Category: Infrastructure
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Part of Green New Deal, Jacks Up Debt / Politics / Infrastructure
By: MoneyMetals
As the U.S. Senate moves closer to passing a trillion-dollar spending bill that includes some infrastructure priorities, critics are warning that the public is being taken for a ride.
President Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have actually claimed that the new spending won’t add to the national debt or increase pressures on inflation. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pitched the package as an investment in the economy.
It’s certainly true that much of the nation’s infrastructure is badly in need of upgrades. Roads, bridges, pipes, and airports across the country are in poor shape.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
We Need Infrastructure Spending to Avoid Another Texas-Sized Mess / Economics / Infrastructure
By: John_Mauldin
I just talked with one of the most successful hedge fund managers in the country (in terms of returns over the last four years). He will not allow me to use his name. But I can tell you he is a raging bull.
He believes the stimulus that we already had plus what we will get—coupled with a major infrastructure bill, plus extraordinarily easy monetary policy, combined with significant new technology innovations—adds up to a new bull market.
This is someone with 5X returns over the last four years with a very diverse portfolio. So it could pay to pay attention.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 11, 2021
Biden’s massive infrastructure plan might be expensive but well worth it / Politics / Infrastructure
By: Richard_Mills
Is America’s infrastructure spending worth it? So far, the answer would lean towards a yes.
A report published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) this week has validated the nation’s recent success in improving its infrastructure, while justifying the need for additional government spending.
The “Report Card for America’s Infrastructure”, published every four years since 1998, gave US infrastructure an average grade of “C-” — up from a “D+” in 2017 — marking the first time in two decades that a “C” range grade was given.
While it appears the US infrastructure programs are on the right track, a lot more work still needs to be done to address those crumbling roads and bridges, says the ASCE, labelling overall US infrastructure in “mediocre condition.”
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 10, 2020
The Economic Implications of Colossal Global Infrastructure Funding Deficit / Economics / Infrastructure
By: Richard_Mills
Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures. As the saying goes, governments around the globe have taken drastic action to support their respective economies in the wake of the pandemic.
Within the first two months of the crisis, more than $10 trillion in relief packages were announced worldwide. This was three times more than the response to the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
As the leading world power, the US has already injected nearly 14% of last year’s GDP to rejuvenate its economy, according to Statista. This equates to about $3 trillion in money being printed.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
How to benefit from the big US Infrastructure push / Economics / Infrastructure
By: Richard_Mills
The US economy continues to flounder like an East Coast freighter bashed by a mid-winter Nor-easter.
Fifty million claims is the latest unemployment milestone surpassed by the American workforce during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has drubbed the United States worse than any other country including China, where it started.
In a stark contrast of how the two biggest economies have fared, on Wednesday China reported its gross domestic product grew by 2.5% in the second quarter, beating analysts’ expectations and rebounding from a sickly first quarter when the country was assailed by the coronavirus. (Q1 output fell by 6.5%, the first quarterly GDP decline in China since 1992 when official records started being kept)
The news came as lockdowns to contain a second wave of covid-19 eased, and Beijing rolled out stimulus measures to keep its economy growing, including fiscal spending, cutting interest rates and lowering the amount of cash that banks must hold in reserve.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Trillion-dollar US infrastructure plan will draw in plenty of metal / Commodities / Infrastructure
By: Richard_Mills
Donald Trump appears to have torn a page from Ahead of the Herd’s manual for recharging the US economy.
In an earlier article we said what the global economy really needs, in this low-growth, spending-stalled environment brought about by the pandemic, is a push - something big that will attract huge amounts of investment, and workers. As we have suggested, this could be a massive infrastructure spending program, on the scale of President Roosevelt’s “New Deal”.
Not coincidentally - we like to think Trump reads AOTH - the administration is said to be preparing a nearly $1 trillion infrastructure proposal – some of the dollars are geared toward 5G/ Broadband - as a way of spurring the world’s largest economy back to life. US GDP growth fell 5% in the first quarter and when second-quarter economic output figures are released, they will be far worse, likely double-digit.
