6 ms·

If only there were some precedent we could look to where huge numbers of people were out of work and the government killed two birds with one stone by employing

If only there were some precedent we could look to where huge numbers of people were out of work and the government killed two birds with one stone by employing a lot of them on major infrastructure projects. And what if those infrastructure projects, like improvements to roads, bridges and national parks, were largely outside and thus relatively safe even in today's climate of Covid-19. It seems like we might go into a depression... if only that had happened before and we could draw on those experiences instead of dithering and arguing while people can't pay their bills. Dare to dream, am I right?

flukus 6y ago
Problem is most unemployed people don't have the specialized skill set to contribute to these projects and those that do aren't unemployed. The unskilled labor these projects require has mostly been automated over the last 100 years by robotic tools like excavators. Basically every problem we used to be able to throw manpower at now has similar automation and the same sorts of projects would now be done by far fewer people. Any modern new deal would have to look very different to the old one.
- awillen 6y ago
  I won't even pretend to know enough about construction/infrastructure to know what's required to work on it, but there have got to be jobs that can be created that don't require technical skills. I've been reading that lots of people are now going to national parks because other stuff is closed, and they're leaving lots of trash - hire people to pick it up. Roads have potholes, and I can't believe that fixing those requires that specialized of a skill set. And even for some of the things that are most efficiently solved with specialized skills and equipment, if there's a way to do them less efficiently by unskilled people, that's fine, since overspending on labor is totally fine if not desirable in this context.
  - tomschlick 6y ago
    > I can't believe that fixing those requires that specialized of a skill set. No but it does require manual labor and a lot of people consider it beneath them these days to do that. Couple it with many people getting paid more to be on unemployment than they made while working and its a recipe for laziness.
- baddox 6y ago
  So where are all the automatic bridge-building machines? Isn’t our bridge infrastructure famously poor?
  - extradesgo 6y ago
    Right. The automation nuts are wildly disconnected with reality.
  - flukus 6y ago
    Of course there's no single bridge building machine, but most of the work in bridge building is done by a collection of machines, usually with human specialists operating them. It's not the 1920's and most digging is done by an excavator instead of a human with a shovel, most cement is delivered by a truck humans mixing it onsite. As much as possible will also be prefab.
rayiner 6y ago
Yeah, great precedent of big government intervention in the economy: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/526655831 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/526655831 > The Public Works Administration program and housing was primarily designed to provide housing to white middle-class/lower-middle class families. The progressive aspect of it was that some projects were built for African-Americans as well. But it was explicitly segregated. And in many cases, it segregated neighborhoods that had never known segregation before. So this went on throughout the country. Of the... > ROTHSTEIN: The second major one was the Federal Housing Administration, which was established in 1934, the year after the Public Works Administration. And the Federal Housing Administration is well known today by many people as an agency that would not insure mortgages for African-Americans. It redlined communities. That was a minor part of what the federal government - what the FHA did in order to segregate metropolitan areas. See also: https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/3800 https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/3800
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  That was nearly 90 years ago. Redlining was made illegal under federal law - i.e. by the government - in the 70s, not least because the private sector had absolutely no interest in doing anything to stop it.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > That was nearly 90 years ago. Did government bureaucrats micro-managing the economy stop being racist in that time? > Redlining was made illegal under federal law - i.e. by the government - in the 70s, not least because the private sector had absolutely no interest in doing anything to stop it. Redlining was invented by the government! The term refers to markings on FHA maps. The FHA massively distorted the mortgage market by insuring mortgages, but refusing to insure mortgages in Black neighborhoods. That made such mortgages vastly riskier for private sector lenders.
    - wholinator2 6y ago
      Okay, call me naive but would we rather the government have done nothing? I understand racism still exists but you can't act like we haven't made any progress. Could you imagine the protests if segregation or something akin to it started now? I understand horrific actions have been made in the past, I understand there are still bad people in the government. Should we let that prevent us from doing anything to help people? What about people who die of hunger or homelessness? Millions and millions of Americans are in extremely difficult positions right now, my parents included. Should we tell those people we don't even want to try because we're scared of something that happened 90 years ago? Can't we progress? Can't we be better? We certainly can't if we never even give ourselves the chance.

