Obsidian Potency 3.0
How To Transform America's Economy.
posted Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Apparently, disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer has become a writer on Slate.com. He's a smart guy, but he doesn't go far enough in his latest article when he talks about the limits of Obama's plan to transform America's economy. Spitzer says the plan might not be far-reaching or visionary enough:
"The ultimate significance of the Obama package may be not its short-term demand-side impact but rather its capacity to transform our economy and, in turn, some of the fundamental underpinnings of our society. This introduces the second major problem: The "off the shelf" infrastructure projects that can be funded immediately and provide immediate demand-side stimulus are almost by definition not the transformative investments we really need. Paving roads, repairing bridges that need refurbishing, and accelerating existing projects are all good and necessary, but not transformative. These projects by and large are building or patching the same economy with the same flaws that got us where we are. Our concern should be that as we look for the next great infrastructure project to transform our economy, we might rebuild the Erie Canal and find ourselves a century behind technologically."
This is all quite true, and I'm totally with him until he gets here:
"Second, the most significant hurdle to beginning the shift to nongasoline-based cars is the lack of an infrastructure to distribute the alternative energy, whether it is electricity—plug-in hybrids—or natural gas or even hydrogen. Once that infrastructure is there, it is said, consumers will be able to opt for the new technology. If that is so, let us build that infrastructure now: Transform existing gas stations so they can serve as distribution points for natural gas or hydrogen, build plug-in charging centers at parking lots, and design units for at-home garages. These would, indeed, be transformative investments."
No they wouldn't. With the section, Spitzer becomes the umpteenth politician to talk in terms that simply lack the vision to address. We elected a new president who basically has all the political capital you can have to ask us to do whatever it is that needs to be done. You want to know how to transform the economy?
Get Americans out of their cars.
Getting people into more fuel-efficient cars, or more alternative-energy cars, simply isn't visionary enough. Even worse, this idea is likely to cost as much as my idea.
How to accomplish this? By going back to the future: investing in a nationwide super-high-speed rail network. Everybody wants to talk about non-gasoline cars. Almost nobody seems to want to make the leap from there to fewer cars, period.
Take the designs already being perfected by Japan and Germany, and advance them further. Spend billions on a wide-gauge passenger rail network criscrossing the continental United States. Build rail bridges. Dig rail tunnels. Design better rail cars and engines.
Imagine bullet trains criscrossing the flyover states. A locomotive carrying passengers at 200 miles per hour from Seattle to Los Angeles. Trains operating on Maglev lines making the trip from DC to New York in the same amount of time that it takes to fly.
Impossible? The Japanese would probably disagree with you. Why does America's economic and transportation infrastructure have to remain behind the curve? Isn't now the perfect time to ask Americans once again to fundamentally change the way they do things? If it really is time for a new New Deal, why not make it count?
Train travel is the most fuel-efficient mode of mass transit in the world. Oil is a finite energy source. Until the economy tanked, U.S. passenger train and rail ridership was at its highest levels ever. Using much less of it would transform the world. Done correctly, an undertaking of this magnitude could cut the number of personal-use cars on our roads in half over the next decade or two. All those countries fighting civil wars, oppressing their people and committing terrorist acts over oil would have to find something new to fight for.
I agree with Spitzer: now is the time for true visionary ideas to be implemented. Let's start by giving Americans a legitimate alternative to driving so they can put the car keys away.
You say it can't be done. This is a country where difficult used to take a day and impossible used to take a week. Yes it can.
"The ultimate significance of the Obama package may be not its short-term demand-side impact but rather its capacity to transform our economy and, in turn, some of the fundamental underpinnings of our society. This introduces the second major problem: The "off the shelf" infrastructure projects that can be funded immediately and provide immediate demand-side stimulus are almost by definition not the transformative investments we really need. Paving roads, repairing bridges that need refurbishing, and accelerating existing projects are all good and necessary, but not transformative. These projects by and large are building or patching the same economy with the same flaws that got us where we are. Our concern should be that as we look for the next great infrastructure project to transform our economy, we might rebuild the Erie Canal and find ourselves a century behind technologically."
This is all quite true, and I'm totally with him until he gets here:
"Second, the most significant hurdle to beginning the shift to nongasoline-based cars is the lack of an infrastructure to distribute the alternative energy, whether it is electricity—plug-in hybrids—or natural gas or even hydrogen. Once that infrastructure is there, it is said, consumers will be able to opt for the new technology. If that is so, let us build that infrastructure now: Transform existing gas stations so they can serve as distribution points for natural gas or hydrogen, build plug-in charging centers at parking lots, and design units for at-home garages. These would, indeed, be transformative investments."
No they wouldn't. With the section, Spitzer becomes the umpteenth politician to talk in terms that simply lack the vision to address. We elected a new president who basically has all the political capital you can have to ask us to do whatever it is that needs to be done. You want to know how to transform the economy?
Get Americans out of their cars.
Getting people into more fuel-efficient cars, or more alternative-energy cars, simply isn't visionary enough. Even worse, this idea is likely to cost as much as my idea.
How to accomplish this? By going back to the future: investing in a nationwide super-high-speed rail network. Everybody wants to talk about non-gasoline cars. Almost nobody seems to want to make the leap from there to fewer cars, period.
Take the designs already being perfected by Japan and Germany, and advance them further. Spend billions on a wide-gauge passenger rail network criscrossing the continental United States. Build rail bridges. Dig rail tunnels. Design better rail cars and engines.
Imagine bullet trains criscrossing the flyover states. A locomotive carrying passengers at 200 miles per hour from Seattle to Los Angeles. Trains operating on Maglev lines making the trip from DC to New York in the same amount of time that it takes to fly.
Impossible? The Japanese would probably disagree with you. Why does America's economic and transportation infrastructure have to remain behind the curve? Isn't now the perfect time to ask Americans once again to fundamentally change the way they do things? If it really is time for a new New Deal, why not make it count?
Train travel is the most fuel-efficient mode of mass transit in the world. Oil is a finite energy source. Until the economy tanked, U.S. passenger train and rail ridership was at its highest levels ever. Using much less of it would transform the world. Done correctly, an undertaking of this magnitude could cut the number of personal-use cars on our roads in half over the next decade or two. All those countries fighting civil wars, oppressing their people and committing terrorist acts over oil would have to find something new to fight for.
I agree with Spitzer: now is the time for true visionary ideas to be implemented. Let's start by giving Americans a legitimate alternative to driving so they can put the car keys away.
You say it can't be done. This is a country where difficult used to take a day and impossible used to take a week. Yes it can.
Want to read comments, or have something to say? Bring it.
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