Why Public Works Work

The real aim of a Public Works is to improve the standard of living of a society. It is the State meeting the needs of the public. The Romans were great at providing for their public with Public Works. The Romans did things like build public baths and arenas for entertainment. There are many great Public Works throughout history. There is the Hoover Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, Americas Interstate Highway System,The Golden Gate Bridge,The Sydney Harbour Bridge,The Panama Canal,The Autobarn in Germany,

Governments dont like Public Works anymore because there is no profit in them. The Government is only interested in making money from us. Politicians today are intent on selling off public assets and infrastructure. Soon the public will have nothing left.

Public works is a multi-dimensional concept in economics and politics, touching on multiple arenas including: recreation (parks, beaches), aesthetics (trees, green space), business (goods and people movement), law (police and courts), neighborhood (community centers, social services buildings). Essentially, it represents any constructed object that augments a nation's physical infrastructure such as airports, canals, dams, dikes, pipelines, and others.

Municipal infrastructure, urban infrastructure, and rural development usually represent the same concept but imply either large cities or developing nations' concerns respectively. The terms public infrastructure or critical infrastructure are at times used interchangeably. However, critical infrastructure includes public works (dams, waste water systems, bridges, etc.) as well as facilities like hospitals, banks, and telecommunications systems and views them from a national security viewpoint and the impact on the community that the loss of such facilities would entail.

en.wikipedia.org...

Public works are a great idea to fix Western Economies. If the Government really wanted to help raise the publics standard of living they could. For example,solar power seems like its anywhere from $15000 to $30000 to convert your home. If the government was doing these things for cost im sure we could get the cost down under $10000 easily. Now if every Home Owner is a customer you can get the cost down again through sheer volume.Now the cost to covert is under $5000. The American Government gives 'no interest' $5000 loans to every Home Owner to convert to solar. The loans are paid back through money saved on electricity over a 3 year period. That way,the cost is nil. The Home Owner pays about $100 dollars a month for energy for three years then is off the grid. Win win for everyone that isnt an energy company or a government wanting tax revenue.

Governments wont build a dam these days. They are too busy telling us that we have run out of water and the excess water rate is going up. The Governments are run by corporatists that want to privatize every public park and road. Every school and hospital. If the public owns nothing,it can vote on nothing. We need to be adding to public assets and infrastructure not selling it off to billionaires so that we can be forever beholden to their tolls and fees. Public Works were used in the Great Depression to provide work for the unemployed and to raise the standard of living for the poor. The world needs to go back to non-profit public works. They could help the struggling western economies alot right now.

My Solar Public Works idea is better than any stupid fake solutions the Governments come up with. Anyone can come up with non-profit ideas that would help raise the standard of living for Westerners. By removing the burden of the cost of energy all that wasted money becomes a stimulus for the economy. Nationalizing part of the resources sector would also create many jobs in mining and drilling. The profits would go back to the State and the people. A Public Works National Mining/Drilling company is a great idea. Drill baby drill. Hitler thought up the idea of a peoples car when he ordered them to make the VW. The Volkswagen was a Public Works of sorts. It was to be a cheap affordable car that the working class could own. The Germans were to pay into fund a small amount of marks each week and they would recieve the car like a rental/purchase type thing. This is easy because profit is not an issue. The State providing for the public is the issue. It works. The VW thing never came about because of the War starting but still,the logic is sound.

Public Works work. There is no way around it. Anyone else have their own public works ideas that are better than the Western Governments non-existant solutions?





Public Works have also traditionally been efforts that have given a public a sense of pride. Any good patriot should be in favour of public works.

reply to post by Germanicus


I think you are pretty correct in your thinking.

Solar won't work well everywhere. But it should be pushed in areas where it will work.

Originally posted by sligtlyskeptical
reply to post by Germanicus

 

I think you are pretty correct in your thinking.

Solar won't work well everywhere. But it should be pushed in areas where it will work.

Yeah,Australia is pretty perfect for it because we have alot of sun. But yeah,if the profit is taken away from efforts made by the State to meet the publics needs then it gets much easier. The problem is that they often farm out the contracts to anything that resembles a Public Works to private contractors. That will never work. Private contractors are pretty much used in every public works. If you eliminate the profit and do it for cost,you can make peoples lives alot easier as far as essentails go. The profit and free market should need seperate from essentail items that the citizen needs to meet their basic needs. The Western Governments could do more to help its public if it wanted to. Instead they do everything they can to throw us under the bus.

reply to post by Germanicus


I couldn't agree with you more.

This is however ATS, so be prepared to be accused of everything from being a Marxist to farting Chemtrails.

