Humza+&+Andrew+J

=Contact Info/Disclosure Info= humzatariq2@gmail.com --- feel free to email me to clarify/ask anything.


 * Two potential affs that we will be reading at the tournament. Aff will be disclosed immediately after pairings are released.**


 * for your pre-round viewing pleasure:**



=Tunnel of Love= toc

**Advocacy Statement**

 * We ask you to imagine that the United States federal government increases its investment in transportation infrastructure in the United States necessary to complete a fixed-link Bering Strait crossing.**

Russia

 * contention one is russia**

__...The Bering tunnel is a typical example of Russian folie de grandeur__ __Isn't it wonderful? We'll be able to travel from London to Seattle in ten days instead of ten hours. Freight between America and Russia will be at the mercy of terrorists and caribou__ instead of being locked away in dull container ships. Oh, and armies of navvies will dig up two of the least desecrated spots on earth. __The idea of an Alaska-Siberia rail tunnel under the Bering Strait__, which was floated (technically, refloated) this week by the Russian official responsible for such things, __is so crazy that it somehow **defies you not to will it into being**. It would cost the earth and take centuries to pay for itself, but it has its own bewitching logic__. Goodness, you realise, gazing at the map. These two continents come so close to each other up there near the Arctic that the question should be why they aren't already linked. __Russia's engineers are its most maniacal dreamers,__ and this week they have been hard at it. Viktor Razbegin, the man behind the Bering tunnel plan, also stated calmly but not quite accurately that construction of another mega-tunnel, from Japan to Sakhalin, was due to start this year. Valeri Polyakov, the world record-holder for space flight longevity and deputy director of a Moscow "medico-biological" institute, told Tass with the confidence of one who has, indeed, spent too long in orbit that it's only a matter of time before cosmonauts colonise both the Moon and Mars. An atomic energy official from the far north unveiled fetching balsa models of floating nuclear power stations bringing warmth and light to Russia's most miserable Arctic ports. And then there are the longstanding plans to transport Russian nickel ore around the world in refurbished nuclear submarines, and to link St Petersburg to Helsinki with a series of causeways and suspension bridges. Of these, the only sensible proposal is the last one, and I made it up. The rest are real, and they reveal much about the Great Russian Pickle with which George W. Bush must soon concern himself - however little he wants to. He should not be surprised by them. __Gigantism runs in Russia's blood, and has done since long before the Bolsheviks pumped it full of steroids. This is the only country in the world whose provinces measure themselves in "Western Europes" as units of surface area, and the tsars' surveyors were mapping them and sketching tunnels to Alaska before the Trans-Siberian Railway was even thought of__. So no surprise, please, but plenty of alarm. __Even in Russia, gigantism is ordinarily a form of fantasy__. Stalin changed all that, industrialising 11 time zones in a generation and laying the groundwork for the Soviet space programme and its nuclear arsenal. But Stalin's tools were terror and forced labour on an epochal scale, and his imperative, besides his own paranoia, was the genuine threat of national annihilation in the Second World War. Mr __Putin__ has no such imperative. He __has a population of 140 million souls, numb with cold and poverty, struggling to apportion the fruits of an economy smaller than that of The Netherlands. His only possible excuse for Bering-style projects would be as an exercise in mass escapism__. This does not mean they will not happen. __Escapism, too, has deep roots in Russia__ and on its old imperial fringe. In northern Uzbekistan, for instance, there is a low, brown cliff which may have killed a fine man named Yusup Kamalov on his first and final flight of fancy. When I met him his day job involved agitating for the endangered Aral Sea. His only failing was a hobby he called floppy flight. Yusup fervently believed man can fly if he straps on the right wings and flaps them hard enough. He once showed me the wings and the cliff where he would prove it, and I have not heard from him in far too long. In similar vein, The Los Angeles Times reported this week that a certain Mikhail Puchkov is still piloting a home-made mini-submarine in the Gulf of Finland 20 years after he built it, initially with pedals only, as a personal rebellion against the dead hand of Brezhnev. "I was not satisfied with the fate that was laid out for me," he said. __Some organise their own distractions. Most wait to be distracted. For them, the tsars built palaces to gawp at__. Khrushchev struck lucky with Gagarin. His successors, up to and including Gorbachev, all dallied with the grandest folly of them all, a scheme that mercifully never left the drawing board to divert two of Siberia's mightiest rivers - with the help of controlled nuclear explosions - to refill the Aral Sea. __Russia has never been the home of reason. A__ Pounds 40 billion __Bering tunnel seems quite plausible__ to many here, and n __ot as a bold Keynesian route out of their 100-year economic slump, but as__ precisely what it would be; __a piece of magnificent madness, an up-yours to the bean-counters every bit as rational as climbing Everest__. Mr __Putin has__ so far __sold himself as unimpeachably pragmatic. Sooner or later that spell will break and his power will corrupt him__, or at least corrode him. __That is when Russia's tree-huggers and moss-watchers should assemble__ at the extreme eastern tip of Chukotka __and **ask**__ those of **__us__** who follow them for the exotic dateline __what on earth would travel along a Bering tunnel__.
 * the problem with status quo politics is exemplified by american reactions to the Bering Strait tunnel. An article in one of the West’s most prestigious newspapers casually espouses condescending stereotypes of Russian madness-- Russians are depicted as irrational zealots, obsessed with dreams of gigantic megaprojects despite their backwardness and inferiority-- yet even this critic feels the pull of imagination in the Bering Strait tunnel. we secretly yearn for policies like the tunnel, but we reject them to feel superior to the other.**
 * WHITTELL 2001** (Giles, “Oh no, Ivan, spare us another big idea,” The Times, Jan 6, lexis)

These questions redounded around the world in the twentieth century. __Under the spell of modernization, American intellectuals endorsed radical forms of social change everywhere except in the United States. They placed at the pinnacle of human achievement a society much like they imagined their own to be__ : industrial, urban, cosmopolitan, rational, and democratic. __Backward nations, they argued, could progress toward modernity only by implementing rapid and violent changes. Modern America, however, would be exempt from such turmoil. With America's expanding global role and intellectuals' increasingly close connections to the centers of power, these ideas shaped nations all over the world__. New ideas of social change and national character also shaped notions of American national identity, which itself underwent significant changes after 1870—from scientific racism and assimilationist theory before World War II to celebrations of common humanity in the 1950s and the valorization of cultural differ-ences since the 1980s. __The way Americans understood the process of social change shaped the way they envisioned their own nation__. Finally, __the tensions between accepting cultural differences and promoting modernization underpinned American-Soviet conflict during the Cold War__. At the same time that scholars analyzed the conflict as one between two industrial powers with opposing ideologies, __American diplomats construed the Cold War enemy as an inherently and irredeemably different nation. These conceptions, supported by America's global reach, made—and continue to make—the American century__. __American writings on Russia__ and the Soviet Union were __shaped by__ three forces, which constitute the three main themes of this book: __a longstanding belief that every nation had its own unique character; a growing enthusiasm for modernization; and the appearance of new professional institutions and norms for interpreting other nations__. First, __American experts used national-character stereotypes to explain Russian and Soviet events. Building on centuries-old notions of Russian peculiarity, western experts enumerated traits that supposedly limited the Russians' ability to function in a modern world. Americans repeated the claims of European commentators who argued that national character emerged from geography and topography: long winters made Russians passive, and endless plains made them melancholy. Russians, in these writings, exhibited instinctual behavior, extreme passivity, and a lethargy shaken only by violence__ .4 __Americans argued that these characteristics—accentuating the negative—affected Russia's economic prospects. Reliance on these notions of national character crossed political boundaries; Russia's avowed enemies and ardent defenders in the United States agreed on what made Russians different__. Herzen himself illustrated the double-edged nature of such characterizations. Living in France and Italy in the 1850s, he gained new perspective on Russian character. He frequently mentioned the "Slavic genius" that set his compatriots apart from Europeans, focusing especially on Russians' soulful and communal natures. Yet he also took for granted that Russians^—especially the peasants who constituted the vast majority of the population—were "improvident and indolent," better at "passive obedience" than political or economic activity.5 Difference did not necessarily mean superiority. __Americans' notions of Russian character often contained within them the idea that Russians were Asian__ —"Asiatic" in the language of the day. __The claim, stated as often in racial as in geographic terms, further legiti-mated violence in Russia. According to an oft-repeated refrain, life meant less to Asians, and therefore to Russians. Personal traits also held political implications. Asians, the argument went, could be ruled only through "Oriental despotism." Writers__ from Baron Charles de Montesquieu to Karl Marx __depicted Asia as an unchanging—even unchangeable—morass of poverty, insularity, and despotism__ .6 __Whether understood as Asian or Slavic, Russians consistently faced claims that they were unready to join the modern world__. Particularist views of Russia, which emphasized the nations unique traditions and character traits, dominated American writings until the 1920s.
 * Depicting Russia as a foreign Other located in a distant Asia apart from the West and incapable of technological transformation encourages violence and constructs an enemy relationship**
 * ENGERMAN 2003** (David, Engerman is Assistant Professor of History at Brandeis University, Modernization from the Other Shore: American Intellectuals and the Romance of Russian Development, p. 2-4)