flukus 6y ago

Problem is most unemployed people don't have the specialized skill set to contribute to these projects and those that do aren't unemployed. The unskilled labor these projects require has mostly been automated over the last 100 years by robotic tools like excavators. Basically every problem we used to be able to throw manpower at now has similar automation and the same sorts of projects would now be done by far fewer people. Any modern new deal would have to look very different to the old one.

awillen 6y ago
I won't even pretend to know enough about construction/infrastructure to know what's required to work on it, but there have got to be jobs that can be created that don't require technical skills. I've been reading that lots of people are now going to national parks because other stuff is closed, and they're leaving lots of trash - hire people to pick it up. Roads have potholes, and I can't believe that fixing those requires that specialized of a skill set. And even for some of the things that are most efficiently solved with specialized skills and equipment, if there's a way to do them less efficiently by unskilled people, that's fine, since overspending on labor is totally fine if not desirable in this context.
- tomschlick 6y ago
  > I can't believe that fixing those requires that specialized of a skill set. No but it does require manual labor and a lot of people consider it beneath them these days to do that. Couple it with many people getting paid more to be on unemployment than they made while working and its a recipe for laziness.
baddox 6y ago
So where are all the automatic bridge-building machines? Isn’t our bridge infrastructure famously poor?
- extradesgo 6y ago
  Right. The automation nuts are wildly disconnected with reality.
- flukus 6y ago
  Of course there's no single bridge building machine, but most of the work in bridge building is done by a collection of machines, usually with human specialists operating them. It's not the 1920's and most digging is done by an excavator instead of a human with a shovel, most cement is delivered by a truck humans mixing it onsite. As much as possible will also be prefab.

rayiner 6y ago

Yeah, great precedent of big government intervention in the economy: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/526655831 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/526655831 > The Public Works Administration program and housing was primarily designed to provide housing to white middle-class/lower-middle class families. The progressive aspect of it was that some projects were built for African-Americans as well. But it was explicitly segregated. And in many cases, it segregated neighborhoods that had never known segregation before. So this went on throughout the country. Of the... > ROTHSTEIN: The second major one was the Federal Housing Administration, which was established in 1934, the year after the Public Works Administration. And the Federal Housing Administration is well known today by many people as an agency that would not insure mortgages for African-Americans. It redlined communities. That was a minor part of what the federal government - what the FHA did in order to segregate metropolitan areas. See also: https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/3800 https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/3800

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
That was nearly 90 years ago. Redlining was made illegal under federal law - i.e. by the government - in the 70s, not least because the private sector had absolutely no interest in doing anything to stop it.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > That was nearly 90 years ago. Did government bureaucrats micro-managing the economy stop being racist in that time? > Redlining was made illegal under federal law - i.e. by the government - in the 70s, not least because the private sector had absolutely no interest in doing anything to stop it. Redlining was invented by the government! The term refers to markings on FHA maps. The FHA massively distorted the mortgage market by insuring mortgages, but refusing to insure mortgages in Black neighborhoods. That made such mortgages vastly riskier for private sector lenders.
  - wholinator2 6y ago
    Okay, call me naive but would we rather the government have done nothing? I understand racism still exists but you can't act like we haven't made any progress. Could you imagine the protests if segregation or something akin to it started now? I understand horrific actions have been made in the past, I understand there are still bad people in the government. Should we let that prevent us from doing anything to help people? What about people who die of hunger or homelessness? Millions and millions of Americans are in extremely difficult positions right now, my parents included. Should we tell those people we don't even want to try because we're scared of something that happened 90 years ago? Can't we progress? Can't we be better? We certainly can't if we never even give ourselves the chance.