I agree they had to spend the money to prevent a depression. I don’t think anyone is here contesting the amount of money unleashed. However, I am really disappointed with where that money went. It went into “non-productive” assets and activities.
I am not sure why everyone thinks it is cruel and unusual punishment to ask people to do some of those things that need done (burying power lines in cities, as one example) in exchange for money.
Why is it so barbaric to give people a job? Theoretically, there are plenty of low-skilled workers that could've been trained to do needed skilled work during this time - instead of waiting 3 months for low-skilled labor demand to pick back up.
Now - for the rest of their lives - they could be high skilled laborers. Instead, we paid people to just wait.
I agree that it was better than doing nothing.
I suppose it could have been the 1037th Non-Combat Plumber Division and everyone would have been fine with that.
Militaries in other countries are evolving to do more public works and less defense / offense.
A lot of the infrastructure to facilitate it (the hiring, training, coordination, etc) is there.
Or that the Manhattan Project was only good for New Mexico and Washington.
It'll cost ~$21Bn total with financing - but that goes until 2038: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.boston.com/uncategorized/no...
That comes out to ~$500M a year - which sounds absurd - but that pretty massively benefits ~500k+ people per year. That's ~$1000 per person per year - which still sounds absurd - until you factor in that half of that will be paid in $0.5 and a quarter of that might be paid in $0.25 or less.
And then when you factor in that that monstrous highway is gone forever, and Boston will likely be around much longer than another ~20 years - it honestly doesn't sound like a bad deal.
NYC's second avenue subway - at ~$3Bn per stop - if each stop increases ridership by ~30k people - which generates ~$48M per year in revenue, which is theoretically ~30% less than the ongoing maintenance cost (https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/f...) - is pretty similar.
IIUC - currently MTA runs at loss of about $7 per month per resident. That seems like an absolute bargain even for people who don't take the train. The reduction in traffic and cars should be worth way more than that to most people in NYC.