Numerous analysis have argued that __American media__ presentations of international events tend to fall in line with the policy interests of the U. S. government (Gans 1980; Paletz and Entman 1981; Parenti 1993; Qualier 1985; Wallis and Baran 1990). From the end of World War II until 1989, the American media's role in supporting official policy resulted, at least in part, from the adoption of a conflict perspective in which the United States and Russia were seen as polarized forces. American media __routinely defined American society in contrast to Russia__ (Hallin 1992). __The conflict frame fit well with the American media's game interpretation of the political world as an ongoing series of contests__, each with a set of winners and losers (Davis 1990; Ncuman, Just, and Criglcr 1992, pp. 64-65). Al least until 1989, "in normal times as well as in periods of Red scares, issues tended to be framed in terms of a dichotomized world of Communist and anti-Communist powers, with gains and losses allocated to contesting sides, and __rooting for "our side' was considered entirely legitimate news practice__ " (Herman and Chomsky 1988, pp. 30-31). During the cold war, Soviet media practice mirrored that of U.S. media in adopting a conflict perspective in which Russian society was defined by way of contrast to America (Downing 1988). Russian media devoted considerable attention to the symbolic construc-tion of the United States as a nation in which there was widespread racial conflict, unemployment, homelessness, social and economic inequality, and social injustice. In international affairs, the United States was depicted as the world's leading imperialist power, driven by military-industrial interests. Russian media also constructed a contrasting image of their homeland. While far from being a worker's paradise, Russia was depicted as comparatively free from the social ills that beset America. The nation also was portrayed as the world's leading opponent of capitalist imperialism (McNair 1988; Mickiewicz 1981; Turpin 1995). The importance of the conflict perspective, adopted by U.S. and Russian media alike, is suggested by research indicating that, __while most media listeners/viewers retain **little information**__ from news broadcasts, __they__ do tend to __retain the **generalized conceptions** of the order of things embedded in the categories through which news events are presented__ (Morley 1990, p. 128). __People's view of the order of things provides a frame of reference or orientation with which they can interpret objects and events as they conduct their **everyday lives**__. The objects and events of the world have no inherent or universal meaning apart from this imposed framework (Schutz [1932J1967). As Erving Goffman (1974) points out, the imposed meaning is limited by, and relative to, the social context in which it is created. However, __once meanings are learned__ through the socialization process (today, an important component of which is some attention to media content), __people tend to act on them without reassessment and without awareness of the social forces that created them. They come to identify truth with a particular learned set of socially shared meanings__. __Media organizations construct social reality as they select and prioritize some items of information, omit or ignore others, weave accounts together, and build a "story" using particular types of exposition and articulating verbal discourse together to make a certain kind of sense__ (Entman 1993). The interpretive structure that governs the selection, omission, prioritization, and editing processes has been termed a "news frame" (Gamson 1991). A given frame can be used to structure numerous stories about a variety of actors, conditions, and events (e.g., diverse political and economic conflicts throughout the world). A particular story tends to evoke in an audience a distinct pattern of judgments and opinions about the actor, condition or event that is its subject matter (Iyengar 1988, pp. 815-831). Stuart Hall (1982, p. 69) notes: __The more one accepts the principle that how people act will depend in part on how the situations in which they act are defined, and the less one can assume either a natural meaning to everything or a universal consensus on what things mean—then the more important, socially and politically, becomes the process by means of which certain events get recurrently signified in particular ways. This is particularly the case where events in the world are problematic__ (that is, when they are unexpected); when they break the frame of our previous expectations about the world; where powerful social interested are involved; or where there are starkly opposing interests at play. __The power involved here is an ideological power; the power to signify events in a particular way__.
 * These perceptions spill over into our everday lives and pit Russia against the US. The effect of Russian stereotypes outweighs topic education—we will forget the details we learn but retain a general impression of Russia**
 * WASHBURN AND BURKE 1997** (Philo, Purdue University, and Barbara, U of Minn Morris, “The Symbolic Construction of Russia and the United States on Russian National Television,” Sociological Quarterly, September)

__Ever since the Cold War ended, Western officials and commentators have been telling the Russians how they need to grow out of their Cold War attitudes toward the West and Western institutions, and learn to see things in a "modern" and "normal" way__. And there is a good deal of truth in this. At the same time, __it would have been good if we had subjected our own inherited attitudes toward Russia to a more rigorous scrutiny. For like any other inherited hatred, blind, dogmatic hostility toward Russia leads to bad policies, bad journalism, and the corruption of honest debate-and there is all too much of this hatred in Western portrayals of and comments on Russia__. From this point of view, an analysis of __Russophobia has implications that go far beyond Russia. Much of the U.S. foreign policy debate__, especially on the Republican side, __is structured around the belief that American policy should be rooted in a robust defense of national interest-and this is probably also the belief of most ordinary Americans__. However, this straightforward view coexists with another, equally widespread, view that dominates the media. It is, in Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's words, that "the United States stands taller than other nations, and therefore sees further." __The unspoken assumption here is that America is not only wise but also objective__, at least in its perceptions: that U.S. policy is influenced by values, but never by national prejudices. The assumption behind much American (and Western) reporting of foreign conflicts is that the writer is morally engaged but ethnically uncommitted and able to turn a benign, all-seeing eye from above on the squabbles of humanity. __It is impossible to exaggerate how irritating this attitude is elsewhere in the world, or how misleading and dangerous it is for Western audiences who believe it. Not only does it contribute to mistaken policies, but it renders both policymakers and ordinary citizens incapable of understanding the opposition of other nations to those policies. Concerning the Middle East, it seems likely that most Americans genuinely believe that the United States is a neutral and objective broker__ in relations between Israelis and Palestinians- __which can only appear to an Arab as an almost fantastically bad joke. This belief makes it much more difficult for Americans to comprehend the reasons for__ Palestinian and __Arab fury at__ both __the United States__ and Israel. __It encourages a Western interpretation of this anger as the manipulation of sheep-like masses by elites. At worst, it can encourage a kind of racism, in which certain nations are classed as irrationally, irredeemably savage and wicked__
 * Interrogating our perceptions of Russia is key to good foreign policy education overall—the same condescending discourses are spread to others**
 * LIEVEN 2001** (Anatol, Senior Associate for Foreign and Security policy at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Against Russophobia,” World Policy Journal, Winter, http://www.worldpolicy.newschool.edu/journal/lieven.html)


 * That makes extinction inevitable—survival is only possible by imagining our connections to others**
 * KEEN 1986** (Sam, author, contributing editor of Psychology Today, Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination: The Psychology of Enmity, p. 135-136)

__The two major problems that will have to be solved if we are to survive__ long beyond the twentieth century--the habit of __warfare and ecological pollution--are two sides of a single coin. When we define ourselves as superior to our neighbors__ and to nature, __we inevitably create a hostile environment, an ecology of violence__. __Advertising__, which encourages us to turn the natural world into things, __and____propaganda__ , which __invites us to turn our neighbors into things, are both instruments of a metaphysic of total warfare, a paranoid vision in which we are surrounded by an alien world. The solution to both problems lies in the same vein--the development of a psyche and a polis organized around being //with// rather than being //against//.__ __The task that faces us is nothing less than rethinking and recreating ourselves, our view of nature, our institutions. It is hard to imagine how we can change from a psychology, metaphysic, and politic of alienation to one of kindness. It is harder yet to imagine that we will survive if we cannot get beyond hostility to kinship__.

