United States highways, bridges and other infrastructure are in dire need of repair. Fortune contends that investment in America’s infrastructure would cost tax payers nothing!
A recent report showed unexpectedly slow job growth over the summer, raising the odds of a stall in the already sluggish U.S. economic recovery. While this in itself is disappointing, the even greater disappointment is the failure to do anything about it, particularly when there’s an obvious and costless solution: borrow hundreds of billions of dollars for essentially nothing and spend it on our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Doing so would boost gross domestic product (GDP) by far more than it costs and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
While interest rates remain near zero would be a great time to invest in United States infrastructure. The cost of tax payers would in fact be very low and the return on investment of infrastructure upgrade would more than pay for costs. And, as Fortune says, such an effort would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs!
An Ounce of Prevention
The old saying is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Fortune says that there are more than 240,000 water main breaks in the US every year. US rail congestion costs US farmers up to half a billion a year due to rail delays. With the average age of US bridges and roads around 45 years it is time for an upgrade across the board. CBS News reports on the storms and floods in South Carolina and asks if the US is ready for more extreme weather as its infrastructure crumbles.
The “thousand year” flooding and dam failures in South Carolina highlight a growing concern: Is America’s infrastructure – such as bridges, dams, highways, and levees – designed to withstand what many scientists predict will be a greater frequency of increasingly powerful storms?
With infrastructure essentially a tax free investment (for taxpayers) it is time to invest in United State infrastructure.
Where Are the Profits for Investors?
When the US congress finally wakes up and addresses this issue, where are the profits for investors? A basic necessity is drinking water. America Blog thinks that as water infrastructure crumbles water privatization is likely.
For many years there has been an organized effort by private actors to move America’s water systems towards privatization.
Some of the biggest players advocating for water privatization in the U.S. are corporate advocacy groups.Other cheerleaders for the initiative include the poster-boys for the 1%, the billionaire Koch Brothers – who, in 1980, called for “the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households,” along with practically every other major infrastructural element of American society.
Over the years, a plurality of Koch-related organizations have pushed water privatization as part of a wider agenda of supposedly “libertarian” policies.
Although there are many concerns about privatizing water supplies it may be the way of the future if there is no government resolve for a wide ranging tax free investment in United States infrastructure. This may be the investor’s way to profit from government ineptness.