Roots of economic pain dig deeper
Robert Cohen | Post-Dispatch
The tentacles of a deeply troubled global economy seem to find new territory every day as reports of the decline spread across all corners.
Our collective psyche is being inured from the daily parade of gloomy economic news: from 53,000 jobs to be eliminated by Citigroup to the Big Three U.S. automakers pleading to Congress for a second $25 billion round of federal rescue dollars.
Today, data was released that showed U.S. new home and apartment construction in October was at the lowest level ever since the U.S. Commerce department began being tracking it almost 50 years ago.
Some economists say that this current disaster will help to reduce the number of unsold properties, which will help the devastated housing industry to recover eventually. But the immediate impact on homebuilders and those employed in the construction-related fields will be misery.
Another study issued today showed that the Architecture Billings Index, hardly a household term, has fallen to the lowest level since the index was created in 1995. In shorthand, the American Institute of Architects keeps the index as a barometer of planned construction activity.
The AIA reports that non-profit groups and governments agencies are facing difficulties acquiring bonds to finance construction projects. That impact will span years and lessen the number of working Americans even more.
The construction industry will continue to hemorrhage projects and jobs. President-elect Barack Obama campaigned to use national service and infrastructure investments to employ people to make overdue improvements.
Has the time arrived for government jobs programs to employ people to work constructing or repairing roads, bridges, housing and public buildings in our cities?
Gilbert Bailon has been editor of the P-D editorial pages since November 2007. Previously, he worked as a reporter, editor and executive editor for The Dallas Morning News and its daily Spanish-language newspaper, Al Dia. He still harbors a passion for all things Tex-Mex: food, music, language, boots and border culture. And yes he has found some of that in the Midwest. 
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(Please keep it civil. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t in front of your mother.)
“Hey Mom, why do you think a newspaper editor would end his essay with a rhetorical question?
Just a writer’s style… or maybe evidence the writer is unwilling to take a position?”
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Since the Great Society has been in the red for years, a government jobs program would depend on the Chinese investors’ ability to pay for it.
There are remnants of the WPA and CCC’s work in our state and national parks which endure to this day. In a brief jaunt on the Appalachian Trail a few months ago, my wife and I rested in a stone and log shelter, similar to hundreds of others along the trail, which they constructed. If hard work, 3 hots and a cot, and a modest check sent home to your family is what you have in mind, that might not be so bad.
But I rather doubt it. In this political climate, I can see people getting $15 an hour for cleaning graffiti, gang prevention meetings, and perhaps even community organizing. Hard times in America today doesn’t mean you face starvation and homelessness, it means you have to cut HBO and go back to basic cable. Yes, it’s a wonderful thing that people don’t starve. But it’s hard to feel sorry for somebody because they cut off their DSL and they can’t play xbox games online.