Geneseeonline.com -- The Voice of Reason since 2003

December 5, 2008

Economic Stimulus and American Competitiveness

Tagged: Economic stimulus, American competitiveness, make work projects.  

" ... [Barak] Obama has called for a massive government stimulus package that would preserve or create 2.5 million jobs and rebuild crumbling infrastructure in an effort to contain the damage from the recession.

"This painful crisis also provides us with an opportunity to transform our economy, to improve the lives of ordinary people by rebuilding roads and modernizing schools for our children, investing in clean energy solutions to break our dependence on imported oil, and making an early downpayment on the long-term reforms that will grow and strengthen our economy for all Americans for years to come," he said. ..."

Reuters Article Quote

I have to take some issue with Mr. Obama's call for "modernizing schools for our children, ..." While some school buildings were built 30 or more years ago and have not been kept in the best of repairs -- new or renovated school buildings do not produce better educated teachers or students. I don't take issue with the repairs necessary to public school buildings themselves but I fail to see how new or renovated school buildings will make America more competitive. Really, the call seems to me to be one of "make work" to stimulate the construction industry with little benefit to overall competitiveness in the world marketplace for the nation.

I would rather of heard the call for the use of existing aerial and underground rights-of-way for the installation of fibre optical cable technology; to improve IP packet transmission into the 21st (the current) century, along with a revamping of FCC regulations, toward making internet access faster, able to carry the increased volume of the next 10 to 20 years and more competitively priced where such rights-of-way currently exist. Also to be considered, is the expansion of wireless internet access to areas where it does not currently exist today (in rural and fringe suburban areas.)

Any "economic stimulus" will not only be costly but must somehow benefit the overall issue of American competitiveness in what is, and must be recognized as, what has become a world-wide economy.

Beating a fallen dead dinosaur with a stick, hoping it will rise and resurrect itself to its former glory, is an exercise in futility in most cases and also a waste of one's valuable energy.