[mattduke]

Collapsing bridges, street lights turned off, cuts to basic services: the decline of a superpower.

The government is killing us.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/09/14/third-world-america/

[Ludi]

Let's siphon more money upward, that will help!


http://www.lcurve.org/LCurveVideo.htm

[Ludi]

Or, we could spend some money on infrastructure:

"A combative President Barack Obama rolled out a long-term jobs program Monday that would exceed $50 billion to rebuild roads, railways and runways, and coupled it with a blunt campaign-season assault on Republicans for causing Americans' hard economic times."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/0 ... 06452.html

[Plantagenet]

Or, we could spend some money on infrastructure:

"A combative President Barack Obama ...

Obama needs to be less combative ---he should try to be cooperative for a change. We need a change from the old partisan way of doing business in DC that Obama and his cronies exemplify.

Obama has already spent well over a trillion dollars from his giant 2009 stimulus bill and supplemental budgets---the dems promised us it was for infrastructure and shovel-ready projects, but some of it went instead to the democrat's earmarked pet projects--- things like teaching Africans how to wash their genitals. The dems just aren't trustworthy on this kind of thing.

Heres how to improve the process:

1. Please---no more 1000-page-long stimulus bills from the democrats snuck through Congress on a party-line vote without anyone actually having time to read it.

2. How about some transparency for a change ----- how about a real debate on what is needed in the way of infrastructure. How about instead of dems sneaking their bills through at 3 in the morning, the bills get posted on line so the American people can read them and comment on them.

3. Here's a thought---how about the democrats schedule actual hearings and then allow CNN and other news people right into the rooms where the bills are being written, so Nancy Pelosi can't write everything in secret with Barney Frank like she did on the last Stimulus bill.

We need a CHANGE from the corrupt way Pelosi and Reid ran this Congress before any more money is wasted and any more debt created.

[eastbay]

Or, we could spend some money on infrastructure:

"A combative President Barack Obama rolled out a long-term jobs program Monday that would exceed $50 billion to rebuild roads, railways and runways, and coupled it with a blunt campaign-season assault on Republicans for causing Americans' hard economic times."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/0 ... 06452.html

50 billion for critical infrastructure over many years and a few instant trillion for the rich bankers for doing nothing of value whatsoever. Cool.

They do this and get away with it because they realize ... and maybe correctly... that very few Americans understand the difference between a billion and a trillion. But the rich know the difference.

[Sixstrings]

Obama needs to be less combative ---he should try to be cooperative for a change. We need a change from the old partisan way of doing business in DC that Obama and his cronies exemplify.

It's nice of you Plant for once to at least HINT that the Republicans aren't any good either. But the fact remains, you never openly go after Republicans, everything you have to say is always about Dems.

And on the topic of a Third World America, you surely can't say with a straight face that Republicans are the party of the working classes. The types of men who are party bosses in the Republican Party are the same who've been creating third world conditions all over the world for a century now. Now they're doing it to their own country, and if the Dems are at fault too it's only because they've become corporatist globalist Republicans themselves.

I started another thread about distribution of financial resources in the world. Americans have a whopping 39% of the entire planet's financial assets. Honestly, that massive slice of the global pie ought to be enough. Ronald Reagan told us this vast wealth would all trickle down. It hasn't.

[Plantagenet]

, you never openly go after Republicans, everything you have to say is always about Dems.

1. Your claim isn't true. For instance, I criticized Bush for years for his foolish invasion of Iraq and I advocated for Bush to be impeached for the Iraq War after the dems took over Congress in 2006.

2. In case you haven't noticed, the democrats are in complete control of the government now---Obama was elected president in 2008 and democrats now have huge majorities in both houses of Congress. While Bush did a crappy job as president he isn't in office anymore---Its is Obama and the democrats who are doing a crappy job now by exploding the deficit and failing to come up economic policies to get the economy going and create needed jobs.

Arianna Huffington, the author of the just released book "THIRD WORLD AMERICA" makes the same point as I do----she was interviewed on the PBS newshour tonight and said BOTH the dems and the republicans have done a crappy job when in power----AND although she is on the left, Huffington is at least intellectually honest enough to admit that Obama and the dems are in power now and doing a TERRIBLE job of fixing the economy ---- facts that you and most of the liberals and leftists who post here seem, for some reason, to be unable to admit.

Cheers!

[hillsidedigger]

As individuals the more we design our lifestyles not to depend upon public infrastructure (or entitlements) the more stable the country will be.

[Ludi]

50 billion for critical infrastructure over many years and a few instant trillion for the rich bankers for doing nothing of value whatsoever.

It's the spending, stupid, not the giving of money to rich guys! Giving money to rich guys is ok!

[Revi]

The problem is that the "critical infrastructure" that this bill is going to fund will be highways and bridges.

What we really need to do is to concentrate on the downtowns of small cities.

This is like spending huge amounts on railroads in 1910. They seemed like critical infrastructure at the time, but ended up being the decaying infrastructure of the last century.

We are going to be out of cars soon enough. We may as well start to figure out how to live without them now.

Bus stations seem like a good investment, since people are going to be using them.

I hope they have the sense to put them where people are going to be living.

It's a form of triage. We'll have to decide what parts of suburbia we are giving up and put money into the places that have a chance of surviving.

I was just reading about a large town that existed on the coast of Maine because of the coastal schooners. As they went away the town rotted away.

We have to decide which towns are going to be like that, and put money into infrastructure for those which are going to make it into the next economy.