Fortune Magazine reported A preliminary version being prepared by the Department of Transportation would reserve most of the money for traditional infrastructure work, like roads and bridges, but would also set aside funds for 5G wireless infrastructure and rural broadband, the people said...
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, November 03, 2019
Lifting the Entitlement Burden Through Increased Infrastructure Spending / Economics / Infrastructure
By: Richard_Mills
On Wednesday the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the third time this year, amid continued weak growth both domestically and globally.
The federal funds rate, the baseline for credit card and mortgage borrowing, dropped 25 basis points and is now between 1.5 and 1.75%.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell says the current interest rate levels are “likely to remain appropriate” (ie. on hold for the time being) to meet the Fed’s goal of 2% inflation.
Chairman Powell has been pressured for months by President Trump to continue slashing interest rates to help goose the American economy and keep North American stock markets on the boil.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, May 19, 2017
If China Can Fund Infrastructure With Its Own Credit, So Can We / Politics / Infrastructure
By: Ellen_Brown
May 15th-19th has been designated "National Infrastructure Week" by the US Chambers of Commerce, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and over 150 affiliates. Their message: "It's time to rebuild." Ever since ASCE began issuing its "National Infrastructure Report Card" in 1998, the nation has gotten a dismal grade of D or D+. In the meantime, the estimated cost of fixing its infrastructure has gone up from $1.3 trillion to $4.6 trillion.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Trump’s Infrastructure Boondoggle / Politics / Infrastructure
By: Mike_Whitney
Donald Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan is not an infrastructure plan and it won’t put $1 trillion of fiscal stimulus into the economy. It’s basically a scheme for handing over public assets to private corporations that will extract maximum profits via user fees and tolls. Because the plan is essentially a boondoggle, it will not lift the economy out of the doldrums, increase activity or boost growth. Quite the contrary. When the details of how the program is going to be implemented are announced, public confidence in the Trump administration is going to wither and stock prices are going to plunge. This scenario cannot be avoided because the penny-pinching conservatives in the House and Senate have already said that they won’t support any plan that is not “revenue neutral” which means that any real $1 trillion spending package is a dead letter. Thus, it’s only a matter of time before the Trump’s plan is exposed as a fraud and the sh** hits the fan.
Thursday, January 26, 2017
How to Cut US Infrastructure Costs in Half / Politics / Infrastructure
By: Ellen_Brown
Americans could save $1 trillion over 10 years by financing infrastructure through publicly-owned banks like the one that has long been operating in North Dakota.
President Donald Trump has promised to rebuild America’s airports, bridges, tunnels, roads and other infrastructure, something both Democrats and Republicans agree should be done. The country needs a full $3 trillion in infrastructure over the next decade. The $1 trillion plan revealed by Trump’s economic advisers relies heavily on public-private partnerships, and private equity firms are lining up for these plumbing investments. In the typical private equity water deal, for example, higher user rates help the firms earn annual returns of anywhere from 8 to 18 percent – more even than a regular for-profit water company might expect. But the price tag can come as a rude surprise for local ratepayers.
Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, December 11, 2016
More Thoughts on Trump’s $1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan / Politics / Infrastructure
By: Ellen_Brown
To stimulate the economy, create new jobs and generate new GDP requires an injection of new money. Borrowing from the bond markets or off-balance-sheet in public/private partnerships won’t do it. If Congress won’t issue money directly, it should borrow from banks, which create money on their books when they make loans.
Thursday, December 08, 2016
Infrastructure A Budding Asset Class / Stock-Markets / Infrastructure
By: Richard_Mills
Infrastructure is the physical systems – the roads, power transmission lines and towers, airports, dams, buses, subways, rail links, ports and bridges, power plants, water delivery systems, hospitals, sewage treatment, etc. – that are the building blocks, the Legos, that fuel a countries, a cities or a community’s economical, social and financial development.
