BTW, you do realize that engineers get paid for their work -- immediately
Matters not to me, the point is that "engineer" wages are not "poor" or "middle class" wages.
The stimulus packages was
supposed to help those two classes specifically - from my understanding.
Not in anything I read.
I agree that "shovel-ready" projects may be a better use, and so agree you may have a point (is it better to employ 1000 new 100k a year engineers, or 5000 new skilled and unskilled trade workers?)
But there is another thought, specifically on the high speed rail lines.
It's pretty clear we are woefully behind Europe and Japan on high-speed rail; it saves energy, saves money, stimulates the economy, creates jobs and so on - eventually.
It's also quite clear that no private industry is likely to EVER come up with the big bucks for the preparatory engineering and legal work to deal with the many environmental and jurisdictional issues... government is responsible for those requirements, and it seems likely that government spending is the only way it will get done... and just as likely, that it will never be passed on its own. This is probably seen as the only chance to move forward on it.
I don't know if it is a good idea in every way; but, assuming that it does provide for the final push to get us caught up in this area, and that if it WILL provide all those great things 10 years from now in addition to a spending stimulus today, perhaps it is a good idea.
We will, after all, need every advantage we can get 10 years from now also.
Having said all that, as I said $8b sounds like an awful high percentage to spend, especially if it's only, or primarily, on profit margins or high-salary jobs...
Hence, my questions.
However, I think you should also consider what assumptions are implicit in "engineering studies" vs. "shovel-ready".
Let's say the $8b is spent instead, on new "shovel-ready" solar energy and biofuels factories, which will be built and run with only 5% going to skilled and unskilled trades, and 95% going to Japan or China for the steel and robot manufacturing equipment.
Which provides a greater stimulus?
I could repeat my questions from my earlier post again, but all I'd be doing is cutting and pasting any sentence that ended with a question mark. None were rhetorical, all were real questions I think ought to have the answers, and any assumptions contained within, considered.
