Day 1250: America’s Economy And Infrastructure – Shakedown, Breakdown

Am I such a hyperdistillation of my cynical, consumeristic, greed-is-good generation that all I could do after reading the following articles was to start singing Bob Seger with a shoulder shimmy?  Or is it the only thing one can do on understanding that there may be light at the end of this depression tunnel, but it may not look like the 1940s?  Again, it may take a depression for our country to correct and reinvent itself.  To discover again what Yankee ingenuity means while pinching every penny like Grandma and Grandpa did.  But, we’re not quite there yet.  Not when we have greedy douchebags and crumbling infrastructure to take care of first.

The Huffington Post | Bailout Recipients Hosted Call To Defeat Key Labor Bill

Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community’s top legislative priority. Participants on the October 17 call — including at least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG — were urged to persuade their clients to send “large contributions” to groups working against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as well as to vulnerable Senate Republicans, who could help block passage of the bill.

Bernie Marcus, the charismatic co-founder of Home Depot, led the call along with Rick Berman, an aggressive EFCA opponent and founder of the Center for Union Facts. Over the course of an hour, the two framed the legislation as an existential threat to American capitalism, or worse. “This is the demise of a civilization,” said Marcus. “This is how a civilization disappears. I am sitting here as an elder statesman and I’m watching this happen and I don’t believe it.”  Donations of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars were needed, it was argued, to prevent America from turning “into France.” “If a retailer has not gotten involved in this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to [former Sen.] Norm Coleman and all these other guys, they should be shot. They should be thrown out their goddamn jobs,” Marcus declared.

First, the shakedown: Rich socialists, having received our money, unionize themselves and refer to the rest of us as socialists in order to keep us from receiving our money, forgetting that nowhere in the tenets of capitalism is it suggested that taxpayer money prop up failing businesses.  Got that?  No? Maybe you’ll like Athenae‘s Jude‘s explanation better: “Bank executives, who took your money and made shitty decisions with it, have appealed to the government for more of your money so they don’t go out of business.  Then they spend a portion of your money to ensure that you can’t have the rights and protections that you deserve.” Get it now?

Next, the very related breakdown: CNN | Poor Infrastructure Fails America, Civil Engineers Report

The American Society of Civil Engineers issued an infrastructure report card Wednesday giving a bleak cumulative ranking of D … “We really haven’t had the leadership or will to take action on it. The bottom line is that a failing infrastructure cannot support a thriving economy.”

It’s not just our levees, it’s your levees, roads, highways, bridges and buildings, too.  So stop resting on bygone laurels, pay attention, make the connections in your head and talk to your lawmakers about this. Tell them they won’t get re-elected until the economic stimulus plan is one that improves national infrastructure. Horse=infrastructure and education, cart=economy.  Talk about trains, mass transit and other ideas that will save money and prevent repairs, like cars, trucks and semis don’t.  Talk about the inter-relatedness of all of our problems.

I see a long haul ahead, and a lot of fly-swatting and priority alignments along the way.  Be alert, educated and prepared.  It’s not business as usual.