High Speed Rail Affirmative
Download 0.58 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Stimulus K2 Economy-Laundry List
MegaRegions K2 EconomyFunctional regions are the lynchpin of economic stability and leadership----key for labor markets, R & D, business deals, and negotiations between firms.Blum, Haynes, & Karlsson 97 (U. Blum*, K.E. Haynes*, C.Karlsson***, *Technische Universita¨t Dresden, **Institute of Public Policy, George Mason University, ***Jo¨nko¨ping International Business School, Jo¨nko¨ping University, The regional and urban effects of high-speed trains, Received: December 1996 / Accepted: January 1997, Ann Reg Sci (1997) 31:1–20, LEXUS |SK) A functional region [is] distinguishes itself by being a common ground for a number of important economic and social functions, in particular, markets for local services, the market for labour and markets to satisfy the demand for proximity. In our definition, a functional region is consequently the basis for comparative advantage as through its size, all non-tradeables are incorporated, i.e. it is the area where production equals consumption of local goods. A robust labour market with a well-differentiated supply of various categories of specialised labour offers, for example, both firms and households richer and economically safer development and expansion possibilities than regions with smaller and thinner labour markets. Proximity within a functional region has a fundamental importance for many economic activities. Even if access through information networks has grown rapidly in importance, transaction activities, negotiations and business deals have not ceased to be concentrated to city environments offering opportunities for face-to-face contacts. A city region still offers a specialised arena for all kinds of economic transactions between firms. It offers among other things support functions for transactions, for head office activities, and for negotiations between firms. It also offers cash, capital and property services, as well as different kinds of R&D services. The location decisions seem in this case to be governed by a striving for mutual accessibility. Stimulus K2 Economy-Laundry ListDeficit spending within the transportation sector is crucial to create the federal reserves needed to sustain economic growth and prevent economic collapse in the long term.Stliglitz and Weisman 10 (Joseph E., Professor at Columbia University; Author, "Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy", Steven R., Editorial Director and Public Policy Fellow, Peter G. Peterson Institute For International Economics, “Global Economic Trends: A Conversation with Joseph E. Stiglitz”, Thursday, January 21, 2010, New York, Council on Foreign Relations, http://www.cfr.org/united-states/global-economic-trends-conversation-joseph-e-stiglitz/p21301 |SK) But, you know, the basic Keynesian idea is that, if you have a weak economy, spend, and spend very cleverly, because in the long run -- you know, what they're doing is they're trying to stimulate the economy in the short run, but do investments that provide the basis of long-run economic growth. So one of the things they're spending on, one of the major things, is creating a high-speed railroad system. And just like the cross -- the intercontinental railroads changed America's economic geography, they're doing the same. And they now have the fastest trains in the world. And it really is -- you can really see how it is changing their economic geography, and is going to lead them to be in a position to have faster growth. But now, to return to the question of the global imbalances, there are two aspects I want to comment on. You know, the first is, why are they saving so much? One of the reasons that -- one of the reasons that many of the countries in East Asia are saving so much is because they recognize that there's a lot of volatility in the world, and they have to rely on themselves for insurance, for self-insurance. WEISMAN: And of course, their experience in the Asian crisis which led them to that, right? STIGLITZ: That -- exactly. In fact, one -- the prime minister of one of these countries told me quite frankly, he said -- the way he put it was very amusing. He said, "We were in the class of '97." (Laughter.) You know, "We learned what happened when you don't have enough reserves." And he said, "Well, now, never again," he said, "would we allow that to happen." And so they built up the reserves, hundreds of billions of dollars a year put in reserves: increases their security, but that's money that's not spent, and money that's not spent doesn't -- leads to weaknesses in global aggregate demand. That's part of globalization; it's the whole global aggregate demand that matters. Now, the way we've managed this crisis, the way things have evolved, things are worse, because which countries did better? The countries that had large reserves could undertake stimulus actions. And they've fared better. Russia had about $600 billion of reserves before the crisis. They've lost a large fraction of that. But you know, you talk to any Russian government official. If they hadn't had those reserves, they would be in another -- they would really be back in '98, in the Ruble crisis. So everybody looking at those examples, say, you have to have more reserves. Well, what does that mean? That means what you call a savings glut. But now this is -- the final point I want to make, the issue is not a savings glut. When you talk about savings glut, it's a balance of savings on the one hand and investment. And I'd rather call it an investment dearth and a shortage of investment, not of investment needs. I look around the world and I say, look, a billion people in extreme poverty, more than that, a couple billion people in poverty. We need to invest, to enable their standard of living to go up. The world faces a problem of global warming. We have to retrofit the whole global economy. That's going to take a lot of investment. We're talking about -- how are we going to change our, you know, investment in energy -- new energy systems, new transportation systems. That's going to take a lot of investment. So we shouldn't be telling people, don't save. We should be figuring out how to take the savings and transform that into productive investment. And that comes back to the big failure in this crisis: the failure of the financial system to do its job. Its job is to take savings and transform them into the place where they have the highest return. Putting savings into housing beyond people's ability to pay, in the richest country in the world, is not the globally most useful place to put the savings. And so it's a real -- from my point of view, it's another piece of evidence that our financial system didn't perform its social function. WEISMAN: Let me ask a final question, before we go to the group, about American leadership and in particular about the role of the dollar. Do you see the dollar as being dethroned in this crisis? Is that a terrible thing that we should try and avoid? Or is it inevitable, given the way the economy, the global economy, is growing? STIGLITZ: That's a good question. It's one that I spend some time talking about in the book "Freefall." The dollar reserve system has already been fraying. It's -- you know, the world has been using dollars as the basis of their currencies and backing of their countries for a long time. But for a currency to be used as a reserve, as a storer of value, it has to be stable in value. And in the last decade, it's been highly volatile, very unstable. And so there's been a big move out of the dollar. You can see it in China. It still holds $1.5 trillion of reserves. But it holds a large fraction not in dollars. But the crisis is going to accelerate that process. Particularly you know, you listen to the leaders of China, and they are very worried that they're holding $1.5 trillion of dollars. And they are worried that -- we're not going to renege on our debt but that we will inflate away the debt. The value of the dollar will go down. And they -- you know, they started lecturing the United States, about managing its macropolicies, from their self-interest. And it's very clear that they will be trying to figure out ways of moving out of the dollar. I chaired a U.N. commission on reform of the global economic and financial system. And our strongest recommendation for, you might say, medium-term reforms, although we thought it needed to be done as quickly as possible, was a new global reserve system. I was just at a meeting with President Sarkozy the week before last. And you know, he put it in a way that I think a lot of people have said. It's very strange in a world of globalization, multilateral system, to have the currency of one country to be this asymmetric role in the global system. Directory: files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Integer programming and game theory files -> 4 Integer Programming files -> Bpa vehicle Window Repair Scenario #1 task: Procure vehicle window relacement. Objective files -> Pop Warner History files -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose files -> Fall 2013 Spring 2014 Program Data: Standard 1 Exhibit 4d files -> Hanban – asia society confucius classrooms network 2010 request for proposal files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations Download 0.58 Mb. Share with your friends:
|