Thanks for the link.

The article’s sobering conclusion:

If all else fails, it seems, the one sure way to secure solvency in the private and public sectors is to inflate away debts and buoy up asset prices. That nuclear option is the ultimate bail-out: rescuing the indebted by hurting those with savings. In essence, if not degree, it is not so different from conventional policy. Interest-rate cuts are a salve for debtors and a penalty on savers. Fiscal-stimulus schemes impose a cost on all taxpayers, even those well placed to endure a downturn. But the cost of a prolonged slump, in terms of idle resources, lost income, decaying skills and an erosion in the trust that keeps civil society going, would be far higher.

We should hope that whatever money is borrowed / spent / printed in the coming months, it is done in a relatively wise manner to help us solve (or at least mitigate) long term problems, and not just reward friends of the powerful.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12510859

I hope this doesn’t mean expensive/inefficient solar panels covering all federal building and elsewhere.

Solar isn’t ready yet.

Perhaps not, but the purpose is not short-term cash-maximization but rather building an infrastructure. Photovoltaics are in the early adopter stage, and early adopers typically take the costs of the development the technology. Large-scale federal purchases of photovoltaics transfers the cost of development from the private sector to the public sector, which is appropriate for such a systemic change.

The same is true of ethanol, btw.

BTW: What wrong with a bridge to Russia? I am only half joking. It would link up both South and North America with Asia and Europe by road and rail. I think businesses and entrepreneurs can find interesting things to do with that.

What would be the point of such a massive, expensive, and hard to maintain form of transportation between such distant points?

What goods are so time-sensitive that they cannot be sent by ship
(which is far cheaper) but so time-insensitive that they cannot be sent by plane (which s far faster), with the scalability of neither?

Rather, we should focus on infrastructure spending that changes the system in ways favorable to us.

I hope this doesn’t mean expensive/inefficient solar panels covering all federal building and elsewhere.

Solar isn’t ready yet.

The best enabling thing would be to start building a network of smart power grids/ Some characteristics would be:

- resilient…no systems shocks take it all down
- better management capability
- allow producers of electricity to plug in easily
- extendability of the network

If USGOV funds and forces the setup of not ready for prime time stuff, when the production ready stuff finally comes around, adaption will be slow because sadly most infrastructure purchase decisions are made poorly with the sunk cost fallacy full in play.

Example: The poor state of network broadband in the US.

BTW: What wrong with a bridge to Russia? I am only half joking. It would link up both South and North America with Asia and Europe by road and rail. I think businesses and entrepreneurs can find interesting things to do with that.