Originally posted by BritofTexas
reply to post by Germanicus

 

I couldn't agree with you more.

This is however ATS, so be prepared to be accused of everything from being a Marxist to farting Chemtrails.

edit on 22-5-2012 by BritofTexas because: Grammer.

Ha!

Im actually Hitlers baby.I was born in Hollow Earth and raised in a break away satellite German community. I have made an alliance with the greys and with the Iranians. I seek world domination. My army of nazi penguin stand ready.



But,yeah,glad you agree. I really think Public Works can help with unemployment and provide outcomes that benefit the public in the process.

reply to post by Germanicus


I'd even suggest one step further and take back the utilities Water, Gas, Electric,

The ones the vampire hose beast (or Maggie as some called it) sold along with the rest of our family silver.

Originally posted by BritofTexas
reply to post by Germanicus

 

I'd even suggest one step further and take back the utilities Water, Gas, Electric,

The ones the vampire hose beast (or Maggie as some called it) sold along with the rest of our family silver.

I agree. Public utilities should always remain in public hands. We should not be paying extra for energy due to having to meet shareholders expectations. Most of the utilities that get sold off continue to recieve taxpayer money in some form or another. Its crony capitalism. No wonder all these politicians retire to become Board Members of some demonic corporation. Controlling the States Public Utilities is a matter of National Security in reality.

The real aim of a Public Works is to improve the standard of living of a society. It is the State meeting the needs of the public. The Romans were great at providing for their public with Public Works. The Romans did things like build public baths and arenas for entertainment. There are many great Public Works throughout history. There is the Hoover Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, Americas Interstate Highway System,The Golden Gate Bridge,The Sydney Harbour Bridge,The Panama Canal,The Autobarn in Germany,

....as well as bad examples like every housing project in the US, Three Gorges Dam, and Hwangkang Dam in North Korea. Many things that the government does for the public good have tragic results. For instance: war, ethnic cleansing, housing projects, monetary inflation, forced housing, and much more have been used for the perceived good of the public. The fact is, the leaders we have entrusted are incompetent.

For example,solar power seems like its anywhere from $15000 to $30000 to convert your home. If the government was doing these things for cost im sure we could get the cost down under $10000 easily.

The government cannot provide services cheaper than free marketplaces and competing ideas and methods.

Now if every Home Owner is a customer you can get the cost down again through sheer volume.Now the cost to covert is under $5000.

What?! SUPPLY AND DEMAND

If the demand for solar power was artificially set high, the price would skyrocket and private investment into solar panel production would also skyrocket due to the higher prices. Even with this, I don't think we could make panels fast enough.

Then, as people complain about the high prices, the government will either subsidize the high cost, or force the cost down through price controls. If the price is subsidized, the cost will continue to go up (for a good example of this, look at the cost of university 'education'), which will, at this scale, cripple our money and collapse the economy. If there are price controls, the production will cease because there is no profit in solar panels. \

The Governments are run by corporatists that want to privatize every public park and road.

I agree with the first part of this sentence but the second needs a tweak. The political class (corporatists, politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, etc) wants to privatize the benefits of parks and roads while keeping the responsibility to maintain public.

Public Works were used in the Great Depression to provide work for the unemployed and to raise the standard of living for the poor.

Yet did not end the depression.

The profits would go back to the State and the people.

Any profits made from nationalized services would go to the state and its masters.... any of that money given to the people would be a form of bribery such that we wouldn't revolt. Countries like Qatar do this today, where they set up a system where all of the citizens are wealthy and all the work is done by indentured servants from abroad.

Hitler thought up the idea of a peoples car when he ordered them to make the VW. The Volkswagen was a Public Works of sorts.

A broken clock is right twice a day.

Public utilities should always remain in public hands.

'Public' utilities are int he hands of the state, not the people. I live in the US. The government that I have to deal with is not in my control and it does not represent me. I do not vote, and I only participate in taxation because they got the guns.



Here is my 'Public Works' idea.

Remove the barriers to teaching our children. There should be two and only two criteria for being a school teacher.
1. Background check. The schools naturally want to hire lawful and moral teachers and they will do all in their power to do so.
2. To be hired as a teacher, the person should be proficient in teaching the subject for which they were hired.

What does this mean? Anyone who can effectively teach, can if they so choose. A high school student can teach younger kids part time. An elderly retired journalist can teach English. You could have volunteer teachers who donate their effective teaching skills in the inner city. Teaching will be a competitive again and professionals will be jockeying to teach all the kids. Accreditation will be a function of effect and not a barrier that the status quo can hide behind.

Imagine if all the youth were educated. Wouldn't that make the best public good.