Essentially, the "plan" was supposed to be about repairing and upgrading infrastructure on the North American continent, particularly among the 48 states (plus Hawaii and Alaska) which sit upon the land between the nation of Canada to the North, the Atlantic Ocean to the East, the Gulf of Mexico and the nation of Mexico to the South, and the Pacific Ocean to the West.
Conflating infrastructure with jobs (as in American "Jobs" Plan), is the corporation's way of disguising a massive counterfeiting operation via the Federal Reserve, and a farcical debate in Congress (part of the corporation, somewhat like a massive board of directors) over the details of the spending of some $1.844 Trillion, all part of a money-laundering program designed to enrich members of congress and their friends, with 10% earmarked for the "Big Guy."
Money Daily has taken the proposed spending plan and broken it down into four categories. Some of the money will actually go towards fixing things, like roads, bridges, or roads and bridges, or just roads, which is always at the top of the list. The other categories are SLUSH FUND, which is where money is put aside for future laundering, GRAFT, for paying off people, and PORK, which covers direct enrichment of Senators and House Members. They're all crooks, so they all get some. Some just get more than others (bigger crooks).
Breaking down some of the figures leaked to the New York Times prior to Joe Biden's announcement:
In Billions of US$
$180 for research and development - handouts to corporations and universities, ostensibly nothing to do with infrastructure or jobs. Mark this down as SLUSH FUND.
$115 for roads and bridges - There was mention of repairing the 10 most economically important bridges, repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges, and fix 20,000 miles of roads. The White House fact sheet doesn't mention what these 10 most economically important bridges are, but it's a safe bet most of them are in and around New York City, Detroit, Chicago, and San Francisco. A good guess is that $40 billion will go to those pork projects, leaving $75 billion for the 10,000 smaller bridges and 20,000 miles of roads, or, $2.5 million for each mile of road and each bridge. Who knows? It might work.
$85 for public transit - There's always money thrown at regional or local "transportation authorities" which provide public transportation via busses, trains, subways, and the like. Allocate $40 billion as PORK and $45 billion as GRAFT.
$80 for Amtrak and freight rail - Amtrak is an absolute joke, a money pit. The agency loses money every day it's in operation. The trains are slow, the tracks ancient, but the jobs - especially for top management - pay very well. Upgrading freight rail will help out Warren Buffet and shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway. All of this is allocated to GRAFT.
$174 to encourage EVs via tax credits and other incentives to companies that make EV batteries in the US instead of China - All GRAFT, primarily to Elon Musk and his company, Tesla.
$42 for ports and airports - A surprisingly small number for airports, which usually get big money. Let's leave this one alone for now.
$100 for broadband - Well, now, the "fact sheet" says this will bring high-speed broadband internet to the "more than 35 percent of rural Americans who lack access to broadband at minimally acceptable speeds." We're talking fiber here, cable, which can be strung above or below ground. The average cost of running fiber is around $3 a foot. A mile is 5,280 feet, so running fiber for a country mile would cost about $15,840. If all that $100 billion was spent to run fiber out in flyover country, you could run 6,313,131 miles of it, a distance that would stretch from New York to Los Angeles (2,789 miles) 2,263 times. That's an excessive amount of fiber, so this goes down as pure PORK.
$111 for water infrastructure - Since there's already been money allocated to ports, this must be for public water and sewers, which actually are in desperate need of repair. Could actually be money well spent, but, considering the fiefdoms these local water districts have become over the years, $20 billion has to go to GRAFT.
$300 to promote advanced manufacturing - $100 each to GRAFT, PORK, and SLUSH FUND. Whenever the word "promote" is used, it's always 100% corrupt.
$400 spending on in-home care - How having nurses and health care aides visiting the homes of elderly people falls into infrastructure is unknown, so this has to go down as pure SLUSH FUND.
$100 in programs to update and modernize the electric grid - The grid has been a topic of discussion since the first major blackout in the Northeast in 1965, some 56 years ago. If it hasn't been upgraded and modernized by now, $100 billion isn't likely enough to get the job done. At least half of this is PORK, however.
$46 in fed procurement programs for government agencies to buy fleets of EVs - Naked GRAFT.
$35 in R&D programs for cutting-edge, new technologies - Wait, wait, wasn't there already $180 billion for R&D? Yes, why there it is right at the top of the list! More SLUSH FUND here.
$50 in dedicated investments to improve infrastructure resilience - "resilience" is widely recognized in Washington, DC as code for GRAFT.
$16 program intended to help fossil fuel workers transition to new work - Let's teach oil riggers to code, OK? More SLUSH FUND.
$10 for a new "Civilian Climate Corps" - They've saved the best for last. Today's CCC is a throwback to the New Deal era's Civilian Conservation Corps (also CCC), which, along with the WPA, and PWA, and CWA, created jobs for millions of the most destitute during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Throwing a mere $10 billion bone to the climate change freaks must have some of them fuming (watch out, those fumes could trigger global warming). This is GRAFT with a twisted smile.
So, out of the $1.844 trillion, there's:
These figures may not be entirely accurate, and it's a near certainty that much of the SLSUH FUND dough will end up as GRAFT or maybe even PORK, but the reality is that of the $1.844 trillion, these three pools account for $1.551 trillion, leaving a mere $293 billion for actual infrastructure repair and rebuilding, which was ostensibly the argument for this plan. The "Big Guy" will get his 10% cut, or $184.4 billion, mostly from the SLUSH FUND and some from GRAFT.
Now wonder Wall Street didn't get very excited about this. The Fed conjures up more than $360 billion every quarter without even a nod from congress. Being that this plan is supposed to spend out over eight years, the $293 that might find its way into the economy is little more than a rounding error in the larger scheme. Eight years is 32 quarters. That's less than $10 billion a quarter. Pikers. Pfft.
What really had the folks in lower Manhattan laughing and back-slapping each other were the proposed ways to "pay" for all of this.
The highlights, again, courtesy the New York Times with Money Daily comments following in italics:
There's really nothing specific in these proposals, but the Congressional Budget Office is sure to find these tax proposals more than cover the expense of the grand theft giveaway. Big corporations have big budgets to hire big accounting firms and big law firms to lower their tax burdens. If they can't lower them enough, they pass costs along to consumers or just plain cheat. That's how it goes.
As the signs say: Your Tax Dollars (not) At Work
Markets are closed Friday in observance of Good Friday. And, no, this was not an April Fool's joke.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Happy Easter!
At the Close, Wednesday, March 31, 2021:
Dow: 32,981.55, -85.41 (-0.26%)
NASDAQ: 13,246.87, +201.48 (+1.54%)
S&P 500: 3,972.89, +14.34 (+0.36%)
NYSE: 15,601.74, -24.37 (-0.16%)
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