Infrastructure is a solid investment but the Government needs to build roads, bridges, damns and rail not re-pave roads with tar and had people shovels to dig some dirt. Infrastructure enables economic expansion and America like Canada like-wise is in a defecit. America needs $2.2 Trillion which is pennies in comparison to the fluff of monopoly money we gave to Wall Street which does nothing for the real economy other then generate "profits" on a computer screen.
The fact of the matter is and what your getting at Speakeasy is that the economy is overinfalted and does not represent anything tangible or real. 65% of the American ecnomy is consumer-based, with large chunks bogged up in "finance" and the Military. This is why 2008 sucked so bad because the only fuel for consumers... debt.. was tapped dry.
The economy ever since has been trying to correct itself and contract but the Govt can't let that happen because as tough as it is (debts harder to pay, unemployment skyrockets as labor is re-organized naturally) it is generally quicker and less painful then letting things continue on the current path which would lead to a cataclysmic economic explosion down the road.
To give you an idea of how warped things are: Agricultre... America is one of the leading farming countries world wide, tangible production of crops, cereal, and foods yet it only makes up 1.2% of GDP (??:huh:??). America literally feeds half the world being the dominant grain and cereal exporter globally and yet that is less then 2% of the economy. This has not changed much as America has been a leader in Agriculture for nearly 50 years, but back then the scope of it whiten the economy was more around 23%. Manufacturing only around 14% these are real things. Stuff like Finance and Miltary expentatures are black pitts in the economy and represent no real production or wealth generation. They just inflate charts and figures.
There are no more jobs to be "created" the economy can't support it as the boomers grey out the economy will contract. It has tried to contract for nearly 20+ years but polticitans keep on aiding new bubbles to re-inflate the mess even more. By creating Govt jobs and issuing more Govt debt.
Places like China lead ahead because they re-invest profits into tangible goods and large sectors of their economy still produce stuff that actually has value. China has its own problems and is far from perfect but just adding that to a contrast of the USA.
Politicians will try and sell you that they can get to the "good days" of Clinton or Bush but those days are long gone. They were just bubbles and nothing more. Wages have no increased nor has actual personal wealth.. just debt. The good old days were before the boomers, their parents whom created the single greatest generation of wealth (real wealth) generation in human history. Globally not just the USA during the time after WWII was exponentially growing at such and unseen rate and this was all real wealth due to the limits of credit creation which was able to take place due to Bretton Woods and other measures.
The great contraction of the economy will be the issue that our generation has to tackle,and the test is if we go down the typical paths of lunacy towards totalitarianism, and extremism - or if we break the mold and actually find a viable solution.
Anytime a politicians says he is going to "create jobs" he is full of shit and is selling snake oil. They only way jobs can be "created" right now is via debt. Only dievent sectors of the economy are growing rapidly right now (jails, debt collection, wall mart) these do not create prosperity.
Wal-Mart having record profits is not good for America, fuck what CNBC says. Wal-mart in the red is good for America.
For jobs.. they will come with the continued water-down of the dollar and the return of low wage manual jobs. But all that is moot if costs of living still rise. Its a snake eat tail situation. In the coming years you will see expansions to manufacturing because of this, cheaper wages and cheap credit for new technology should help them out but this is still far from ideal.
What would be ideal if Obama or Romney had some balls to say things how they really are. But how can we blame them? They are just telling the people what they want to hear. Are politicians only represent the ideals of the people. If American people by in large are morally bankrupt, think they are entitled to and deserve more then they need, and are to impatient then their politicians will be also.