Excess

 * contention two is excess**

Belonging alongside ‘sacrifice’ in Bataille’s work is the word ‘expenditure’, dépense. This word operates in a network of thought that he describes as general or solar economy: the economics of excess, outlined most fully in the same shaggy and beautiful ‘theoretical’ work—The Accursed Share—in which he writes: ‘ the radiation of the sun is distinguished by its unilateral character: it loses itself without reckoning, without counterpart. Solar economy is founded upon this principle’ [VII 10]. It is because the sun squanders itself upon us without return that ‘The sum of energy produced is always superior to that which was necessary to its production’ [VII 9] since ‘we are ultimately nothing but an effect of the sun’ [VII 10]. Excess or surplus always precedes production, work, seriousness, exchange, and lack. Need is never given, it must be constructed out of luxuriance. The primordial task of life isnot to produce or survive, but to consume the clogging floods of riches—of energy—pouring down upon it. He states this boldly in his magnificent line: ‘The world…is sick with wealth’ [VII 15]. Expenditure, or sacrificial consumption, is not an appeal, an exchange, or a negotiation, but an uninhibited wastage that returns energy to its solar trajectory, releasing it back into the movement of dissipation that the terrestrial system—culminating in restricted human economies — momentarily arrests. Voluptuary destruction is the only end of energy, a process of liquidation that can be suspended by the acumulative efforts whose zenith form is that of the capitalist bourgeoisie, but only for a while. For solar economy ‘[e]xcess is the incontestable point of departure’ [VII 12], and excess must, in the end, be spent. The momentary refusal to participate in the uninhibited flow of luxuriance is the negative of sovereignty; a servile differance, postponement of the end. The burning passage of energetic dissipation is restrained in the interest of something that is taken to transcend it; a future time, a depredatory class, a moral goal… Energy is put into the service of the future. ‘The end of the employment of a tool always has the same sense as the employment of the tool: a utility is assigned to it in its turn—and so on. The stick digs the earth in order to ensure the growth of a plant, the plant is cultivated to be eaten, it is eaten to maintain the life of the one who cultivated it…The absurdity of an infinite recursion alone justifies the equivalent absurdity of a true end, which does not serve anything’ [VII 298].
 * Excess energy is inevitable. Expenditure drives Bataille’s theory of the solar economy. Energy will inevitably be spent and recycled, it just becomes a question of where we channel the excess.**
 * Land 92**– lecturer in Continental Philosophy at Warwick University (Nick, “The Thirst for Annihilation” pg. 23-24)[rkezios]

//I stress the importance of LeBlanc’s thesis— that violent conflict arising out of ever-growing population pressures and diminishing carrying capacity of the environment characterizes all developmental levels of human society— because it highlights another apparent weakness of Bataille’s theory. LeBlanc would argue that there is no model of what we held so dear in the 1960s: a noble savage— Native American, Tibetan, or whoever— who is or was “in harmony with the environment.” Bataille’s theory would seem to posit just such a harmony, albeit one that involves the violence of sacrifice rather than the contentment of the lotus-eater. Man in his primitive state was in harmony not with the supposed peace of Eden but with the violence of the universe, with the solar force of blinding energy: The naïve man was not a stranger in the universe. Even with the dread it confronted him with, he saw its spectacle as a festival to which he had been invited. He perceived its glory, and believed himself to be responsible for his own glory as well. (OC, 7: 192) While LeBlanc’s theory of sacrifice is functional— he is concerned mainly with how people use sacrifice in conjunction with warfare to maximize their own or their group’s success— Bataille’s theory is religious in that he is concerned with the ways in which people commune with a larger, unlimited, transcendent reality. But in order to do so they mustapparently enjoy an unlimited carrying capacity. And yet, if we think a bit more deeply about these two approaches to human expenditure (both LeBlanc and Bataille are, ultimately, theorists of human violence), we start to see notable points in common. Despite appearing to be a theorist of human and ecological scarcity, LeBlanc nevertheless presupposes one basic fact: there is always a tendency for there to be too many humans in a given population. Certainly populations grow at different rates for different reasons, but they always seem to outstrip their environments: there is, in essence, always an excess of humans that has to be burned off. Conversely, Bataille is a thinker of limits to growth, precisely because he always presupposes a limit: if there were no limit, after all, there could be no excess of anything (yet the limit would be meaningless if there were not always already an excess: the excess opens the possibility of the limit). As we know, for Bataille too there is never a steady state: energy (wealth) can be reinvested, which results in growth; when growth is no longer possible, when the limits to growth have been reached, the excess must be destroyed. If it is not, it will only return to cause us to destroy ourselves: war. For if we aren’t strong enough to destroy, on our own, excessive energy, it cannot be used; and, like a healthy animal that cannot be trained, it will come back to destroy us, and we will be the ones who pay the costs of the inevitable explosion. (OC, 7: 31; AS, 24) In fact, Bataille sounds a lot like LeBlanc when he notes, in The Accursed Share, that the peoples of the “barbarian plateaus” of central Asia, mired in poverty and technologically inferior, could no longer move outward and conquer other adjacent, richer areas. They were, in effect, trapped; their only solution was the one that LeBlanc notes in similar cases: radical infertility. This, as noted by Bataille, was the solution of the Tibetans, who supported an enormous population of infertile and unproductive monks (OC, 7: 106; AS, 108). Bataille does, then, implicitly face the question of carrying capacity. Perhaps the ultimate example of this is nuclear war. The modern economy, according to Bataille, does not recognize the possibility of excess and therefore limits; the Protestant, and then the Marxist, ideal is to reinvest all excess back into the productive process, always augmenting output in this way. “ Utility” in this model ends up being perfectly impractical: only so much output can be reabsorbed into the ever-more-efficient productive process<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. As in the case with Tibet, ultimately the excess will have to be burned off<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. This can happen either peacefully, through various postcapitalist mechanisms that Bataille recommends, such as the Marshall Plan, which will shift growth to other parts of the world, or violently and apocalyptically through the ultimate in war: nuclear holocaust. One can see that, in the end, the world itself will be en vase clos, fully developed, with no place for the excess to go. The bad alternative— nuclear holocaust— will result in the ultimate reduction in carrying capacity: a burned-out, depopulated earth. Humanity is,<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> at the same time, through industry, which uses energy for the development of the forces of production, both a multiple opening of the possibilities of growth, and the infinite faculty for burnoff in pure loss<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> [facilité infinie de consumation en pure perte]. (OC, 7: 170; AS, 181) //
 * Failure to harness the excess breeds destruction – nuclear annihilation becomes inevitable absent the domestication of extraneous energy**
 * Stoekl 7**<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">professor of French and comparative literature at Penn State University (Allan, 8 October 2007, “Bataille's Peak : Energy, Religion, and Postsustainability,” ­­­43-45, Ebrary) //KP//

//**Expenditure is zero-sum – waste is inevitable – we must prevent catastrophic expenditure – channeling the excess towards warfare makes sustainable societies impossible and creates violence.**// //**Harney and Martin 7 -**chair in strategy, culture, and society at Queen Mary, University of London, professor of art and public policy and director of the graduate program in arts politics at NYU (Stefano and Randy, “Mode of Excess: Bataille, Criminality, and the War On Terror”, [|http://www.generation-online.org/p/fpbataille7.htm)[rkezios]]// //<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">Let us consider three elements of what might constitute Bataille's own mode of excess, writing as he is, when consumer capitalism and Soviet socialism retain their status as historical projects, and war adheres snugly to a Keynesian metaphysic. Bataille, of course is writing under the sign of what came to be called Fordism, a regulatory apparatus that mass produced consumption as a disciplinary realm parallel to but outside that of production. While the externality was mutual, it was also directional- domesticity was the sphere where cars and people started out new and became old, where time was free, leisure expressed substantive rationality, and used luxuries could be put out in the garbage.<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> Despite, or perhaps more precisely because of the way in which the Keynesian welfare state was involved in the economy, subventions for public assistance and military contracting stood as anti-productive. In the dream realm of popular culture and consumer markets<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">, of manufactured desires, the state needed to be absent to locate excess in a space that would be free of coercion and domination-hence the formal distinction from work and government. The state operates for Bataille in a universe of general interest that can never use up the erotic extensive energies of the accursed share. "The State<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> (at least the modern, fully developed State) cannot give full reign to a movement of destructive consumption without which an indefinite accumulation of resources situates us in the universe in exactly the same way as cancer is inscribed in the body, as a negation."<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> (Bataille 1993: 160) Â Â Â Â War is the consummate category of expenditure that can be stolen back by state and particularizing economic exchange, especially as it seeks an equilibrium between destruction and profit in what is intended as a virtuous cycle of demand absorbing supply that<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> Franklin Delano Roosevelt dubbed, "Dr. Win The War."<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> Like the partition between production and consumption, this political economy of war assumes that death and profitability belong to separate accounts, and that civic devastation will be restored by a reincorporating policy framework like the Marshall Plan<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. As Bataille observes: "Of course, what we spend in one category is in principle lost for the others<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. There are many possibilities of slippage: alcohol, war and holidays involve us in eroticism, but this means simply that the possible expenditures in one category are ultimately reduced by those we make in the others, so that only the profits found in war truly alter this principle<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">; even so, in most cases these profits correspond to the losses of the vanquished.... We need to make a principle of the fact that sooner or later the sum of excess energy that is managed for us by a labor so great that it limits the share available for erotic purposes will be spent in a catastrophic war."(<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">Bataille 1993: 188) Under these circumstances, the political choice becomes clear, expenditure can be wasted in war or applied to increase the standard of living.//

