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So let’s get this straight, American roads, bridges and tunnels are crumbling – so says our President and others. So let’s get this straight, American cities water and sanitation systems are dangerous and falling apart. So let’s gets this straight, now we learn that over half-a-decade after Katrina that levees are in serious disrepair all across America. Now, take any report from the American Society of Civil Engineers with the appropriate grain of salt. But I don’t even know how to make the point or ask the question anymore. These are the most basic and fundamental functions of government that nearly all people agree upon lest one be an anarchist. And the US government at all levels spends more today than at any point in history in real terms, and at $6.5 trillion in total spending (give or take a few hundred billion, it is hard to keep track) makes the government the largest country on Earth, and not only can we not do a decent job on these functions, we are told that they are in catastrophically bad condition.

Who are the ideologues and zealots again?

One Response to “Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie”

  1. Harry says:

    WC, first, I do not believe our roads and bridges are crumbling. Maybe a few bridges are in need of repair, and here in the frozen north roads always need repair, just as my house needs repair. In the long run, everything is going to a state of entropy, right?

    The roads and bridges and the other shovel-ready projects in 2009 were a sop to the construction industry, and we all soon saw crews everywhere jack hammering the disabled cutouts in every block in town and making them smoother. This was a more sophisticated version of the WPA digging holes and filling them up, sympathetic to the disabled. Do you want the disabled to starve, not to be able to have access to the garbage cans of the rich?

    Or, do you want to deny carpenters, electricians, and plumbers a living wage? Especially if they are debtors?

    Well no problem. Presently we are taking $85.000,000,000 per month (more than a trillion) off banks’ balance sheets by buying ten-year Treasurys and other hot loans at high prices, to stimulate employment in the high priced construction industry. This is scientific economics.

    Next time Wintercow writes of the coming economic apocalypse, take heed.

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