And in a more optimistic story about the stimulus package’s impact, Portland’s Daily Journal of Commerce reports that construction companies are, in fact, happy with the trickle-down effect of stimulus spending. A heavy construction company in Oregon has gotten asphalt paving projects “totaling almost 5 million dollars”; its owner, Don Laskey, has been able to keep fifteen employees who otherwise would have been laid off, and he’ll hire at least seven new ones. On the other hand, the Daily Journal didn’t find Laskey; Laskey found the paper, relaying his story on a media conference call hosted by the Associated General Contractors of America.
Campaign Desk
09:32 AM - June 9, 2009
The Economy Today: Constructive Construction?
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Questions and exercises for journalism students.
Awesome! A handful of temporary construction jobs in bumblefuck locales and all it cost is our long term financial solvency.
Sweet!
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Tue 9 Jun 2009 at 11:17 AM
While I may agree with his conclusion, I feel Mike H's analysis is a little lacking.
1) Criticizing jobs for being temporary is inappropriate, because the goal of the stimulus is to create _temporary_ jobs.
2) I do not consider Cleveland, Portland, or Arizona to necessarily be "bumblefuck" locales. But even if they are, I don't see why that would be a problem. It would only be an issue if the amount of stimulus money they received was disproportionate to their bumblefuckityness. None of the discussed article make such a claim. Other articles do, but that is not our concern here.
3) Is it inappropriate to spend on construction jobs? There's a difficulty here in defining construction jobs broadly. But there are clearly signs that we have an aging/failing infrastructure in many area -- the I35W collapse brought attention to old bridges, various regional blackouts (and terrorist threats) have drawn attention to the craptitude of the electric grid -- so perhaps the issue is whether we are spending on valuable repairs and improvements (like better public transit, a point on which Mike H. and I may disagree) or if much is going to pork. The story about I77 suggests some substantial stupidity is at play, but that nuance is lost when all projects are lumped into "construction".
Nonetheless, I do feel that these measures may be inadequate to stave off a depression and as a result are more likely than not going to cost us our long term financial solvency. I also feel that the metric being used to assess the stimulus -- job figures -- is a poor one, given how it can be sliced and diced, which makes much of the current debate (pro- and con-) pretty worthless.
In short, Mike H, your ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to apply to your newsletter.
#2 Posted by Anon, CJR on Wed 10 Jun 2009 at 02:36 PM