Does spending on infrastructure create other kinds of jobs ?

[tradeunionsupporter]

Does spending on infrastructure create other kinds of jobs in the economy because the workers have jobs and have paychecks to spend in the economy if the workers buy cars with their paychecks auto workers are hired ? Has this ideas ever been refuted ? Since infrastructure jobs are temporary would they then get other jobs they will have paychecks to spend ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure

[RGacky3]

Yes, it does create jobs, even if the jobs are temporary, the boost still has multiplying effects creating more jobs around.

I personally don't advoate infastructure for any long term solutions becasue your not FIXING anything, your just giving the economy a boost to try and get it rolling again. Infastructure hsould be used to fix infastructure, economic structural changes need to be used to fix problems caused by economic structural problems.

[Veovis]

Infrastructure needs to be maintained, so there would be an increase in the number of permanent jobs.

[Tommy4ever]

Spending on infrastructure creates something called the Multiplier Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_multiplier

This is a Keynesian idea though and different economic school would obviously disagree.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Well I for one completely disagree with Rgacky on this one.

"Infrastructure" is such a broad term, what are we addressing exactly in the OP? The link to wikipedia nasically says everything has an "infrastructure," from government to economic to social infrastructures.

If we're talking about things like highways, railroads, airports, waterways then the view is narrowed, and yes I would say that apart from maintenance (which is sizable), the initial investment is large but mainly temporary. However, when we say temporary we mean decades, as many of the projects that need to happen will easily last this long. Also, this type of investment helps spur many industries, where easy access to different forms of effecient transportation is needed. So would investement in the social infrastructure, reducing costs in healthcare, daycare, schooling, etc, making workers more educated and with less debt.

Not to mention the electrical infrastructure, which in the us at least needs major investments. That may be an understatement, we need to not only redesign the distribution, but also the supply of electricity from coal to renewable sources, including nuclear. Along with this, expanding high speed internet to more people and allowing data to be moved at lower cost is certainly necessary.

Those should be the major goals of the next few years. Being a liberal I think priavte-public partnerships are the best avenue for some, but certainly not all, of our infrastructure improvements.

[Psy]

The need of infrastructure grows with expansion of means of production, expanding infrastructure increases the logistical links between means of industrial production. So throwing capital at infrastructure gives the whole economy a boost as now many production cycles speed up as factories are more efficiently feed with raw materials and their outputs get to market quicker.

Thus the high speed rail plan of the US government does make sense as it would mean capitalists would be able to get their managers to different means of production in the USA faster, i.e a manger in NYC could inspect a factory in Detroit and report back much faster.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Right now NYC-Detroit wouldn't be the most effective investment in my opinion. Updating the northeastern corridor is a concern, and it would also be nice to see the service to albany's time cut, from NYC of course. As for Detroit, there has been success with expanding service into Chicago, and investments are being made there. The state of Michigan has, in general, accepted federal money for the project, however there are obstacles.



In what could be a new high water mark of anti-Washington sentiment, the city of Troy, Mich., is rejecting a long-planned transportation center whose construction would have been fully financed with federal stimulus money.

The terminal, which would help Troy become a transportation node on an upgraded Detroit-to-Chicago Amtrak line, was hailed by supporters as a way to create jobs and to spur economic development. But federal money is federal money, so with the urging of the new mayor, who helped found the local Tea Party (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tea_party_movement/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) chapter, the City Council cast a 4-to-3 vote this week against granting a crucial contract, sending the project into limbo.

“There’s nothing free about government money,” Mayor Janice Daniels said in an interview. “It’s never free, and it’s crippling our way of life.”
Other Republican officeholders have said “Thanks, but no thanks” to federal money for high-speed rail (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/high_speed_rail_projects/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier): Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin rejected an $810 million federal grant to extend passenger rail from Milwaukee to Madison; Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey killed a project to dig a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River. But those actions have generally involved criticism of the underlying logic of the projects, or projections of enormous costs to be borne down the line by state and local governments.

