If we want to create jobs, why aren’t we spending on mass transit? 10

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1. 

   Jon Rynn Posted 7:58 am
   12 Mar 2008

   Sarah --You just made my day

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2. 

   bryantheresa Posted 8:23 pm
   12 Mar 2008

   Defense?I think you meant "Offense".  It would me much more accurate if they went back to the old 'Department of War' title.  

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3. 

   Delay And Deny Posted 1:42 am
   13 Mar 2008

   Mom, Inc = Greenest Job
   
   If you really want to put money into the hands of people, then we should pay stay at home moms (or Mr. Moms).
   Even a $30,000 stipend would go the most towards helping the economy by reducing the need for the two-income household.
   As far as Greening, paying mom's $30,000 in a home where the dad earns the $40,000 medium would elimate the need for:
   a) Two cars
   
   b) Two sets of CO2 emissions
   
   c) Driving to daycare
   
   d) Reduce need for packaging and manufactured goods as moms can relearn to cook from scratch.
   Next up...how the one-room schoolhouse can save the Ecology, Mercy Me...
   
   The Manhattan Declaration

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4. 

   Delay And Deny Posted 1:45 am
   13 Mar 2008

   That Number Again...
   
   And for those without a Calc.exe, if we did pay moms $30,000 a year, then 1 Billion dollars would create:
   33,333 jobs...or half again as much as "Mass Transit".
   (Which we will need less of if we reduce two-job households to one-job households).
   
   The Manhattan Declaration

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5. 

   Jon Rynn Posted 2:25 am
   13 Mar 2008

   so stay-at-home moms + mass transitYou need very few cars! (add in some public bikes with child carriers on the back).

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6. 

   KenG Posted 3:49 am
   13 Mar 2008

   NumbersWhenever I see one of these "create jobs" stories, I assume it's based on numbers games. You always need to go back to basic economic theory. Defense spending is an inefficient job engine because, although it advances technology, it creates a product that, in the best of scenarios, never gets used. Government spending, in general is inefficient becuase it lacks a good mechanism for targeting resource expenditure to results. Paying housewives, new tax "rebates", welfare, etc are zeroes. Though they may improve society they just transfer resources from one person to another in return for no economic activity.
   I'm always reminded of the old joke about an engineer hired to go to China and advise them on building a dam. He saw them filling wheelbarrows to move dirt. He suggested they get backhoes and trucks. The Chinese said that would be impossible, too many people would lose their jobs. His response? "I'm sorry, I thought you wanted to build a dam. If you want to create jobs I suggest you give each worker a teaspoon."
   Policy needs to aim at meeting long term goals in the most efficient way possible, not creating jobs or any other intermediate goals.

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7. 

   Matt Posted 4:25 am
   13 Mar 2008

   The Land of OpportunityI agree with the above poster that a move towards a thing in the interest of creating jobs is a losing proposition. Instead, our policies should reflect some longer term need and ensure that they are not getting in the way of possible job creation.
   This country would be much better served if they focused again on being a land of opportunity as opposed to one of handouts. This is why I HATE subsidies for some sectors of a market, but not all. (ie the energy market)
   
   If you continue to do what you've always done you'll continue to get what you've always got.
   
   - Yogi Berra

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8. 

   adub1010 Posted 4:38 am
   13 Mar 2008

   The Middle PathObviously if there was any easy solution to creating jobs then we would have done it already - the fact of the matter is that nothing in the real world is EVER that easy.
   That being said, like just about everything in life, there is a happy medium here. Obviously Chinese workers with teaspoons would create jobs at the expense of the larger goal. But when it comes to choosing between spending on defense vs. spending on public transportation, education or healthcare (or, my personal favorite, green technology) then these are all very positive goals, and the amount of job creation each one of them fosters is definitely something which can be taken into account(along with many other factors) when deciding which one of them deserves that 1 billion dollars.
   As someone from Los Angeles, i can certainly see more relevance in a working public transportation system than in another smart missile to be sent over to Iraq - and the job creation is a fairly minuscule part of that equation, but an important one nonetheless.
   
   SustainLane - A place to learn about and review socially responsible and environmentally sustainable products and businesses.

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9. 

   Jon Rynn Posted 4:57 am
   13 Mar 2008

   The economic model and the military --As far as I can tell, the main tool used for these numbers is a technique called Input-Output Analysis, which basically chops the economy into little pieces, shows you what little piece uses from all of the other pieces, and therefore allows you to make an educated guess about how many jobs all of those pieces provide.  In my opinion, it's one of the better, if not the best, tool that neoclassical economists have for understanding the economy.
   The important point about jobs is twofold: 1), in the U.S., a very large part of the Pentagon's power has nothing to do with national security, and everything to do with the jobs that it provides to the people that work in the military-industrial complex; the second important point is that it is important to show that a green economy will be a high-employment economy, that going green means a better economy, not one that is full of "costs".  So if mass transit both greens the economy and provides jobs, then you accomplish both goals at once, which should be a powerful argument.
   Since the military locks up so much of the capital of the country -- especially if you look at the engineering talent they use -- then converting that capital to greening the economy may be a very useful strategy, particularly since, in this case, mass transit weans us off of oil and actually increases our security.

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10. 

    socialscientist Posted 5:56 am
    13 Mar 2008

    just think...What free public transit would do.
    http://frepubtra.blogspot.com
    Transit fares are a restraint-of-trade tariff to protect the carbon-auto lobby.
    FPT is the beginning of the end of them.

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