He'll have plenty, to be sure. He'll need to rebuild the hollowed-out cabinet departments; reverse the gutting of environmental, workplace safety, and consumer protection regulations; repair relations with allies around the world; fix immigration policy; and get the vaccine distributed quickly and fairly. The latter will happen eventually, and most of those items can be accomplished by executive order. However, the biggest challenges facing the country are the interconnected, if not essentially contiguous problems of repairing, rebuilding, and modernizing the nation's infrastructure and eliminating carbon emissions, and achieving full employment while elevating the living standards of working people. These are all one thing.
This will require an immense investment, but there is no reason not to make it. With interest rates at essentially zero, and high unemployment, there is no cost to government borrowing. We know exactly what will happen as soon as Biden takes office: Republicans in congress who had no problem whatsoever with blowing the deficit wide open during the past four years will suddenly get religion, discover that the federal deficit is the most critical problem facing the country, and demand austerity.
For those of you who think you understand economics because you have an accounting certificate, let me explain about the discount rate. If you are considering whether to borrow money to invest, you need to consider the payback period of your investment. Basically you want to get more return on your investment than what it would cost to borrow the money. (Or alternatively, if you're investing savings, what you could get in interest from an alternative.) If you're paying 10%, then you need to get the value of your investment in 7 years to make it worth your while. But what if the interest rate is zero, or close to it? Then you can take as long as you want. If you're payback is in ten years, you're doing great!
Well, investment in a smart energy grid, solar and wind power, mass transit (powered by clean electricity of course), energy efficient construction, and the manufacturing technology and capacity to accomplish all this will pay off quickly; and it costs the government nothing to borrow the money.
However, that won't be possible if Republicans control the Senate. So it is critical, not only for you and your friends and children, but for the future of humanity, that the Democrats win both senatorial elections in Georgia. That is all.
How many times do I have to say it, I have a Ph.D. in social policy from Brandeis University, which required me to pass qualifying examinations in economics. I also studied economics as part of my master's degree in environmental policy from Tufts, and I previously did graduate work in economics at American University. I don't take lessons from accountants. If you think there is something incorrect in what I have written, please specify. Otherwise, kindly fuck off.
2 comments:
The Republican party--already dead spiritually, ethically, emotionally, and morally--needs to die completely and be laid to rest. It is an abomination, a cancer upon the USA.
Exactly, Don. When W. was Prez it was the party of patriotism and keeping us safe. Now its the subversive Pro-Life party of death.
Jesus nailed it when he called out the hypocrites of his day as whitewashed sepulchers. I don't recall him using stronger language on any other group.
(Thanks, I feel better now.)
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