//**A Tunnel to Russia is the ultimate form of glorious expenditure – energy should be channeled towards mega-projects that alleviate the excess because absent that, it gets channeled into warfare – we control the only internal link to violence and catastrophe.**// //**San Francisco Chronicle 9-8-1996** (Michael Taylor, Chronicle Staff Writer, “The Dreamers / Their plans for moving the Earth's bodies of water or connecting the continents may seem like the stuff of a wild night's dream, but the men behind the world's biggest projects know all it takes is a little willpower and a lot of money” http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-Dreamers-Their-plans-for-moving-the-Earth-s-2967773.php) BW // // They are seasoned and practical men, many in their 70s and 80s, and they look at the world in what can only be described as the largest of terms. Standing in front of office globes or large wall maps, they see clearly how continents can be reshaped for the better, linked by bridges and railroads, or subsea tunnels, a dam here, a canal there. They see how __ancient deficiencies of nature can be corrected with__ a __soupcon of engineering, a modicum of construction knowhow__ and, in most cases, a few billion dollars and a crash course for the rest of us in national character-building so we can see the light and enthusiastically support their visionary take on the world. __We are talking about macro-engineers, world-builders whose ideas about the largest possible construction projects on the planet include: -- Linking Siberia and North America with a 5,500-mile railroad joined by a tunnel under the Bering Strait -- a prelude to connecting the rest of the world by rail.__ -- Damming part of Canada's Hudson Bay to provide hundreds of millions of gallons of fresh water to all of North America; or towing icebergs to parched regions of the world -- sub-Saharan Africa has been mentioned -- and melting the ice. -- Connecting near-contiguous parts of the Earth through a series of bridges, tunnels and artificial islands: Madagascar to Mozambique; Japan to South Korea; Gibraltar to Morocco; Italy to Sicily. -- Building 6,000-foot-high pyramids, housing 1 million people, or gigantic underground cities, such as Japan's proposed "Geotropolis," with offices and recreational facilities. -- Running a 5,000-mile-per-hour train under the sea from North America to Europe, buried in a tube evacuated of air. Another one across the United States would follow. -- Creating new canals across long peninsulas, such as Thailand's Isthmus of Kra, as a way to save shipping firms time and money by drastically shortening voyages. __These may sound like fantasies__, the stuff of a wild night's dreams, __but once in a while, a big one comes through and shows the world that they can be done__ , given enough time, money and energy. __Two years ago, trains__ carrying trucks, passengers and automobiles __began speeding under the English Channel__ through a 31-mile-long tunnel __that__ cost $15 billion to build and __has been hailed as the grandest megaproject of the late 20th century. But most of the others, alluring as they are, rarely get done__. They become entangled in national budgetary squabbles or bogged down with environmental concerns: More than 30 years ago, for example, the old Atomic Energy Commission wanted to use hydrogen bombs to blast out a new Panama Canal. The plan was rejected after the commissioners were told 50,000 Indians would have to be relocated, and then there also was the nasty problem of potential atomic fallout. In fact, the AEC, trying to find peaceful uses for nuclear energy, struck out nearly every time it came to bat. Its directors once wanted to build a nuclear reactor on the Sea of Cortez, desalinate the water and pipe it to arid regions. The project was scrapped when engineers found they wouldn't be able to dispose of the mountains of salt they would accumulate. And, besides, the project would have destroyed the area's shrimp industry. __But what of the others -- the dazzling, futuristic ideas that crop up in the back pages of technology publications or during long, dusty seminars at academic conferences? For that matter, why do we need such projects at all__ ? And, while we're at it, what's the construction schedule here? Will it take much longer than the remodel on my kitchen? Listen to Thomas Kierans, an 83- year-old Canadian mining engineer whose idea is no less than bottling up a chunk of Hudson Bay, the world's second-largest inland sea, to provide a never-ending supply of fresh water for parched regions of North America. He sees it as a solution to "a major plumbing problem." __"When you're talking about making a change in the geography of a continent, there's no point in expecting you're going to do it overnight,"__ Kierans says from his home in St. John's, Newfoundland. __The projects "don't get done when they're first thought of because you're asking people to change a way of life. There's a natural resistance to it -- it's part of human nature."__ Kierans' proposal, which has been successfully resisted by the Canadian government ever since he raised it nearly 40 years ago, goes like this: James Bay, which is the southern part of Hudson Bay, is essentially wasted, Kierans says, because it is too salty to support freshwater fish and too fresh to support saltwater fish. It is barren. Kierans' idea is to create a series of dikes in James Bay, allowing saltwater to escape into Hudson Bay as the tide goes down, then replenishing James Bay with fresh water from the 32 rivers flowing into it. Within three years, he says, the salt water would be washed out of James Bay and you would have a giant freshwater lake that is constantly refilled by those 32 rivers. "Then it's just a series of pipes and pumps to put the water into the Great Lakes for storage, and then pipe it to all the arid regions, such as the Midwest and western parts of the United States," he says. "Pipes and pumps" is a phrase that crops up just as often in a conversation with Walter Hickel, the 77- year-old former governor of Alaska and U.S. secretary of the Interior who once broached the idea of a $150 billion undersea pipeline that would bring Alaskan water to Southern California. "This one would have provided the whole Los Angeles area with 4.5 billion gallons of water a day, or about $1 a day per person," Hickel said from his office in Anchorage. "Now they go to the store and spend that much on bottled water." When the freshwater pipeline plan was being bandied about, Hickel said, he flew down "to talk to the Los Angeles city engineers about it -- the whole thing would have been privately funded -- but then the environmentalists got involved. Finally, I said, 'If you don't want it, it's OK with me,' and I flew back to Alaska." __But Hickel, whose cosmic ideas of large projects have sometimes been dubbed "Wallyworld," is not unfazed by the failure, for now, of the pipeline project -- rejection is the norm in the world of macro-engineering. But he also says of these large-scale enterprises, "They will all get done eventually."__ Hickel's main point -- and he has close philosophical allies in the power circles of Russia, Scandinavia and Europe -- is twofold: __Big projects are doable. And big projects can keep us from going to war with each other. "Why war?"__ he asks rhetorically. " __Why not big projects? What do wars do? Wars kill people." Hickel's idea is that **if the industrialized nations of the world devoted their energies and talents to huge cooperative projects, they'd be far too busy, and too broke, to even think about going to war.**__ In fact, Hickel is not alone in that thinking. __The dean of 20th century macro-engineering__, international lawyer Frank P. __Davidson__ , 78, __says, "The point is that wars are becoming too dangerous__ ." Davidson, now retired from the macro-engineering research group at MIT, wrote a seminal work on this admittedly arcane subject: "Macro: A Clear Vision of How Science and Technology Will Shape Our Future." He says __big projects__, in addition to providing public works on a massive scale, __can serve the same kind of social benefit as the Roosevelt-era W__ orks __P__ rogress __A__ dministration or Civilian Conservation Corps. Moral temporizing aside, however, for Davidson it is the nuts and bolts of various megaprojects that he likes to talk about in his Paris summer home. "It is," he says, "the opium I like to smoke." Take floating submerged tunnels, for example, one of the hottest subjects in the world of macro. More than 100 years ago, Jules Verne was writing about them, but now they are becoming a reality. Norwegian and Japanese contractors, scientists and government agencies are already experimenting with these tunnels -- underwater tubes that would carry trains -- and Norway is nearly ready to build one across one of its many fjords. The trick is to put the tunnels deep enough so they don't interfere with surface shipping, yet not so deep that they require thick walls to withstand the pressure of the deep. But, like most things macro, it will take time before seaborne tunnels are common. "I don't think anyone is going to put one of these things across the Atlantic," Davidson says, "until these smaller ones get done." In fact, __Davidson__, like other global thinkers, __is more optimistic about the various railroad projects that have been floating around for the past 100 years. Trains__, after all, __are an established method of getting people and freight from one place to another, and their technology is the antithesis of complicated.__ So perhaps George Koumal, a 54- year-old Tucson engineer who thinks big, has the idea whose time has really come. __Ten years ago, intoxicated with the notion of linking North America and Siberia, Koumal decided to act on a project first promoted by a French explorer__ in 1849 __. He formed the Interhemispheric Bering Strait Tunnel & Railroad Group__, with offices in Washington and Moscow. And he set out to raise $40 billion to build a railroad line joining eastern Siberia with Alaska. Its focal point -- and __its most expensive single project -- would be a 60-mile tunnel under the Bering Strait__, connecting Alaska's Seward Peninsula with Siberia's Chukchi Peninsula. From there, Koumal says, it's a straight shot of 2,200 miles of rail line to the Siberian city of Yakutsk. Why? __"Why? Why?!"__ Koumal says incredulously. " __This rail line would establish access to more than 4 million square miles of land mass -- Siberia, the Yukon, Alaska, which so far are of little use to mankind__ . You gain access to those 4 million square miles, and __you gain access to tremendous natural resources. There's the same amount of oil out there as there is in Saudi Arabia__ -- and minerals, and forests and the agricultural potential. And for shipping, __you would be cutting the east-to-west and west-to-east distances drastically."__ Koumal may be the quintessential macro dreamer. In between detailed descriptions of global rail lines and distances and payloads, he peppers his conversation with rhapsodies about what can be. He wants you to join this crusade. "Where else on the planet can you find so big an area of natural resources?" he asks. "It's really possible in our country to 'go west, young man.' Columbus would be happy about this." Siberia looms large in Koumal's mind. When told there is a lawyer in New York who has raised the possibility of simply buying Siberia from the Russians and exploiting it for foreign interests, Koumal snorts that this would never happen on his watch. "We will do the project, and we will make every man, woman and child in Russia a shareholder in the project," he asserts vehemently. "We don't want to steal Russia. I speak Russian! I know Russia! I have a Russian soul." Could be, but he's also going to need about $40 billion -- and more than a few permits. It is this constant reminder of life's realities that becomes the spoilsport of the macro world, and it is instructive to listen carefully to those who have actually built these things. One such veteran is San Francisco's global engineering firm, the Bechtel Group, builder for the past 20 years of the still-evolving $30 billion Saudi Arabian city Jubail; project manager of Hong Kong's new $20 billion airport, and recent winner of a $4.5 billion contract to help build a high-speed rail line from the north end of the English Channel tunnel to London. "Sure, __there are people in this organization who dream about macro the way kids dream about rocket ships__ ," says Bechtel's Rick Laubscher, " **__but more and more the focus is not on what could be built, but on what can be built.__** __"When you're looking at macro projects__ ," Laubscher says, " __there is an ethos__, especially in America, __of looking at all the implications of this before you even do a pencil line drawing__. The environmental and economic implications have far overtaken the engineering. Increasingly, you ask, __'Where is the money coming from? Who's going to pay for a railroad tunnel under the Bering Strait?'__ " As Davidson points out, __engineers have the ideas of how to re-engineer the world, but they end up talking mostly to other engineers about it. And while they have certainly convinced each other of a project's worth, in the end nothing gets done.__ "If you have all these engineers being social with each other, and you don't have a banker and a government official at the party, then of course you have trouble getting money," Davidson says. " __All of this requires a great deal of cooperation between the public and private sectors, and as long as our politics in the United States are polarized, we can't get together."__ But __there is still room for megadreamers__, Davidson insists -- **__ideally, the megaproject man should be "a combination of dreamer and practical person,"__** __such as__ Ferdinand __De Lesseps,__ the 19th century __French builder and diplomat who engineered and completed the Suez Canal despite both a lack of dredging machinery and dire warnings the canal would be a financial disaster. **De Lesseps**,__ Davidson says, __"**just went ahead and did it."**__ Ultimately, megaplanners point to the Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel, as the one truly successful macro project of the late 20th century. __Despite centuries of bureaucratic hassle just getting it designed -- not to mention the traditional hostility and mistrust between France and England -- the tunnel had its ceremonial opening in__ May __1994__ and now runs several high-speed trains a day between London and Paris. Eurotunnel, the joint Anglo-French company that operates the Chunnel and its rail lines, lost $1.4 billion last year and still owes billions to 226 creditor banks. But those trains run right on time -- three hours, on the dot, between the two capitals -- and tunnel operators say they have 1 million customers a month. Besides, it's a lot easier and slightly cheaper than taking a plane. Sitting in a cafe at the tunnel's small exhibition center near Folkestone, Eurotunnel spokesman John __Noulton outlined how difficult it was to get the two traditionally antagonistic countries to cooperate in such a costly, tricky joint venture.__ The auspices were not great: According to news reports, __when__ Prime Minister __Margaret Thatcher and French President__ Francois __Mitterrand signed the Chunnel treaty__ at Canterbury Cathedral in February 1986, __demonstrators pelted their limousines with eggs__ and shouted, "Froggy, froggy, froggy, out, out, out." " __The major difficulty in getting the Channel Tunnel done__ ," Noulton said, " __was in persuading the governments that it should happen.__ That took 250 years." The mammoth construction project actually consisted of three tunnels -- two rail tunnels for the passenger and car-ferry trains and a central service tunnel. A central Anglo-French team designed the tunnels, but the building crews, a total of 13,000 workers, came from what turned out to be dramatically different work cultures. __The two crews would dig toward each other's countries and then meet in the middle__, 140 feet under the English Channel's seabed. "We started digging in December 1987," Noulton recalled. "On the United Kingdom side, the diggers had to follow British coal mining laws -- they had to carry self-rescuing breathing apparatus devices, and there was no drinking or smoking. They sacked people for having cigarettes. "On the French side, there was no self-rescuing device for the workers. They were each allowed a glass of wine at lunch, and from my experience, smoking was compulsory. You could stand at the British end of the tunnel, take a whiff and get a good fix of Gauloises." Still, by the fall of 1990, "as they were coming closer together, the __national differences were set aside. At the center of the tunnel, there was total anarchy -- U.K. and French workers both smoking."__ They may have been puffing cigarettes together, but when it came to the big-ticket items, the British and French reverted to their old ways. They used different tunnel-boring machines, huge devices, some weighing more than 1,000 tons, whose 27-foot-diameter cutting faces chewed slowly through the Earth at a rate of 26 feet an hour. The French bought machinery from Japan and the United States ("Naturally, the French wouldn't buy British," Noulton sniffs). The British bought from firms in England. Glitches abounded. Originally, plans called for a mild standard of earthquake resistance. But then a researcher discovered a strong quake from the 16th century, so the plans were revised, at an additional cost of $180 million, to account for higher quake resistance standards. And somewhere toward the end of the tunneling project, an engineer brought up an interesting idea that had been overlooked: With all this electricity running through the tunnel, powering trains, ventilation fans, service facilities and the like, what are we going to use for an electrical ground? To solve this crisis, when the British-side boring machines got near the mid-channel meeting point, they made a sharp turn and burrowed down into the earth, out of sight. Then these huge steel machines, worth more than $5 million each, were grounded to the electrical system, sealed off in their tombs and abandoned for eternity. In the end, Noulton says, __the Chunnel was not a project for the timid. And so when asked what advice he might have for__ George __Koumal__ and his Bering Strait organization, __Noulton smiled and said, "I wonder why he wants to do it, and I wonder how he's going to do it. It looks like a major engineering project, with extremes of climate to deal with and no obvious commercial advantage."__ If Koumal ever does raise that $40 billion, however, there is a place where he could drop the first few million. Outside the cafe at the Chunnel exhibition center is a leftover tunnel- boring machine. On its side is a giant sign that reads: "FOR SALE. ONE CAREFUL OWNER." //

