No Money, Major Problems
America is facing an unprecedented financial crisis. There are many theories as to why it happened, and the only time period we have to compare this situation to is the “great depression” of 1929 through the 1930s and early 1940s. The terrible part of that disaster was how long it took the country to recover.

So its obvious that we don’t want to do that again. So far, the government is trying to do things differently by pumping banks full of cash to restart lending. This seemed like a good idea to me at the time, but as far as I can tell, the banks aren’t interested in lending, at least so far. In my experience, they are busy raising interest rates on the loans they’ve already made through the credit cards they’ve been issuing just as fast as home mortgages. Yes, I’m a little bitter.

If and when they do start lending again, businesses will still first have to recover before they start growing again, creating new jobs and building new value. This will likely take years, hopefully not more than ten. What are the millions of Americans who have been laid off to do in the mean time?

Seriously, No More Big Digs
President Obama has suggested putting these people to work rebuilding America’s infrastructure to prepare for the future. That sounds like a good idea, but I fear we’ll end up with several more “Big Dig” projects.

For those who don’t know, the “Big Dig” project was a highway and tunnel construction project in Boston, Massachusetts with one of the largest budgets in the world. Its goal was to take the “central artery” highway which had previously wound itself through the city of Boston and put underground with the promise of opening up green space in the city and a reduction in traffic.

The project was budgeted at around two billion dollars, but it ultimately cost over eight, with several more billion in interest fees.

What’s worse is that the project was fraught with corruption and shoddy construction. Several contractors were jailed due to fraud and an innocent bystander was killed while driving through the “completed” tunnel when the ceiling collapsed and crushed her.

In the end, it doesn’t seem like traffic has eased up at all, and since I lived in Boston during and after the project, I’d venture to say it has gotten a lot worse.

Its projects like that which give phrases like “good enough for government work” meaning.

So rather than waste billions of taxpayer dollars on transportation, why not invest it in communications, technology, and energy infrastructure? Obama has mentioned this as his general direction, but I get the feeling that special interest groups for the existing privileged are flexing their muscle to influence the decision makers to decide in their favor. Why? So that they can stay privileged, of course!

I hope I’m wrong and we’ll see the government look to modernizing their own bureaucratic infrastructure, like simplifying the tax code, for example. My cousin said he’s expecting to see a lot of government contracts for web applications. I seriously hope he’s right!