The whole “infrastructure investment” scam strikes me as extraordinary. I watch these commercials that CNBC does for their ‘executive discussions’ of the topic and I wonder, "Where in the world did they find so many hopelessly dishonest rent seekers to participate in this sham?" The line for them and the rest of the mainstream media is (imagine this being said in baritone – authoritative sounding voice) “we are losing our competitive edge because of a lack of infrastructure”.
What utter BS. These empty suits on CNBC - who in their real jobs sell cement to the DOT or wire to government utilities - are all claiming that our competitive advantage is being lost because the government isn’t writing them a big enough check. That’s not unusual. That’s where the term ‘rent seeking’ comes from. What is extraordinary though is how foolishly the media is falling for it all.
More than anything else, the debate around it reminds me of the global warming scam. The self appointed “journalist – experts”, in their infinite wisdom are accepting the unproven assertions of the rent seekers absent any evidence, and then treating a discussion of rent levels as if it were actual news. Tom Friedman (that idiot from the NY Times) decides that ONLY government can build a road or an airport, and it’s accepted as a fact absent any evidence. The truth of the assertion is never questioned, only the amount is ever debated… which is exactly as the rent seekers wanted it.
What fatuous nonsense. Nowhere in America is a business saying “I’d love to get access to this market and I would open a factory here, except … I get so much better access to roads and electricity in rural Mongolia – or Nepal – or Indonesia. How laughable.
Let me say it as plainly as I can. I see no way in which the US is made uncompetitive by our lack of infrastructure. I see the tax code making us uncompetitive by driving investment away. I see our labor laws as making us uncompetitive by favoring labor unions and regulation which rewards people for being less productive. And I see our government making us less competitive by taking resources away from people who know how to get a maximum return on its use, and giving it to the government who gets only a minimum return on it.
The truth about this ‘infrastructure’ canard it seems to me, is that it's really just the latest attempt for the ‘green energy’ lobby to re-brand their ideas in a way that lets them slip more regulation, subsidies, and entitlements through congress. And although the media seems to be buying into it whole hog, you really shouldn’t. Look for evidence. Look for facts. If they can't be provided, (and so far they cannot) then we should dismiss them.
(For those of you following along at home - this is probably one of those issues where I'm out in front by too much... again. I'd look for it to be a big topic in the mainstream sometime next summer or so.)
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