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- Dec 2, 2012
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- Libertarian
Unfortunately for you and me this nation is massively in debt, the national political system does not work, healthcare is bleeding the nation dry, families balance sheets continue to degrade, people are pissed, the global security system is getting worse fast and the global economy is on life support.
Oh, and Europe is either breaking up or is close to.
Unrealistic much?
Actually, what I propose is NOT unrealistic. The Internet side is happening as we speak. Comcast just went live with DOCSIS 3.1 this year with all of it's price gouging. Those costs can be covered by US Government. We have the cable infrastructure for 1gig already.. and due to Federal law require digital signal and not analog (Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005) every home is set for it already.
I think the USA should step back and take a look at why we are being outgunned on the educational level by countries who spend 1/10th of what we do for each student.
I have my own ideas why this is happening, but it would fall on deaf ears.
Do you understand that the national debt looks to be increasing well about 300% (non inflation adjusted) in just two decades by 2020? And that is before almost all of the boomer retirements are paid, and is doing nothing from your list??!!
Your plan is a feat of the imagination not connected to reality.
I think the USA should step back and take a look at why we are being outgunned on the educational level by countries who spend 1/10th of what we do for each student.
I have my own ideas why this is happening, but it would fall on deaf ears.
I remember reading maybe 10 years ago that Cuba gets almost the same medical results as we do, for 7 cents on the dollar.
Actually yes, and everything I include in my list actually pays for itself.
For example... highspeed rail in the US in most of the areas I listed are already being built (which means the cost have already been added to the debt). Desalination plants and wind power plants collect fees from users. FCC already mandated Cable Companies upgrade their networks. It's the last mile they have an issue paying for. It'll cost $150b today to put 680Mbits in every home in the US because every damn Coax line laid in the last 30 years supports 1gig plus.
Rail never pays hardly any of the construction costs, and only rarely pays both ongoing operations and maintenance.
You are daydreaming.
Snap out of it.
Oh I don't disagree.. but one of those major differences is computer access.
Computer access is fine and I support a computer based curriculam in schools, but only after a student becomes competent with the 3 R's first. (Readen-Righten-Rithmetic)
Fantastic proposals, in general. I see other problems besides those, of course, but all wonderful suggestions as far as I'm concerned, and I think they're all very feasible, apart from politics.-snip-
Acela says differently (most profitable line for Amtrak). Highspeed pays. Old fashion rail doesn't.
Hawk is probably right that you are daydreaming here, Aus...but keep it up, because that is the only way we are ever going to move along.
I've got my daydream ideas also.
Since I've been highly criticized for being just a "nay sayer" who finds issues with others "economic" theory (MMT is not an economic theory, it's a finance theory).. I'll lay out a 3 point plan on how to fix the longer underlying issues within the US economy using a broad spectrum of economic theories.
...(lots of good projects)...
Now we can quibble over details.. but these are the 3 main things that always pop into my head of real shifts in the US economy. It's about lower costs to the public, boosting education and can fund itself via fees of which we already pay but actually don't get us anything.
Correction: Amtrak says that Acela is profitable, which means that after they pay to keep the trains up and run them and pay what is considered their fair share of the NEC upkeep there is a little money left over. HOWEVER this does not account for buying those crap acelas to begin with, nor replacing them (and GOD they need replacing), and the NEC keeps breaking down because we have not kept it up
and HS trainsets cant run fast but for a few miles because what we really need to do is completely rebuild the thing while straightening it and getting all the commuter trains on there own tracks which would cost last time I heard $70 billion dollars and least and to do it right over $100 billion, That sure aint happening.
This will not be paid for from those very expensive acela tickets, which I note are by the mile either the most expensive HSR tickets in the world or almost, for a line that only about 30 out of 455 miles has acela meeting european HSR speed standards.
Hawk is probably right that you are daydreaming here, Aus...but keep it up, because that is the only way we are ever going to move along.
I've got my daydream ideas also.
My daughters already do their work on laptops for school in 6tg grade. Specifically on Chrome books, which cost about ~$200. If the gov subsidizes any of the cost, it could be even lower. Since Chromebooks run on a browser platform, everything is installed on a central server so it's easy to manage. The problem is that, far as I know, the kids without internet/ WiFi are given time in school or after to complete their lessons.
OK, so you have some nice infrastructure projects, and they are paid for by, I assume, the returns on increased economic output. All well and good. I assume that this goes hand in hand with a balanced federal budget, right? It must, or you wouldn't be touting the fact that all of the projects pay for themselves.
So, the problem remains - how do you deal with our normal demand leakages; a large trade deficit, and our normal net savings? We lose $500 billion of our income to trade deficits, and who knows how much more to domestic savings (maybe another $500 billion?), year after year; you make some of that up with growth of business investment, but without deficit spending, every dollar that sits idle in the hands of China and other dollar savers is bank-created money, and somebody is still paying interest on them. Do you really think that that is sustainable in the long run?
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