//**Our form of sacrificial politics is key – the plan is key to transition away from restricted economics and embrace an ethic of “potlatch” – disbanding current economic ideology cultivates an ethic that resists catastrophic expenditure.**// //**Yang 2k**<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;">Professor of Anthropology @ the U of California, Santa Barbara (Mayfaire Mei-Hui,. Current Anthropology, Volume 41, Number 4. Aug-Oct. 2000)[rkezios] // //<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">Another body of critiques of capitalism emerging in French intellectual circles (Schrift 1997, Botting and Wilson 1998) offers a very different approach from the more dominant tradition of political economy which privileges the tropes of labor and production. Inspired by<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> Marcel Mauss’s (1967) classic work on primitive gift economies and by a Nietzschean challenge to the asceticist ethics and utilitarianism of capitalism<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">, these writers include Georges Bataille (1985, 1989a, 1989b), Jean Baudrillard (1975), Pierre Bourdieu (1977), Marshall Sahlins (1972, 1976), and Pierre Clastres (1987). Instead of taking capitalism as the subject of analysis, these writings seek to mount their critique from outside capitalism, focusing on the radical difference of primitive economies and the way in which primitive gift, sacriﬁcial, ritual, and festival economies present oppositional logics and harbor the potential for alternative social orders.<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> Despite certain shortcomings, these works are more conducive to re- conceptualizing capitalism in such a way as to reveal the multiplicity of economies, the tensions between them, and their differential embeddings within the larger social formation<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. The passage from The Grundrisse with which we began is also cited by Baudrillard in The Mirror of Production (1975:86–87), but he does so in order to launch<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> his unique critique of historical materialism<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. Baudrillard ob jects to Marx’s assumption that the contradictions of labor and ownership in capitalism can be projected back to precapitalist societies such as primitive, archaic, and feudal forms as their structural pivots.<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> Although Marx.challenged bourgeois <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">society, his theories did not <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">go far enough to extricate <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">themselves from the<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> productivist and utilitarian ethic of capitalism found in such concepts as subsistence,labor, economic exchange, and relations and means of production<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. For Baudrillard, this failure to achieve a radical break from capitalist epistemology means that Marxism liberates workers from the bourgeoisie but not from the view that the basic value of their being lies in their labor and productivity<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. Historical materialism is thus unable to grasp the profound difference between societies based on symbolic circulation and societies based on ownership and exchange of labor and commodities<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. Notions of labor and production do violence to these societies, where the point of life and the structural order are predicated not on production but on symbolic exchange with humans, spirits, and ancesors. Historical materialism cannot see that these societies possess mechanisms for the collective consumption of the surplus and deliberate antiproduction<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">whenever accumulation threatens the continuity of cycles of reciprocity (p. 143). It fails to recognize that they did not separate economics from other social relations such as kinship, religion, and politics or distinguish between infra- and superstructure. It also perpetuates the Enlightenment invention of Nature as a resource for human production rather than an encompassing symbolic ﬁeld whose offerings to humans must be compensated through sacriﬁce.<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">13 Baudrillard’s emphasis on consumption and the radical difference of precapitalist formations owes much to the earlier work of Georges Bataille. Bataille produced a very different kind of critique of capitalism, one focused not on production but on consumption. He found that in archaic economies “production was subordinated to non- productive destruction” (1989a:90). The great motive force of these societies was not the compulsion to pro- duce (which unleashes a process of objectiﬁcation whereby all forms of life, including humans, become things) but a desire to escape the order of things and to live for the present moment through exuberant consumption in the form of excesses of generosity, display, and sacriﬁce. The societies of Kwakwa _ka _’wakw potlatch feasting, Aztec human sacriﬁce, Islamic militarism, and Tibetan monastic Lamaism all understood the necessity of nonproductive expenditure (Bataille 1989b). They set aside a major proportion of their wealth for expenditures which ensured the “wasting” and “loss” of wealth rather than rational accumulation. This destructive consumption allowed them to avoid the deadly hand of utility and to restore some of the lost “intimacy” of an existence without a separation between sacred and profane. Whereas Weber (1958) looked to religion to explain the origins of the capitalist ethic, Bataille looked to archaic religion for seeds of a subversion of capitalism. If forms 13. of archaic ritual prestation and sacriﬁcial destruction of wealth could be reintegrated into modern economies, capitalism would have built-in mechanisms for social redistribution and for limiting its utilitarian productiv- ism and incessant commodiﬁcation of nature and culture. Its expansionary tendencies would suffer frequent shutdowns and reversals. Baudrillard contests the functional explanation that primitive magic, sacriﬁce, and religion try to accomplish what labor and forces of production cannot. Rather than our rational reading of sacriﬁce as producing use values, sacriﬁce is engagement in reci- procity with the gods for taking the fruits of the earth<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> (1975:82–83). Bataille’s project called for widening<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">the frame of our economic inquiry to<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">what he called a general economy,<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">which accounted not only for such things as production, trade, and ﬁnance but also for social consumption, of which ritual and<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">religious sacriﬁce<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">, feasting, and festival were important components in precapitalist economies. In Bataille’s approach, religion was not an epiphenomenal derivative of the infrastructures of production but an economic activity in itself. A general economy treats economic wealth and growth as part of the operations of the law of physics governing the global ﬁeld of energy for all organic phenomena, so that, when any organism accumulates energy in excess of that needed for its sub- sistence, this energy must be expended and dissipated in some way. What he proposed in his enigmatic and mes- merizing book The Accursed Share was that, in our mod- ern capitalist productivism, <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">we have lost sight of thisfundamental law <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">of physics and material existence: tha t the surplus<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">energy and wealth left over after the basic conditions for subsistence, reproduction, and growth have been satisﬁed must be expended<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. If this energy is not destroyed, it will erupt<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> of its own in an uncontrolled explosion such as war<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. Given the tremendous productive power of modern industrial society and the fact that its productivist ethos has cut off virtually all traditional avenues of ritual and festive expenditures, energy surpluses have been redirected to military expenditures for modern warfare on a scale unknown<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> in traditional societies. Ba- taille thought that the incessant growth machine that is the post-World War II U.S. economy could be deﬂected from a catastrophic expenditure on violent warfare only by potlatching the entire national economy. **__In giving away its excess wealth to poorer nations, as in the Mar-shall Plan to rebuild war-torn Europe, the United States could engage in a nonmilitary rivalry for prestige and inﬂuence with the Soviet Union, that other center of industrial modernity’s radical reduction of nonproductive expenditure.14 Thus, Bataille wished to resuscitate an important dimension of the economy, nonproductive expenditure, that has all but disappeared in both capitalist and state socialist modernity.__**//

