Monday, August 17, 2009

Wonderful example of a "Bridge to Nowhere."



The term "bridge to nowhere" has become a metaphor for government waste. I have long said that a real bridge to nowhere was not wasteful at all, because if you build the bridge, "nowhere" becomes, "somewhere." (Build it and they will come!)

A more correct example of government waste would be to invest money on the building of the bridge, then stop halfway. That's waste!

This is exactly what is happening in this country when you look at what is going on with the health care issue.

Over the years the government has spent hundreds of billions, perhaps even trillions, on education. That investment--which is not even included on the government's books as an asset (and it would certainly be if it were a private company) has helped to raise the intellectual level of the nation's human capital--its people. Human beings are, by far, the most important capital that any nation posesses.

Yet after investing such huge sums we don't allow our government to maintain that capital--and that investment--by providing adequate and available health care to the citizens of the country.

We invest in the maintenence of infrastructure and other physical capital, but not human beings? Doesn't make sense, because without humans, there is no innovation, no wealth creation and no society! No machine, road, bridge or even computer can do that.

If it makes sense for the government to sustain the physical capital then doesn't it make sense for the gov't to sustain the human capital as well? A real "bridge to nowhere" is spending billions on educating people then letting them expire due to lack of adequate health care. You've just lost your investment for no good reason.

9 comments:

googleheim said...

An extension of the 1/2 baked cake or 1/2 span bridge examples are babies.

Republicans supposedly are champions of babies, going so far as to hold them up to hide behind and to use a political props at campaign stops.

However, they throw the baby out with the bath water as soon as the babies are born.

Creative destruction has left millions without jobs, moved US capital to offshore areas, vaporized various markets, lowering the assets of entities on all levels, and so on.

Meanwhile doctors are on a C-section boom and schedule births to coinincide with their vacation, their mortgage payments, and to reduce legal matters.

The republicans hide their real agenda of creative destruction behind their so-called pro-life sham.

If they are pro-life, they must create the safety net in a life long process.

googleheim said...

When we provide healthcare to as many people as possible, we are reducing the need for frivolous lawsuits and legal industries that are damaging to the society.

In other words, free healthcare will check in place the lawyers who control the process of compensation.

This is all a Republican creation, the problem was created by them, and the democrat solution is now despised by them. This is their double dipping ruckus.

Bush II gave out stimulus checks in the guise of tax rebate checks.

He spent from an account, therefore that is stimulus and that is socialist too.

It cratered the US dollar and created the spiral of commodity inflation - totally unsustainable.

The end result was the destruction of money - vaporized.

Norman theory of capacity will put more people to work, feed more families, create more babies, prevent more diseases, increase technology for the effect of decreasing costs rather than increasing them, and all that
is pro-American.

It will improve the dept of Education rather than closing it like Tom Delay wanted to do since Delay considered it not constitutional.

The creation of money via the Norman theory of capacity and re-capacity will bring America back for the next 40 years.

Free healthcare is not socialist, it is protectionist of our people and invests in their worth. It gets rid of the opportunistic Doctors who are doing it wrong and for farming on people's lives.

Pentagron said...

This is a truly brilliant post. What could be more simple and sensible? Yet, somehow we Americans don't get it. Mike Norman, we need your creative thinking in Washington. You have my vote!

Unknown said...

Weeeellll. Does that mean that bombs built but not dropped is a bridge to nowhere? The industrial military complex is big business and is another wonderful place for the government to spend our tax dollars to re-cycle into the economy and make us all richer as a nation.......don't you wish they would lever-up ten fold here????


ok just following some MNE logic

Matt Franko said...

Brantley,
There are two ways to do a fiscal transfer, one is like the Obama Admin is advocating here by creating a large Govt entity to deliver healthcare (some would call that the hard way); the other way would be targeted tax cuts/credits so people would have the $ to spend on health insurance (some would say the easy way). Either way raises the deficit spending (ie fiscal transfer). I dont think Mike is specifically advocating either way in this post (fwiw I think he would advocate some form of the latter) but he takes exception to the belief that "we cant afford it"; it's self-sabotaging our living standards as a nation. By definition we can afford anything that we do!, Resp,

mike norman said...

No. The bombs might be needed one day in defense of the nation. It's like stockpiled food or other inventory. It has value. As for the choice of, "guns or butter," society makes that choice. We have a long history of a strong military. Other nations don't. It's a public choice. The citizens of this country generally support a strong United States, militarily.

mike norman said...

Pentagron, thanks. You and others like you (me) are DEFINITELY in the minority, to be sure. It'd be hard to win an election, believe me I've tried. (Small-scale politics, locally.) However, it's very gratifying to educated people, yet frustrating at times when I see/hear all the misinformation out there that runs even to the highest level of policy. The media is, by far, the largest perpetrator.

googleheim said...

has the stimulus been issued or not ?

i thought it has not been doled out yet ...

Matt Franko said...

Goog here is a link to a site that I think is doing an OK job tracking the stimulus. Just be careful as they look to me to be a "taxpayer on the hook" type of organization; but that doesnt mean they cant track Govt expenditures.