I think coastal towns, and those which have bus service are going to make it around here.

[Ludi]

Bus stations seem like a good investment, since people are going to be using them.

Buses need highways and bridges.

[Pops]

So our infrastructure is falling apart,
A construction "laborer" makes $40 an hour at prevailing wage on a gov job
Millions of "middle class" and construction jobs have evaporated never to return

Is this so hard?

At the federal level, recent studies have shown that federal workers are paid — in wages, benefits, and salary — an average of $123,000. Private-sector workers are paid $61,000. That means taxpayers in the real economy are paying $62,000 more than they earn themselves to each of their “civil servants.” Pay fairness would save taxpayers $175 billion each year and $2 trillion over the next decade. State and local government workers earn an average of $80,000 compared with $61,000 for the private sector — this includes pay, benefits, and pensions. Since there are 19 million state and local employees, we simply multiply the $19,000 per worker overpayment times 19 million and find that state and local taxpayers are overpaying by $361 billion every year, or $4 trillion over a decade. Pay equity for taxpayers would save 33 percent of all state and local taxes.

[polka]

A subject that cuts deep for me.

Your $40/hour "laborer" on a gov job is usually not even a government employee, but is a union contractor hired by the company that won the bid. He/she is also very likely a "heavy equipment operator," "surveyor," or "engineering technician" rather than laborer.

Many of these jobs are seasonal, and $40/hour does not translate to $80,000/year. Your overpaid laborer may travel long distances at his own expense and time to get to far-flung work sites. When it rains, the job may be shut down for the day (or week), and he may get nothing at all while being expected to camp out and be available.

When government contracts specify that construction workers must earn a certain hourly wage (perceived as too high by you), they are ensuring that workers receive a fair shake for doing a dirty noisy dangerous job that requires skill and takes a toll on the body.

[Pretorian]

When government contracts specify that construction workers must earn a certain hourly wage (perceived as too high by you), they are ensuring that workers receive a fair shake for doing a dirty noisy dangerous job that requires skill and takes a toll on the body.

If its so bad, dont do it. Leave it to others who i suspect will do much more, for much less.

[Pops]

A subject that cuts deep for me.

No doubt.

You're right, Davis/Bacon (prevailing wage) rules are for contract workers, and not only union shops, all contractors on government construction jobs, sorry I didn't make the distinction.
The $42.67 an hour straight time is for group 1, non-skilled labor that's the lowest guy on the crew, here are some of the official designations under that heading:
Fire Watcher, Limbers, Brush Loaders, Pilers and Debris Handlers
Traffic Control by any method
Window Cleaner
Flagman
Link

When I was a kid I did construction work and I didn't make that kind of money. In fact, one time when I was laying floors, the company I worked for got a government job doing some low income apartments. These guys were ripoffs and paid us an extra buck or two and said suck it up or don't take the work - hey, we took the work, it was the government's money anyway, right?

But look, I'm not saying government workers or contractors should all work for free but like the article I snipped points out, they shouldn't make twice what civilians make either.

Don't you think there would be more work (and better bridges) if the guy throwing sticks on the fire was making somewhat less than $42.67 an hour?

[Thralen]

Crap, $42.67 an hour? I was a flagger (you know, the poor schmuck with the stop/slow sign trying to guide traffic through construction while avoiding accidents) for a couple of years back in 94-95 and the government pay scales at that point were only about $16/hr for the flagman positions. That is a hellishly large raise for 15 years...

Thralen

[hillsidedigger]

All our friends will be there too.

The entire world will soon be Third World, at best.

[Lore]

The pay that is now being received by government workers or their contract labor and the few union workers that are still around, which can still maintain their wages, is all that’s left of the middle class. It is all that remains to hold the rotting fabric of this economy together. The wealth disparity continues to grow between the top 2% and the rest.

Corporations are increasing productivity though technology which is replacing humans and those they cannot replace through such means are outsourced to countries with cheaper labor. This is a fundamental structural change. Reducing the wages of the other 98% of workers as a response to those of third world countries will not solve our financial crises. Remove the top average wage worker from his pay and you will drive the country into the worst depression the world has ever seen.

Large companies and their free market ideologues are ultimately their own worse enemies. Who will be able to afford to buy the expensive goods and services of the future if most of the U.S. worker is reduced to receiving Wal-Mart wages?

[Cid_Yama]

Pops, there is no document at the end of your link. I do know that the guys working on the roads around here make $8-11 and hr.

I've never ever seen any of them make anything close to what you are claiming.

I just spoke to a friend who is a case worker for the Texas Dept of Aged and Disabled Services who has been there about 15 yrs and she makes around $26,000 a yr.

[Pops]

Just as textile factories in New England moved the south due to cheaper labor, they eventually moved to Mexico and Asia for the same reason, ain't nothing new, ain't gonna change, everyone wants cheap socks. It's happening in every industry except .gov and I think you might have noticed some people are getting mad about it.

Between union scale (public and contract), OSHA, EIS, EPA and all the rest, nothing is getting done but filling potholes, certainly nothing big like public transit. Funny thing is, I'm "for" all that stuff.

But we're at the point things are starting to fall apart and we can't afford to fix them because we've middle-classed ourselves to near-extinction. If we routinely pay people $25/hr plus benefits to do a job that takes no skills, education or training whatsoever then blithely turn around and say "all we need is a Manhattan Project and 1,000 nuke plants and we'll be all set for for peak fossil fuels", we're fooling ourselves.