The Troy transit center’s construction, by comparison, required no local contribution, and its predicted annual maintenance cost of $31,000 was, in the context of the city’s $50 million budget, “de minimis,” said Mark Miller, the assistant city manager.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/us/michigan-city-of-troy-led-by-tea-party-mayor-rejects-federal-dollars.html?scp=1&sq=michigan%20high%20speed%20rail&st=cse

Fucking tea partiers.

[RGacky3]

"Infrastructure" is such a broad term, what are we addressing exactly in the OP? The link to wikipedia nasically says everything has an "infrastructure," from government to economic to social infrastructures.


I'm using it in the term generally used in the US political sphere, which is energy delivery, transportation and so on.


If we're talking about things like highways, railroads, airports, waterways then the view is narrowed, and yes I would say that apart from maintenance (which is sizable), the initial investment is large but mainly temporary. However, when we say temporary we mean decades, as many of the projects that need to happen will easily last this long. Also, this type of investment helps spur many industries, where easy access to different forms of effecient transportation is needed. So would investement in the social infrastructure, reducing costs in healthcare, daycare, schooling, etc, making workers more educated and with less debt.


I think your missreading my point, I did'nt mean to imply it was a bad idea or that it was'nt useful for the economy as a whole.

My implication was that it does nothing to address the underlying issue.

Schooling and Healthcare generally is'nt included when we are talking about infastructure in the US political language.

When it comes to transportation sure, its great, but I just don't buy the Keynsian line that you give it a boost with infastructure spending, or even schooling and ait will roll on, the concept is really a form of capitalist subsidy, a much better use of the money would be to set up both infastructure and public/collective productive industry, or support unemployed people setting up cooperatives.

I am by no means saying we don't need infastructure spending or it does'nt multiply positive effects, I'm saying it addresses symptoms and not the underlying problem, I'm also not one of those who say unless you overthrow capitalism completely its a waste of time, no I think there are great steps youi can take.


Not to mention the electrical infrastructure, which in the us at least needs major investments. That may be an understatement, we need to not only redesign the distribution, but also the supply of electricity from coal to renewable sources, including nuclear. Along with this, expanding high speed internet to more people and allowing data to be moved at lower cost is certainly necessary.

Those should be the major goals of the next few years. Being a liberal I think priavte-public partnerships are the best avenue for some, but certainly not all, of our infrastructure improvements.

As someone who has worked in the public sector, I can tell you public-private partnerships are a joke, all they are are subsidies for private profits, the best way to handle that stuff is imp to make it totally public and totally non-profit, using private industry is just a way to transfer profit.

[Psy]

When it comes to transportation sure, its great, but I just don't buy the Keynsian line that you give it a boost with infastructure spending, or even schooling and ait will roll on, the concept is really a form of capitalist subsidy, a much better use of the money would be to set up both infastructure and public/collective productive industry, or support unemployed people setting up cooperatives.

I am by no means saying we don't need infastructure spending or it does'nt multiply positive effects, I'm saying it addresses symptoms and not the underlying problem, I'm also not one of those who say unless you overthrow capitalism completely its a waste of time, no I think there are great steps youi can take.

Yet US industrial logistics are horrible ineffective as billions of surplus value is wasted every year due to inadequate logistics holding up production cycles. For example what good is for capitalists to pay truck drivers to get stuck in traffic while burning diesel fuel crawling along clogged highways, what good is it for capitalists to have commodities sit in trucks stuck in traffic rather then being sold?

Thus capitalists have give up a huge chunk of their surplus value to pay for not having fluid logistics where commodities flow in a timely manner. This is why way back in the 19th century you had economist like Frederick List saying national railways and utilities was the only way for a country to modernize its economy as the bourgeois state was the only organization with the resources to build the industrial infrastructure needed for a modern industrial capitalist state, and that the more you smooth out industrial logistical problems the more competitive industry in that nation would become.