//**Current ideology makes war inevitable – we must channel the excess towards policies that promote peace**// //**Bataille 47** (Georges, historian, librarian and philosopher, “The Accursed Share,” P. 187, ADP) // //We only need to bring a clear principle into political judgments. If the threat of war causes the United States to commit the major part of the excess to military manufactures, it will be useless to still speak of a peaceful evolution<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">: In actual fact, war is " bound to occur. **Mankind will move peacefully toward a general resolution** **of its problems only** if **this threat causes the U.S. to assign a large** **share of the excess**<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">- //deliberately and without return// - **to** raising **the global** **standard of living, economic activity thus giving the surplus energy produced** **an outlet other than war.**It is no longer a matter of saying that the lack of disarmament means war<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">; but American policy hesitates between two paths: Either rearm Europe with the help of anew lend-lease, or use, at least partially, the Marshall Plan for equipping it militarily. Disarmament under the present conditions is a propaganda theme; by no means is it a way out<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. But if the Americans abandon the specific character of the Marshall Plan, the idea of using a large share of the surplus for nonmilitary ends, this surplus will explode exactly where they will have decided it would<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. At the moment of explosion it will be possible to say that the policy of the Soviets made the disaster inevitable. The consolation will be not only absurd but false as well. It needs to be stated, here and now, that, on the contrary, to leave war as the only outlet for the excess of forces produced is to accept responsibilityfor that result. It is true that the USSR is putting America through a difficult trial. But what would this world be like if theUSSR were not there to wake it up, tes-t it and force it to "change"? I have presented the inescapable consequences of a precipitous armament,<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;"> but this in no way argues for a disarmament, the very idea of which is unreal. A disarmament is so far from being a possibility that one cannot even imagine the effects it would have. To suggest that this world be given a rest is fatuous in the extreme. Rest and sleep could only be, at best, a preliminary to war. Only a **dynamic peace15** answers a crying need for __<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">change __<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">. It is the only formula that can be opposed to the revolutionary determination of the Soviets. And **dynamic peace** assumes that their resolute determination will maintain the threat of war; it means the arming of opposite camps.

Utopia

 * contention three is utopia**

Considering questions of economic progress and cultural difference in early twenty-first century America takes on renewed importance yet brings with it new difficulties. Both universalism and particularism have significant cultural power. Economists and development officials (like Russia's shock therapists) offer startlingly similar prescriptions—usually in-volving more markets —lo a wide variety of societies with strikingly different histories, cultural norms, and economic structures. In cultural and educational spheres, meanwhile, multiculturalists celebrate cultural difference and treat universalism as unabashed ethnocentrism. Studying the history of these ideas highlights the dangers of both particularism and universalism. Valuing cultural difference as the sole social good obscures important material concerns.Cultural difference has already become one of the "collective nouns" Herzen deplored, functioning as an altar at which material goals are sacrificed." Yet the universalist view that all people are the same and should have the same goals is hardly more appealing. It effaces nations' dramatically different pasts and presents, erasing history with a single stroke . "We do not proclaim a new revelation " Herzen wrote in From the Other Shore, "we eliminate the old lie." I, too, am unable to "proclaim a new revelation," a new way of balancing a nation's past circumstances, its present conditions, and its aspirations for the future. I can only hope, to continue I lerzen's words, to **build a bridge** "for the unknown person of the future to pass over ."'4 The rise of universalism in mid-twenlieth-century American thought was one such bridge. It marked a salutary rejection of notions of cultural difference rooted in permanent factors. Universalist continua—from underdeveloped to developed economies, or from backward to advanced nations—allowed for the possibility of improvement.29 They explicitly challenged the notion that blood (race) or soil (geography) delimited and defined a nation's prospects. Celebrating industrialization as an effective means of overcoming national particularities, universalists demolished the particularist notion that a nation was destined for perennial penury. Yet universalism, whether espoused by nineteenth-century European radicals or twentieth-century American social scientists, hardly resolved the tensions between cultural difference and economic progress. Industry, in the prognostications of Marx and Engels, would create a new world order in which nations were irrelevant. They envisioned that industrial capitalism would strip workers of "every trace of national character."26 The fulfillment of this universalist vision, especially under governments proclaiming their patrimony in these radical writers, involved dangerous and ultimately deadly actions. Now that the "specter of communism" celebrated by these revolutionaries has receded, we are in a better position to understand the all-too-present ghosts of cultural difference and modernization.
 * Our framing of the aff is a bridge to others—we explore the tension between universalism and relativism in Western perceptions of Russian infrastructure projects**
 * ENGERMAN 2003** (David, Engerman is Assistant Professor of History at Brandeis University, Modernization from the Other Shore: American Intellectuals and the Romance of Russian Development, p. 13-14)

