|
|
|
|
 Public works danger: "Dogs and Daemons:
#1030015
06/13/11 07:02 AM
|
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 1,873
OP
Body Damage is Cool
|
I found this great book: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kerr-dogs.htmlIt is about modern Japan, but it tells a lot what we are going to see in USA if Obama's policies to stay. To support the construction industry, the government annually pours hundreds of billions of dollars into civil-engineering projectsùdams, seashore- and river-erosion control, flood control, road building, and the like. Dozens of government agencies owe their existence solely to thinking up new ways of sculpting the earth. Planned spending on public works for the decade 1995-2005 will come to an astronomical Ñ630 trillion (about $6.2 trillion), three to four times more than what the United States, with twenty times the land area and more than double the population, will spend on public construction in the same period. In this respect, Japan has become a huge social-welfare state, channeling hundreds of billions of dollars through public works to low-skilled workers every year. Public works have mushroomed in Japan because they are so profitable to the people in charge. Bid-rigging and handouts are standard practices that feed hundreds of millions of dollars to the major political parties. A good percentage (traditionally about 1 to 3 percent of the budget of each public project) goes to the politicians who arrange it. In 1993, when Kanemaru Shin, a leader of the Construction Ministry supporters in the National Diet, was arrested during a series of bribery scandals, investigators found that he had garnered nearly $50 million in contributions from construction firms. The secret behind the malaise of the Japanese economy in the 1990s is hidden in these numbers, for the millions of jobs supported by construction are not jobs created by real growth but "make work," paid for by government handouts. These are filled by people who could have been employed in services, software, and other advanced industries.
Oleg
Axiom 4WD 2004: OME shocks, 32" BFG Mudders, RockSliderz, OME929+2" spacers, Stinkyfab bent RE rear links, front ARB locker, rear No-Slip locker, DOR front axle lowering kit, custom middle section skid plate, IronMan torsion bars.
Deceased Rodeo'02 4WD.
|
|
|
Re: Public works danger: "Dogs and Daemons:
[Re: holger]
#1030016
06/14/11 11:56 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2000
Posts: 8,160
Web Wheeler
|
Its not much different here, except we have run out of money for the public works gravy train. Now its only money for minority, women, vet owned contractors and everyone else is SOL.
|
|
|
|
|
|