[RGacky3]

Exactly, I'm all for making the infastructure run smooth, but I want it to benefit the working class and lift them up, not just boost capitalism, its essencially a kinder form of trickle down.

[Psy]

Exactly, I'm all for making the infastructure run smooth, but I want it to benefit the working class and lift them up, not just boost capitalism, its essencially a kinder form of trickle down.

True but look at revolutionary Russia where Lenin said "the organization of industry on the basis of modern, advanced technology, on electrification which will provide a link between town and country, will put an end to the division between town and country, will make it possible to raise the level of culture in the countryside and to overcome, even in the most remote corners of land, backwardness, ignorance, poverty, disease, and barbarism"

[RGacky3]

Ok .... thats a sentance from the early 20th century about the effect of technology ... I don't get the significance.

[Psy]

Ok .... thats a sentance from the early 20th century about the effect of technology ... I don't get the significance.

There is still a divide between urban and rural in the USA because the lack of industrialization in rural America compared to urban centers. Before the railway all of Michigan was as rural as you could get in Eastern USA, yet with the railway Michigan quickly turned into the industrial heart of the USA.

Thus infrastructure is the solution to backwards rural communities.

[RGacky3]

I just don't think thats a major problem right now.

[Psy]

I just don't think thats a major problem right now.
Look at the Bible Belt, notice how it is also in the less industrialized portion of the US. Really the heart of reactionary USA is also the heart of underdeveloped USA.

Thus the solution to snuffing out the reactionary movement in the USA is to industrialize the Bible Belt.

[RGacky3]

I really don't think that lack of industrialization is the problem, you have a long history or ideological control down there, the south is very industrialized and the internet IS down there.

Look perhaps ideologically its somewhat helpful, but I'm talking about the economics of the issue.

[Psy]

I really don't think that lack of industrialization is the problem, you have a long history or ideological control down there, the south is very industrialized and the internet IS down there.

Look perhaps ideologically its somewhat helpful, but I'm talking about the economics of the issue.
I'm not talking the Internet, I am talking industrial capacity. For example in the Thailand flood the railway was able to recuse people because of the extent of the railway and the heavy railway equipment at their disposal to keep rail lines open during the flood, heavy rail equipment even the National Guard during the New Orleans flood didn't have access to due to the lack of industrial might in the region.

The Internet is good and all but it is the industrial might of heavy equipment that literally allows us to transform our landscape with retaliative ease.

[RGacky3]

Ok ... So your saying infastructure is good for social life .... Yes, I agree, but I'm talking about economic goals.

[Psy]

Ok ... So your saying infastructure is good for social life .... Yes, I agree, but I'm talking about economic goals.
Economically more mechanization of labor, instead of hundreds of truck drivers you have a train crew of 2-3 thus freeing up a lot of workers that labor can be used elsewhere.

[Commissar Rykov]

Economically more mechanization of labor, instead of hundreds of truck drivers you have a train crew of 2-3 thus freeing up a lot of workers that labor can be used elsewhere.
Pretty much. I have always found it fascinating how backwards and utterly useless our logistics operations are in the United States. I mean the country literally spends very little and shows no interest in expanding it. It is amazing how much of the labor force is wasted on ineffective and outdated means of transporting goods.

[RGacky3]

Economically more mechanization of labor, instead of hundreds of truck drivers you have a train crew of 2-3 thus freeing up a lot of workers that labor can be used elsewhere.

Which would only be positive in a socialist economy, in a capitalist economy we would have more unemployment, so economically that won't do.

[Psy]

Pretty much. I have always found it fascinating how backwards and utterly useless our logistics operations are in the United States. I mean the country literally spends very little and shows no interest in expanding it. It is amazing how much of the labor force is wasted on ineffective and outdated means of transporting goods.
This is because of the powerful highway lobby that don't want to hear about the fact they just want to talk about how American it is to drive, and how "modern" highways are in that if they just build enough of them they will solve congestion.