'North by Northwest', now __it is time to pass between continents__, from the risible __to the sublime__ , which is more challenging to assess. **__A dollar's worth of knowledge__**, then, __must be bought with a **million of speculation**__. Each of these sums will now be spent A tunnel across the North Pacific? __In the 19th century, no one was all that surprised by the prospect. If the Alps could be crossed, and the Suez Canal excavated, then why not a Bering Strait crossing__ to link the rail networks of Eurasia and the Americas? __In this 21st century, the scheme tends to be regarded with disbelief__, which, post-Apollo, seems __a contradictory and timid reaction. Ambition has been out-placed or downsized to mere entertainment or diversion**. Real ambition** has become **politically unacceptable**. Great achievements are confined to the glorious past__, where they belong, __and made safe. Creativity is subverted__, or commercialised. __Imagination is surplus to requirements. High endeavour is displaced by corporate greed or tyranny. Millions are siphoned off to no apparent end__. The engineer and the scientist stand in the way of progress, which can be arrested by squint-eyed accountants and frustrated by dyspeptic lawyers. __If in doubt, **legislate or decree**, but do not **Act**__. No funds arc available for this project, because that project is a rotating black hole for public funds. The fiscal year, or the one after that, maybe. __Policy is eviscerated by indecision. Bureaucrats crouch tall, while innovation is **stunted** and **withers** **on its**__ ancient **__vine__**__. Into this vacuum, bogus soothsayers (always based in the US) step in to muddy those pristine waters__. Is any of this rant (overheard recently in a Fleet Street tavern) true? __What has really become unacceptable is **risk**__. If it's risky, then assess that risk, and set it to one side with a side dish of complacency. Feasibility studies arc much the same, being risk assessments in disguise. __There is talk, but no action__. __For this reason, the Bering Strait fixed-link crossing is already in jeopardy of becoming a post-Modernist myth__. This is not so easy to explain, but there is a sense in which __the scheme has been deconstructed before even it is constructed__. In the real world, away from academic abstractions, consider this: the Black Sea-Danube Canal, first proposed in the time of King Charlemagne, was completed as recently as 1984. In this respect, __the time for the Bering Strait fixed-link has already passed__ (i.e., the transmigration corridor), __or it never was__ (De Lobcl), __or it is the post Cold War present__ (Koumal), __or it is some time in the future, -or, indeed, never. In the strange case of the Bering Strait fixed-link project, the potential for a feasibility study has become the project__. For a scheme so vast in its conception, this is perhaps not surprising. As a result, __there is endless speculation and unrealistic counter-proposals__. The diplomatic community on both sides of the strait are, of course, too diplomatic or bemused to pass any remark one way or the other. For a place that would unite nations, the United Nations has a blind spot. In this sense, __the void of the Intercontinental Divide has become invisible to the eyes of many__, except to the watchers of wildlife and airspace. "I believe that if this project becomes just a **subject** for initial **discussion** between the involved governments of the US, Russia and Canada, it would bring about **profound changes**, changes for the better, to the politics of the world - a world which is a dangerous place and seemingly becoming more dangerous every day." - George Koumal, chairman, hiteriiemispheric Bering Strait Tunnel & Railroad Group (IBSTRG), 2006. The spectrum of questions asked of George Koumal would exert the patience of a saint. Bridge people argue for a bridge, and not a tunnel. Environmentalists want to know about the tundra. Permafrost experts are vexed by the sudden temperature gradients of high summer. Rail enthusiasts are obsessed with the track-gauge changeover between American standard gauge and Russian broad gauge. Equipment manufacturers want to know how to tender for the project (ventilation equipment, say, for the Diomede Islands' vertical shafts). Travellers want to know how to book a ticket for the tunnel crossing. Provincial politicians of the Lower 48 want to know where the Bering Strait might be located. Canada, maybe? Anything to do with that bank that went bust? The **cacophony** is **deafening, soul-destroying**. The anecdotes surrounding the non-tunnel are, like the Siberian wilderness, almost endless. The multi-disciplinary approach of yester-year is almost always never taken. A global view is the **only view**. Find a globe of the Earth (spin, for fun), slow, stop, and then look: see the East-West crossing there to the north. This is the way forward, and the Pacific frontier is the widest horizon of all. One way or another, this boundary, this 21st century frontier between East and West, **must be confronted**. **This is the crossing point**.
 * We must take a leap of imagination—the Bering Strait link is being killed by focus on the details of implementation and the fear of risk. We should start by imagining the crossing, not by debating how government policy is implemented**
 * OLIVER 2007** (James, writer and journalist, The Bering Strait Crossing: A 21st Century Frontier Between East and West, 216-219)

