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Both the Russians and the Chinese expect Biden’s economic plans to flop. The Russian papers have latched onto the steep price tag. The Chinese wonder why Biden seeks to undermine American economic development.
Rossiya Segodnya’s Praim economic news site notes the $2.3 trillion price tag just for Biden’s infrastructure bill, and that together with his American Families Plan, Biden’s economic plans will actually cost closer to $4 trillion over the next decade. As an observant Russian blogger on Livejournal notes, moreover, only 7% of the bill is actually related to infrastructure. He figures, “As it turns out, much of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan has nothing to do with infrastructure, but rather the encouragement of dependency, by distributing all kinds of benefits instead of work for decent wages.”
The Chinese state-controlled South China Morning Post maintains that China’s own infrastructure projects offer lessons for Biden’s new spending plan. China has relied upon spending on infrastructure for the past two decades as the PRC’s go-to method to combat economic slowdowns, while supporting long-term development, notably the Guizhou-Guangzhou high-speed railway network, set to double in length by 2035.
As Joe Biden tweeted on March 31, “The American Jobs Plan is a once-in-a-generation investment in America.” In his presidential address to Congress on Wednesday, Biden affirmed that “[w]hen I think climate change, I think jobs.” Chinese analysts advise Biden that the U.S. president’s plans should prioritize infrastructure projects that support overall economic development. The creation of new jobs would then happen naturally, generating solid economic returns. To these analysts, Biden is too focused upon artificial job creation, with no clear economic goal in mind, to their eyes basically a waste of money. What’s worse, the Washington Examiner figures each of these ‘infrastructure’ jobs would cost the nation $809,000.
SWS Research of Singapore, China’s largest securities and consulting company, published an analysis last week regarding the actual, pressing infrastructure needs of the United States. According to SWS Research, what America most needs are new and improved transport networks, including land, air, and water, as well as public transportation capable of connecting the labor force and resources located in rural areas with industrialized cities.
Russian journal Krasnaya Vesna [Red Star] estimates that the modernization of American land transport, in general, would require $120 billion per year, yet Biden’s plan only calls for $78 billion annually. Indeed, it was in the pages of Russia’s Izvestiya newspaper that the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) warned, on April 2, that Biden’s infrastructure plan would actually cost closer to $2.6 trillion or more. Forbes advises that what America needs is smarter infrastructure spending — not more. While our existing national infrastructure languishes, states continue to lobby for huge amounts to be spent on “pork-barrel” projects that do little besides please powerful legislators, such as the series of bridges to the tiny, underpopulated Alaskan islands of Gravina and Pennock that almost made it into the 2006 National Appropriations Bill. Similarly, two “pork-barrel” projects were removed from Biden’s Covid-19 Relief Bill in order to garner Republican support, including $1.425 billion to help fund an extension of Nancy Pelosi’s pet project, a Bay Area Rapid Transit line from San Jose to Santa Clara, and Chuck Schumer’s Seaway International Bridge in upstate New York.
Meanwhile, as the ASCE has been saying for years, our country’s public-sector infrastructure is badly in need of repair and improvement. According to Biden his infrastructure plan provides for the modernization of 20,000 miles of roadways. Yet according to Statista, there are over 4.2 million miles of highway in the U.S., so that Biden intends to modernize less than 1% of the road net. Biden’s tweet also mentions the repair of 10,000 bridges. Yet according to the ASCE, there are 614,837 bridges in the United States — more than 200,000 of them, over fifty years old. Biden’s 10,000 bridges represent less than 2% of all bridges and 5% of the aging bridges. According to the ASCE, the price tag for fixing just these 200,000 elderly bridges would come to $123 billion. In his tweet, Biden also says that his bill will replace America’s remaining lead pipes and service lines. More than 6.1 million lead service lines are still in use in the U.S., and some 9.2 million American homes are connected to the water mains with lead pipe. According to the American Water Works Association, replacing the remaining lead service lines would cost $30 billion.
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Will America-First News Outlets Make it to 2023?
Things are looking grim for conservative and populist news sites.
There’s something happening behind the scenes at several popular conservative news outlets. 2021 was bad, but 2022 is proving to be disastrous for news sites that aren’t “playing ball” with the corporate media narrative. It’s being said that advertisers are cracking down, forcing some of the biggest ad networks like Google and Yahoo to pull their inventory from conservative outlets. This has had two major effects. First, it has cooled most conservative outlets from discussing “taboo” topics like Pandemic Panic Theater, voter fraud, or The Great Reset. Second, it has isolated those ad networks that aren’t playing ball.
Certain topics are anathema for most ad networks. Speaking out against vaccines or vaccine mandates is a certain path to being demonetized. Highlighting voter fraud in the 2020 and future elections is another instant advertising death penalty. Throw in truthful stories about climate change hysteria, Critical Race Theory, and the border crisis and it’s easy to understand how difficult it is for America-First news outlets to spread the facts, share conservative opinions, and still pay the bills.
Without naming names, I have been told of several news outlets who have been forced to either consolidate with larger organizations or who have backed down on covering certain topics out of fear of being “canceled” by the ad networks. I get it. This is a business for many of us and it’s not very profitable. Those of us who do this for a living are often barely squeaking by, so loss of additional revenue can often mean being forced to make cuts. That means not being able to cover the topics properly. Its a Catch-22: Tell the truth and lose the money necessary to keep telling the truth, or avoid the truth and make enough money to survive. Those who have chosen survival simply aren’t able to spread the truth properly.
We will never avoid the truth. The Lord will provide if it is His will. Our job is simply to share the facts, spread the Gospel, and educate as many Americans as possible while exposing the forces of evil.
To those who have the means, we ask that you please donate. We have options available now, but there is no telling when those options will cancel us. We have our GivingFuel page. There have been many who have been canceled by PayPal, but for now it’s still an option. Your generosity is what keeps these sites running and allows us to get the truth to the masses. We’ve had great success in growing but we know we can do more with your assistance.
Thank you, and God Bless!
JD Rucker