You can't make this shit up. You sir actually proved your own point. Nice job! Guys, listen to this man, he knows exactly what he speaks of.
How would infrastructure spending benefit the working class?
- Thread starter drcha
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You can't make this shit up. You sir actually proved your own point. Nice job! Guys, listen to this man, he knows exactly what he speaks of.
Further to this point, the population of Finland is like the size of a large affluent suburb on the north shore of Chicago. LOL. Let's see how the students at New Trier High School in Winnetka, IL stack up against Finland.
Sorry, didn't mean to use trigger words like testing and rank. Getting back to infrastructure, online education in particular, what I envision is not some kid sitting in his bedroom on his computer. But rather a worldwide system where everybody has a test score. You take it with you all your life and can work on it at anytime. Grandparents brag their grandson is only three years old and already has a 320 test score. Kids compete and have test scores in the billions. Guys in the bar say they promised their Dad they would play until a million and then quit. Extra curricular would take on a new life because it would be centered around something other than people with the same grades. Plus in real school kids could have a homeroom with no regard to their personal test score. On and on.
I concur with your first sentence. All other parts I don't...
* innovation will never ever favor the small guy. And it has never. When cars were invented guess what happened to horse carriage operators. When AI pushes more and more of low level jobs out and automation in where will the small guy benefit? The only choice for the small guy is to LEARN NEW SKILLS to RETRAIN and to make damn sure his kids will go through college if not even grad school and acquire valuable skills in computer science, law, medicine, engineering. (I guess you see my point that education is still the best chance at success in life for the average guy or gal)
* coal miners will never be hired when roads are built, airports or Internet upgraded. Total rubbish. Construction Companies will find no difficulty to locate and hire construction workers that bring along road building skills. The benefits of infrastructure investments are elsewhere to be found as i will outline in the next post
* innovation will never ever favor the small guy. And it has never. When cars were invented guess what happened to horse carriage operators. When AI pushes more and more of low level jobs out and automation in where will the small guy benefit? The only choice for the small guy is to LEARN NEW SKILLS to RETRAIN and to make damn sure his kids will go through college if not even grad school and acquire valuable skills in computer science, law, medicine, engineering. (I guess you see my point that education is still the best chance at success in life for the average guy or gal)
* coal miners will never be hired when roads are built, airports or Internet upgraded. Total rubbish. Construction Companies will find no difficulty to locate and hire construction workers that bring along road building skills. The benefits of infrastructure investments are elsewhere to be found as i will outline in the next post
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Infrastructure investments will not benefit your job directly at all. You won't get hired. Don't let anyone give you (or the imaginary miner you) any illusions on that.
There are two types of infrastructure investment intentions: one is to simply keep up or renew infrastructure that is outdated. Those investments are beneficial and necessary for everyone in the area. The other type is simply a government handout to bump up short term employment. Often such is done before elections or shortly after elections, to keep up with an election promise. The benefits of such investments to most are very limited and imho not worth the infusion, other than the perceived improvement of the infrastructure change itself. First of all the benefit economically is very short term, secondly it only targets very few directly and more broadly the effect is very mild. Once the road construction is completed the workers are let go/fired. Once he money is paid to the construction company such company will hand out pay checks to its worker crew and it may purchase new equipment. So local dealers of such equipment will benefit a little, the local business community will benefit a little when workers with paychecks go shopping or to the local bars. But again, once the work project is concluded all will go back to what it's been before.
A prime example is Japan that has pumped billions into useless infrastructure projects. Here the difference is probably that Japan's infrastructure was already in top shape but in the case of the US most airports, bridges, tunnels, are so outdated that infrastructure investment is truly needed. But again very few benefit for very short time.
There are two types of infrastructure investment intentions: one is to simply keep up or renew infrastructure that is outdated. Those investments are beneficial and necessary for everyone in the area. The other type is simply a government handout to bump up short term employment. Often such is done before elections or shortly after elections, to keep up with an election promise. The benefits of such investments to most are very limited and imho not worth the infusion, other than the perceived improvement of the infrastructure change itself. First of all the benefit economically is very short term, secondly it only targets very few directly and more broadly the effect is very mild. Once the road construction is completed the workers are let go/fired. Once he money is paid to the construction company such company will hand out pay checks to its worker crew and it may purchase new equipment. So local dealers of such equipment will benefit a little, the local business community will benefit a little when workers with paychecks go shopping or to the local bars. But again, once the work project is concluded all will go back to what it's been before.
A prime example is Japan that has pumped billions into useless infrastructure projects. Here the difference is probably that Japan's infrastructure was already in top shape but in the case of the US most airports, bridges, tunnels, are so outdated that infrastructure investment is truly needed. But again very few benefit for very short time.
No Shortage of roads, indeed. But you may need a tank to not fall into the sinkholes on all streets in Manhattan. Ever driven on the NJ turnpike or on any other NJ highway leading into NYC? And we are talking about roads in or around the financial center of the US. Roads elsewhere...well you get the point. Many bridges are in such dire need of repair that they start to pose a danger to road traffic. Airports...no comment...
It never made sense for a rural out of job worker to vote for one of New York's most indebted developer, someone who was kick started with a few million, someone who never did a thing for the small guy but rather delayed payment to them or abused his position in power to shortchange those below him. Someone who may have hardly ever paid income taxes that supposedly benefit the population at large. But there is always hope in change, aye?
Mark Zuckerberg wants to deploy Ballons and satellites above India and Africa to shower Facebook access (and obviously the capability of Internet access) on the masses. Meanwhile the US looks to dig in more copper and fiber optics cables. Sounds more like infrastructure investment Japanese style to me.
imo, I think infrastructure alone is not enough for economic growth. We also need entrepreneurship and smart investment for creating sustainable jobs. Online education cannot replace traditional teacher-student interactions for inspirational motivations and personal caring/touching. Common measures/ranking about Maths/STEM would also have limited contributions.
I would believe our human creativity, freedom of expression, unceasing curiosity, boundless imagination, enduring research capability, investment in research equipment/facilities, paying good salary to teachers/educators, etc. would be much more important.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_curve
Just 2 cents.
I would believe our human creativity, freedom of expression, unceasing curiosity, boundless imagination, enduring research capability, investment in research equipment/facilities, paying good salary to teachers/educators, etc. would be much more important.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_curve
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_J_Curve:_A_New_Way_to_Understand_Why_Nations_Rise_and_Fall
Just 2 cents.
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Nobody's talking about replacing teachers touching students. I am talking about automating redundancy. Better use of teachers touches. For crying out loud, you should try using a computer. They say some day it is going to make all our lives easier. We already have a massive education budget, now it's just a matter of finding somebody who wants to put students education ahead of their own outdated way of doing things. I am talking about a lifelong instruction course which is widely accepted by business as an education. It's not going to turn a profit, that's why it is an infrastructure project.