International Law

Comparative Thoughts on Infrastructure Spending

By Stan

Just a brief thought that popped into my mind. This doesn’t happen very often, so it’s worth writing down.

Both the U.S. and PRC are considering massive spending on infrastructure in the coming months and years. China has been ramping up such projects for years now and has a gigantic workforce to draw upon, in particular zillions of folks that are transition from agrarian to other types of mostly manual labor. In this sense, if China can allocate that spending wisely (I know, but just make that assumption for the moment), it could theoretically put a lot of money in the hands of people that could spend it very quickly.

Now look at the U.S., whose economy has transitioned from manufacturing to service, from blue collar dominant to white collar dominant. The U.S. needed to import people to fill manual labor positions in good economic times, so I wonder how big that labor pool is out there in the U.S. that can step in quickly and fill new positions as the money is made available for big infrastructure projects. There are a lot of unemployed people out there, but someone who has been working retail for the past ten years is not necessarily a good fit to go and build a bridge.

I think in some ways it was easier to get projects like this done with a 1930s U.S. workforce as opposed to the folks running around today.

Implementation should be interesting.

Full post as published by China Hearsay on November 25, 2008 (boomark / email).