Wildly Optimistic

An Old Democrat's Take on "Guaranteed Jobs" and Such



MAKE WORK  






PUBLIC WORKS







Done right (one of my fav sayings) great Public Works can work miracles.


The Result of the WPA (Water Project for America)

The Mississippi Flood of 2020 (and most other U.S. floods) became the End of Drought.  The solar and wind energy industry joined the oil companies as Majors.  American technology took another great leap. Agricultural subsidy took on an entirely new meaning.  Millions of Americans became owners of a dependable money machine.  Dying aquifers began refilling.  The Presidency regained some of its luster.  And the rest of the world began to emulate a plan that worked.

Ok, it's just fiction, but plausible fiction. This is how America used to solve huge problems - like building the Interstate Highway System, or laying railway track over field and mountains.

 There is a huge difference between "Make Work" and "Public Works."  The New WPA in this short story has benefits like these:
In the twelve years it took to complete the project, unemployment dropped to 2%, and a job on the Great Project has the badge of significance comparable to being a World War II veteran or a steel worker on the Empire State Building or a fireman during the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center in times past.  Cynics said that the Water Project for America (of course they called it the “WPA”) was the greatest make-work project since the building of the pyramids, but they were properly ignored, for the work was hard, challenging, honorable and for an obviously wonderful cause.

 The "New WPA" describes a nationwide public works project that might cost as much as the F-35 fighter plane project, and way less than the nuclear weapons upgrade. Which would do more for Americans?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scooter Duff's Theory of Cosmology [A work in progress]

Image
 [Olde Duff Gets Seriouser] SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES  ARE MOSTLY PRIMORDIAL  DARK MATTER [Draft 8/19/2023] THE BIG NEWS.. ..Is from the James Webb Space Telescope. There were furiously active galaxies very soon after the Big Bang, not that long after the first generation stars happened. This implies supermassive black holes at the centers of the new galaxies.  The question, "how did these giant black holes get there so early?" seems not quite answered by the two main contenders, "Giant dust collapse," and "Many stellar black holes consolidating." Thus I decided to toss this hat into the ring: At the big bang, and dark matter was the first matter of any kind to form (perhaps during the mysterious “inflation” event -- my personal theory).  It’s mutual gravitational attraction and lack of interaction to any electromagnetic force allowed it to exist and start to coalesce, even in the heat of the BB, long before baryonic matter could.  There was a vast quantity
Read more

Rick and Morty

Image
A Millenial Hit Olde Folks Don't Know About Are you over 50? Have you ever heard about "Rick and Morty?" I thought not. There is a "cell" of younger people who love the show and say extravagant things about its wonderfulness. In these times when prior punditry had it we would be unified by some mysterious power in the Internet, there are more and more cells of people, unified within their cells, but isolated from most of the other cells of special interests*, tastes and proclivities.  The U.S. looks more like a pomegranate than a cantaloupe - to push the fruit/melon analogy to its extreme. I will dream up a graphic one of these days. USA, USA! society in fruit form. ANYHOO... I watched Rick and Morty at my millennial son's suggestion, and I LOVE IT. Eccentric old genius and non-genius grandson as the lead characters (faintly Back to the Future -esque) + sci-fi + Simpsons sensibilities +  intelligent satire + over-the-top imaginative creators
Read more

An Informational Present

Image
I TOLD YOU ABOUT THIS SIX YEARS AGO (Surely you remember ?)  ...And in those six years, multiple research projects have affirmed and reaffirmed that SENOLYTICS is a big deal. The science of senolytics: how a new pill could spell the end of ageing                                    * I'm reminded of this by a well-researched article in The Guardian , a newspaper I respect. Aside from that hyperbolic, click-bait-ish headline, it's a fair summary of the state of knowledge on the subject. In brief: Certain drugs and several supplements help the body get rid of senescent cells, "zombie cells" that don't die after they quit doing their thing and just hang around spitting out inflammatory chemicals that damage various organs, joints, and brain cells. The senolytic agents augment apoptosis , nature's way of killing off the senescent cells. When those senescent cells are gone, things start improving measurably (see the mouse with the young look in the Guardian piece.)
Read more