There is an undeniable, an unarguable connection between the quality of a countries economic competitiveness and its infrastructure.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, November 28, 2016
Public Infrastructure – Welcome to the World of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse / Economics / Infrastructure
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Economic policy is subject to fads and fashions. The most recent economic-policy fad is public infrastructure. Its advocates include progressives on the “left” – like President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders – and populists on the “right” – like President-elect Trump. They tell us to take the chains off fiscal austerity and spend – spend a lot – on public works. They allege that this elixir will cure many, if not all, of our economic ills. Let’s take a look at their arguments and evidence.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Trump’s $1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan:Lincoln Had a Bolder Solution / Politics / Infrastructure
By: Ellen_Brown
Donald Trump was an outsider who boldly stormed the citadel of Washington DC and won. He has promised real change, but his infrastructure plan appears to be just more of the same -- privatizing public assets and delivering unearned profits to investors at the expense of the people. He needs to try something new; and for this he could look to Abraham Lincoln, whose bold solution was very similar to one now being considered in Europe: just print the money.
Friday, October 14, 2016
John Mauldin: My Infrastructure Plan to Save the US Economy / Stock-Markets / Infrastructure
By: John_Mauldin
Infrastructure. Most people think of roads and bridges when they hear the term. But we really should think of infrastructure as the things that allow us to move food, energy, water, products, people, and information.
It’s our rail and trucking systems. It’s our electric grid. It’s our telephone system, Internet, and other information systems. To some degree, it’s our school systems. It’s the things that make it possible for businesses and governments to provide the services and goods we all expect.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
The US Needs a Robust Infrastructure Spending Program / Stock-Markets / Infrastructure
By: John_Mauldin
I’ve been quite hard on central bank leaders lately, and rightly so. But once in a while, a central banker says something that makes sense. When it happens, I want to be fair and highlight it.
Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz gave an unusually coherent Sept. 20 speech called Living for Lower with Longer. The “lower” refers to lower interest rates. He discussed some of the broader factors contributing to the extended low-rate environment.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, September 24, 2015
The Asian Megaproject Could Make You (and Your Grandchildren) Rich / Companies / Infrastructure
By: ...
It will be on the "New Silk Road," spanning the entire Eurasian landmass – with links to Africa and Oceania, too.
Such a transport corridor is an ancient concept, but what's being built now will be far bigger and more lucrative than anything the old Han emperors could have ever imagined.
Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Roman Aqueducts and Modern Potholes Point to This Multi-trillion-Dollar Investor Opportunity / Companies / Infrastructure
By: ...
MoneyMorning.com William Patalon writes: There is nothing new under the sun. – Ecclesiastes 1:9
I'm a sucker for those "impulse buy" periodicals you always see when you're standing in the checkout line at Wal-Mart, Target, or Wegmans.
No, I'm not talking about the credibility-bending "News of the World (WWII German U-Boat Surfaces in New York Harbor – Crew Believes They're Still at War)" or any of those celebrity-chasing rags ("Insert-Name-Here Enjoys Hot Night in Hot Tub While Spouse Is on Movie Location").
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, November 07, 2013
U.S. Problem of Aging Infrastructure on Inland Waterways / Economics / Infrastructure
By: STRATFOR
The United States continues to face the problem of aging infrastructure on major water-based transport routes. A new waterways bill that is likely to be finalized soon -- the first such legislation since 2007 -- addresses some of the inefficiencies in the current system. However, the larger looming problem of insufficient funding remains. The U.S. inland waterways infrastructure is old, much-needed improvements have been delayed and the total cost of rehabilitation is expected to rise
Friday, August 31, 2012
The Global Infrastructure Investment Deficit / Stock-Markets / Infrastructure
By: Richard_Mills
Infrastructure is the physical systems – the roads, power transmission lines and towers, airports, dams, buses, subways, rail links, ports and bridges, power plants, water delivery systems, hospitals, sewage treatment, etc. – that are the building blocks, the Legos, that fuel a countries, a cities or a community’s economical, social and financial development.
There is an undeniable, an unarguable connection between the quality of a countries economic competitiveness and its infrastructure. Yet study after study shows the global economy running an infrastructure deficit of anywhere from US$ 40 trillion to $70 trillion.
Read full article... Read full article...