Democrat’s Domestic Infrastructure Investments Paying off
November 15, 2023 . . . Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) scolding his colleagues:
“One thing. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing. One. That I can go campaign on and say we did. One! Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me, one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides,
‘Well, I guess it’s not as bad as the Democrats.’”
In contrast, the Democrats with the same slim majority in the last Congress passed a series of sweeping bills that are already changing the country. Today marks the second anniversary of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that invested $1.2 trillion, $550 billion of it in new spending . . . in roads, water systems, electrical grids, broadband, bridges, and so on.
So far, that act has seen the start of more than 37,000 projects across the country. Bridges, airports, and supply chain projects are underway, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. The Democrats today emphasized they are delivering on the things that make people’s lives easier, and the White House listed a number of Republicans who voted against the measure only to boast of the benefits of the infrastructure investments to their constituents.
“And,”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a video in which he echoed the tagline of the administration:
“the great news is, we’re just getting started.”
The investment in infrastructure is part of what has created a booming U.S. economy. Growth is far better in the U.S. than in Europe or China, where a property bubble and local government debts have led to deflation.
That economic strength is standing behind President Joe Biden in San Francisco, where he traveled yesterday for a summit of the 21 member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum (APEC groups economies, not nations). APEC economies make up almost half of world trade and about 62% of global gross domestic product.
“Letters from an American” – Infrastructure Investment, November 15, 2023, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson
Growth is far better in the U.S. than in Europe or China, where a property bubble and local government debts have led to deflation.
[ The comment about China is false and malicious.
Growth is fine in China. There is no Chinese deflation, government debt is easily controllable, while Chinese regulators purposely limited property price inflation and the property market in being restructured for investment rather than speculation. Real per capita GDP growth in China, as the IMF has just written, will be easily above 5% this year. ]
Correcting a word:
…the property market “is” being restructured for investment rather than speculation.
ltr:
If I had not been to China multiple times, I would have little to say in return. The rows of uninhabited and high apartment buildings I saw while passing them were impressive. Out engineer had told us a regular citizen could not afford to live there.
In another city, I saw a mall going and coming from a PCB board manufacturer who gave the German company I worked for the refund requested and locked in gold costs (used on the boards) for 5-years. I negotiated a 50% refund when we should have received nothing because a lazy person in the US did not report it.
His comment about the mall? It will never be used and was built to keep labor working during a slow economy. You can keep denying this. I have been to China multiple times for more than just a day at a time and traveled by car, train, and planes in China. It is impressive but what I described, does take place.
In the US, we would just lay labor off. China kept their labor employed.
In the US, we would just lay labor off. China kept their labor employed.
[ What China has been doing is building an advanced technology economy that is now significantly larger than the American economy and growing faster and investing more in technology to come. ]
@ltr,
Actually, no. China’s economy is *not* significantly larger than the American economy. It is second to the US economy.
https://www.investopedia.com/insights/worlds-top-economies/
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/October/weo-report?c=223,924,132,134,532,534,536,158,546,922,112,111,&s=PPPGDP,&sy=2007&ey=2022&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
October 15, 2023
Gross Domestic Product based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) valuation for Brazil, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Macao, Russia, United Kingdom and United States, 2007-2022
2022
Brazil ( 3,837)
China ( 30,762)
France ( 3,696)
Germany ( 5,370)
India ( 11,901)
Indonesia ( 4,037)
Japan ( 6,145)
Russia ( 4,770)
United Kingdom ( 3,717)
United States ( 25,463)
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/October/weo-report?c=223,924,132,134,532,534,536,158,546,922,112,111,&s=PPPGDP,&sy=2007&ey=2022&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
October 15, 2023
Gross Domestic Product based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) valuation for Brazil, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Macao, Russia, United Kingdom and United States, 2007-2022
2022
China ( 30,762)
United States ( 25,463)
Actually the Chinese economy is about 20% larger than the US economy, and China is growing significantly faster.
“The contrast in the fortunes of the world’s two economic superpowers has been extraordinary, perhaps the starkest reminder that investors’ priors, rules of thumb and models have been completely ripped up by the pandemic.
“China’s economy grew by just 0.8% in the second quarter from the prior three months, down from 2.2% in a first quarter that was inflated by base effects as activity resumed after lockdown restrictions were lifted in December.
“The U.S. economy expanded 1.2% in the second quarter, following 1.6% growth in the first three months of the year. Hardly gangbusters, but more than comparable to a rival that should have been powering ahead.
“There’s little to suggest the economic dynamics are about to reverse any time soon, while tensions between the two powers over tech and cyber security, espionage and trade remain heated.
“According to the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow real-time growth tracker, the U.S. economy is set to expand at a 5.8% annualized rate in the third quarter, which would be more than double the rate of annualized growth in the first and second quarters.”
https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/ultimate-2023-consensus-buster-us-grows-faster-than-china-2023-08-18/
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1btfU
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United States, Euro Area and China, 2007-2022
(Percent change)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1btgg
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United States, Euro Area and China, 2007-2022
(Indexed to 2007)
NY Times – just in
(The above was meant to be under the ‘Just Some More Politics Today’ thread.
Sorry about that.)
(For a Communist country, China has an awful lot of billionaires.)
China created more billionaires than the US
NBC News – Sep 5, 2021
(Hey, we should try that too, maybe?)
(I predict that if Trump, a Xi admirer, gets back into office, he will make every effort to do this also, even it means putting billionaires into very nicely appointed re-education camps. They could be called Trump Towers!)
The comment incensed some Chinese officials, but it did not seem to register with Mr. Xi, who came to the United States to court American investment in his country at a time of high unemployment and low growth….
[ This is foolishness, since China is growing at a rate easily above 5% this year, which was the initial objective, and unemployment is at 5% which was also the objective. The critical growth objective however was to dramatically increase domestic investment in advanced technology production and the results have been dramatic. ]
Couldn’t headline you today, but you did fit nicely into a roundup of a stunning variety of climate caused disasters, amongst other stuff …