:patriot:

[RKP5637]

3. That, is what really PO's me about how this recession/depression is

being handled. It could have been done far better. I'm really fed up with this trickle down voodoo economics. A major effort should have been placed on "Bring back real jobs, go green, go renewable, rebuild America, bring back the middle class!" But we get this bullshit approach. I don't have a crystal ball, but my hunch is in a few more years this will look like the best of times.

[3waygeek]

6. Of course if government worked the way you and I

want it to, this recession/depression wouldn't have happened.

[NYC_SKP]

7. It is, I think, an opportunity to turn everything around.

Restore taxes to Nixon era or higher rates for the top earners, eliminate loopholes, then launch enormous infrastructure and renewable energy projects.

With these, provide health care for all, which would save small businesses while creating new jobs in the industry.

These would be met with ENORMOUS resistance, but they're programs that can EASILY be sold to most Americans despite pushback from the MSM.

It will take a few courageous men and women in government, and all of us.

I hope Obama will step up in his second term.

[RKP5637]

10. I keep hoping in the back of my mind that might happen. There is a HUGE opportunity

for a bold new direction and a radical definition of America for the 21st century! It will take a strong powerful leader and I too am hoping Obama will do that. A wise president could harness the backing of probably 80% of the population. People have to be getting that this present course isn't going to work.

[FogerRox]

13. Most exemptions and deductions for the wealthy were removed in 1986

Historically we've either had high tax rates and deductions/exemptions for capital to invest in emerging tech and markets, or low taxes and very much fewer exemptions and deductions. the right likes this because it evens the playing field. Unfortunately what happens is, lets say you have a half billion dollars to invest, why should you build factories to make solar panels or wind turbines for a steady return of say 5% annually, when you can engage in currency and commodities speculation and make 15% to 25% annually?

When the tax rate on the wealthiest was 94%, no one really paid that rate, exemptions and deductions made the effective tax rate around 50%. The purpose was to have capital flow to smarter investments, vs Futures, derivatives as they do in todays markets. So from a historical perceptive, we are now in a period of fewer loopholes (exemptions and deductions).

I would like to see at least a 60% top rate, and at least 12 or 15 tax brackets, right now we have 6. ALso exemptions and deductions for uber wealthy to use their capital to build factories here in the US that make solar panels and wind turbines. Solar and wind are about to be cheaper than nukes per kilowatt hour cost. And banks and the markets are starting to react to the price points.

Anyway thats one avenue of logic behind exemptions and deductions, to help emerging tech and markets, of course the idea has also been sorely abused too.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

4. Capitalists are also dependent upon a well paid public for

their survival.

[PufPuf23]

8. An unfortunate, scary, and neo-liberal trend and tactic is to

starve government of tax revenue and then for complicit pols and revolving door bureaucrats to allow the capitalists to cherry pick the profitable infrastructure for privatization (which is a one way street without major revolution). So we have USA-born but global corporations that pay no taxes and have the most economic benefit of the infrastructure -- big business uses infrastructure and infrastructure allows consumers (who paid the taxes to build the infrastructure) to express their demand that is ever more a necessity of life (utilities, education, etc.).

This is a re-wording and extention of what was stated in the OP IMHO:

"Although many capitalists see the government as an obstacle to maximizing profits, the truth is that capitalism is dependent upon the public for survival. Capitalists depend on the taxpayers to provide roads, airports, water, sewage, electricity, public safety, educational opportunities, research and development, etc. The capitalists will not invest in infrastructure. They depend on society to do that for them."

The sensible form of government is Social Democracy with more than two parties, hence coalition governments. A mixed economy of nationalization of planetary and human needs (natural environment, water, medical, education, sewage, affordable transportation, jobs, culture (the arts and history), and regulation of commodities, global trade, and corporate retail.

The financial industry is a scam. There is no more need than a 2nd order financial derivative security (variable rate mortgages that are bundled for example ) because higher order derivatives (such as the same mortgage pool divided into tranches) can't be valued with any precision. But the Wall Street traders get paid non-taxed transaction fees from dynamically optimized (to varying skills) automated investment portfolios.

This is a less understandable obvious that health insurance companies serve no purpose but to bleed off cash flow that has collateral damage to the doctors, nurses, medical professional, and patients. Plus citizens with poor health care are bound to be net an additional social cost less than mitigated by those that lose the physical or personal will to live.

POTUS Obama is doing wealthy special interests a gift by continuing NAFTA and working for Free Trade (vs. Fair) Agreements with South Korea and Colombia. Recall POTUS Obama campaigned for Fair Trade but one story during the campaign was that POTUS Obama's reps told the Canadians to ignore the campaign rhetoric.

One problem is that global corporations look at and treat the USA as "low hanging fruit".

The threat of terrorism in the USA dwarfs the foreign investment and serving global rather than national in the USA.

[ixion]

12. without it, we're living in the pre-Rome era

it's that important.

[FogerRox]

14. China spends 9% to 10% of GDP on infrastructure, the US? 2.4%

Now China is a developing country compared the US, so thats not really a fair comparison, but most of Europe spends 5%-6%. We have a 15 trillion dollar economy so 5% would be 750 billion, and we spend only 360 billion.