My point is factually valid.
Public works DO create jobs, it's an empirical fact. Just because the OP hates the idea doesn't mean public works don't create jobs. Maybe he thinks UPS should fill the potholes, but either way, the only way to fill them is to hire people to fill them, whether the government or private business does it doesn't change the fact that someone was hired to do it.
No it's not. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. It's never that simple. Along with the obvious broken window fallacy problems, you have to look at how you are paying for that public work. Taxing a net two median-pay jobs out of existence to create a single public works median-pay job is destroying a job, not creating one.
Unless you know of some way to maintain or build streets without hiring people?
Again, it is an empirical fact that public works create jobs. At least public works that require hiring people. It's not hard to understand. Work needing to be done creates jobs, whether that is financed by the government or private industry doesn't change the fact that the work needing to be done requires employment.
You can debate until the cows come home about whether specific public works are worth the money, but you can't debate whether or not they create jobs. Its a simple observational fact. Especially when the vast majority of public works require manual labor.
It's a fast way to Total Political Unpopularity, believe me! But alas, I'm an engineer at heart.
Creating jobs is trivial. It's not even remotely interesting. Creating net jobs is the interesting question. And you can't prove you've created net jobs until you look on both sides of the ledger. It's a bizarre, crazy, foreign idea, I know, but it also has the virtue of corresponding to reality much better.
If more politicians (and dare I say, even economists) did this more often we'd be in a lot less trouble right now.
And yes, you seem to have totally missed my point.
Using roads as an example for public works not providing a net gain isn't very convincing... considering our entire society is now predicated on their existence.
Public works is not the equivalent of a glass-maker breaking the baker's window. It's the equivalent of hiring people to maintain the roads that allow the glass maker to get to the baker, but instead of the glass-maker paying for the road the baker and glass-maker distribute the cost through taxation.
It's intellectually dishonest to even compare highway maintenance with breaking windows to create a job for yourself.