Mannheim concludes his analysis of the concept of utopia after the discussion of the four utopian mentalities. For him, __the typology of utopia constitutes a temporal sequence. The socialist-communist utopia,__ as __the last____form of utopian mentality, is not only less incongruous with reality than the preceding forms, but also__ progressively __more congruous with the actual world.__ His basic argument is that **__the history of utopia constitutes a gradual “approximation to real life” and therefore tolls the death knell of utopia__** in its very success at social transformation: Thus, __after a long tortuous, but heroic development, just at the highest stage of awareness, when history is ceasing to be blind fate, and is becoming more and more man’s own creation, with the relinquishment of utopias, man would lose his will to shape history and__ therewith his __ability to understand it.__ The socialist idea, in its actualization, has the effect of reducing the utopianism of utopia and leads to the decay of utopia. __Mannheim perceives that the historical process of the dominant forms of the utopian mentality shows__ “a gradual descent and a closer approximation to real life of a utopia that at one time completely transcended history” and reveals __a “general subsidence of utopian intensity__ ” (222-3). Mannheim is unsettled by his own conclusion that implies the end of utopia. He laments that “ __the complete elimination of reality transcending elements from our world would lead us to a matter-of-factness which ultimately would mean the decay of human will”__ (236). Quoting the prophecy of Swiss poet Gottfried Keller, Mannheim wonders whether “[ __t]he ultimate triumph of freedom will be barren__ ” (225). Near the end of the discussion, he suggests the symptoms of this barrenness: __The disappearance of utopia brings about a static state of affairs in which man himself becomes no more than a thing. We would be faced then with the greatest paradox imaginable,__ namely, __that man, who has achieved the highest degree of rational mastery of existence__, left without any ideals, __becomes a mere creature of impulses__. (236) If ideology is false consciousness related to dominant hut declining classes, we can imagine a society without it as “the decline of ideology represents a crisis only for certain strata” (236). However, “ __the complete disappearance of the utopian element from human thought and action would mean that human nature__ and human __development would take on a totally new character”__ (236). **__We cannot imagine the complete abandonment of utopia because a society without utopia would be a society without goals.__** __With the loss of illusions, humanity would lose the sense of direction when the victory of a certain matter-of-factness, or congruence, is realized. Mannheim’s typology is incomplete__, because __he__ in fact __neglects the role played by science and technology in realizing utopia.__ In the following discussion, __I will consolidate the technological utopian mentality as one of the major utopias from both the sociological and literary perspective.__ The conception of science and technology as significant means to achieve utopia has a long lineage. As Nell Eurich points out in her hook Science ¡n Utopia: A Mighty Design (1967), the background for this form of utopia comes principally from Francis Bacon and his New Atlantis. Bacon’s utopia is essentially a triumph of the scientists whose ideas and innovation provide direction and ways for the realization of a technological utopia. However, __humanity’s ambivalent attitude toward science and scientists has essentially suppressed this form of utopia. In the history of civilization, humanity always faces a barrier whenever a new science or technology appears in society. The barrier can be termed the ‘Frankenstein barrier”__ for the significance of Mary Shelley’s first science fiction novel Frankenstein (1818) (Slusser 5). In this work, the scientist Victor __Frankenstein arrives on the verge of giving his new creature a future__, a symbol of the future for new science as well, __when he is asked by his creature to make a bride for it.____Frankenstein cannot overcome his ambivalence and thus refuses its request__. As a result of his refusal, __the scientist is forced to retreat from his expanded search for knowledge__ and the future of his creature is forsaken. __Frankenstein’s refusal signifies the persistence of a significant barrier in humanity__, which has remained deep-rooted in Western culture __and symbolizes the conflict between utilitarian technology and those who greatly doubt the role of science and scientists. In the__ late twentieth century and the beginning of the __twenty-first century, the technological utopia has become__ even __more prominent. This__ form of utopian __mentality is best found in science fiction, which__, at its best, __not only provides the most supple and popular means of exploring questions of diversity and difference, but also opens____up new possibilities and makes us think. In s__ cience __f__ iction, __we can find utopia that effectively addresses the____questions that have defined the age we live in: technology, gender, race, ideology, history__ and so on. As a genre of ideas, __science fiction has been able to portray technological utopia in vivid and popular ways.__ After analyzing eight science fiction texts from the Western and Oriental cultures, I would like to conclude this section by a discussion on the characteristics of technological utopia. __This form of utopia emphasizes the roles of intellectuals and scientists. The dominant desire of this utopian mentality is the technological utopia that embraces the power of science and technology, as well as preserving the identifying and legitimizing power of humanity__ and the present status quo. __The embodiment of forces in ideology and utopia simultaneously makes the progress to technological utopia become a spiral movement.__ Like the socialist-communist utopian mentality, __it is__ also __considered the best possible form to bridge the gap between the dream and the present state of things__ .23 With the progression in science and technology at different strategic moments, especially in the aspects of cyberspace, cyborg and space travel that we have discussed, humanity can realize its ago-old desire of transcending the mind, the body, and space respectively. As the discussion of the science fiction texts shows, __these technological metaphors provide both ideological and utopian functions to humanity and make the technological utopia a spiral movement to the perfect state of being. The sense of time in this form is seen as a series of strategic points in history, rather than a gradual progress in the liberal-humanist idea__. __Every new breakthrough in science or technology__, or a Novum 24 __represents a strategic point__ in technological utopia. The technologies of cyberspace, cyborg, and space travel are most important nova, or utopian metaphors, which transcend the limitations of the mind, body and space respectively for humanity. Nevertheless, technological utopia shares with the liberal ideas that the location of a perfect world is in the future, in the time when various limiting conditions of humanity are transcended by the means of new science and technology as in the case of all the science fiction texts that I have studied. In Neuromancer and “Dream-cutting romance,” the strategic point for the advancement of the spiral movement in technological utopia is signified by the upgrade of cybernetic technology as well as the merge between humanity and technological entities. In Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, the breakthrough is represented by scientific experiment and the understanding of human mind by dream reading. Similarly, in The Positronic Man, Ghost in the Shell and The Ultimate War of Super-brains, the strategic moment for the spiral movement is embodied by the upgrade of the robotic entities to become more human, mortal and organic. Finally, the breakthrough in achieving technological utopia is shown in the transcendence of Kelvin and Bowman in Solaris and 2001 respectively.
 * The plan is a utopian imagination of technology asserted against the gradual erosion of hope that accompanies the focus on detail. Reclaiming the narrative of technological utopianism does not mean embracing all technologies, but it does prevent the destruction of all human meaning**
 * Leong 2003** (Leong Hang-tat, Ph.D. candidate at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in philosophy, “Ideology and Utopia in Science Fiction”, ProQuest) BW

__Transcultural theory needs to articulate__ its own ethics, which can be called __an ethics of__ the __imagination__. Traditionally, imagination was considered to be the capacity least bound to ethical responsibility, incompatible with or even antagonistic to ethical imperatives. The longstanding debates between ethics and aesthetics targeted exactly this opposition between moral norms and free imagination, between duty and desire, between reason and fantasy. However, if we look at the most common and established ethical rule as it is inscribed in the heritage of many cultures—Christian, Chinese, Greek—we find an implicit call for imagination as expressed in the requirement that we "do unto others as we would have them do unto us." This presupposes a kind of commonness between ourselves and others that cannot be found in actual existence and empirical experience—we are all different. __Without imagination a person would be unable to put herself in the position of others or to put others in her own position__. One has to be imaginative to be righteous. One has to imagine what other people may need, dream of, and aspire to in order to respond adequately to their needs. Percy Bysshe Shelly has expressed succinctly this link between morality and imagination in his "A Defence of Poetry" : "A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own."1 Bur there is much more to this imaginative aspect of ethics than just identifying oneself with others. Two modifications may be added to the golden rule to embrace those aspects of ethics that are not reducible to a commonness between myself and others, between the subjects and objects of ethical actions. The first addition would refer to the uniqueness of the ethical subject as distinct from the ethical object. "Do unto others as we would have them do unto us . . . but as nobody else could do unto them except for us." The uniqueness of the ethical subject would be crucial in cases when among the many needs of others are those to which the given subject is uniquely or exclusively qualified to respond. The action that will be ethically preferable is that which no one can accomplish except for me and that which no one can do better than me. Since I am different from the other, the ethical relationship between us should be based on our mutual irre-ducibility. The basic rule of differential ethics thus can be formulated in this way: Do what no other person in the same situation could do in your place. Act in such a way that your most individual abilities meet the most individual needs of the other. This is also true for our expectations from other people. Not only what we do to others, but whar we expect them to do for us, is an ethically marked position. A totalitarian politics that forced a violinist to take an ax and cut wood to provide heat during an energy shortage was ethically reprehensible though it claimed to be truly humanistic as expressing equal concern about the needs of all people. From the standpoint of the ethics of difference, the musician should not only be allowed but encouraged to respond to those specific needs of people that he is in a unique position to answer. Reduction of individual abilities to the more general needs is what underlies the crude, politically dominated ethics of "mass societies." Thus __an ethical subject has to imagine not only what makes other people similar__ to him __but what makes them different__, which is a more complex task for the imagination. It is easier to imagine that other people need heat and food in the same way as you do than to project their specific intentions and expectations, which might completely escape the range of your interests. This second level of ethical concern involves imagining the other as the other, in his or her irreducibility to any common model of humanness. __Finally__, the third level of __ethics involves__ not others as myself and not others as others but __myself as other. This capacity to be a stranger to oneself, to go beyond one's inborn or socially constructed identity is not just a creative possibility but also an ethical responsibility. Without being different from oneself one can never find points of commonality or dialogi-cal interaction with people of different cultures and ways of life__. As Jacques Derrida rightly observes, "it is because I am not one with myself that I can speak with the other and address the other."- Judeo-Christian ethics is focused on the notion of "neighbor," the nearest and closest one; but what about love of, or at least responsiveness to, the distant ones? Nietzsche attempted to introduce this imperative— "love to a distant one"—into ethics but his anti-Christian stance caused him to ignore love for those nearest and actually grew into contempt toward his own "neighbors"—contemporaries, compatriots, colleagues, co-humans, and others in proximity. It is interesting that although Soviet ethical doctrines never explicitly acknowledged Nietzsche's influence, they were based on a similar principle: The distant ones were privileged over neighbors in the value hierarchy of a typical Soviet citizen. He had to love his comrades, his class brothers, and the exploited toiling masses all over the world but was required to denounce his family members on the basis of their disloyalty to the state. Soviet ethics was devoid of imagination and did not recognize the right of model citizens to multiple identities or alterations of identity. In fact, love for distant ones or at least the ability to interact with them depends on the capacity of a given subject to be different from himself to embrace an unlimited range of virtual or potential identities. In distinction from the ethics of commonality, as prescribed in the golden rule, and in distinction from the differential ethics of uniqueness, the third level can be posited as an interferential ethics of multiplied identities and transformational possibilities that is certainly most appealing to the capacities of the imagination.
 * Our call to imagine what the government might do forces us out of our current subject position—the ability to imagine another role is the foundation of ethical engagement with the Other**
 * EPSTEIN 1999** (Mikhail, Associate Professor in the Department of Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures at Emory University, Transcultural Experiments: Russian and American Models of Creative Communication, p. 164-166

Though ethics is usually presented as a set of rules and norms of behavior, this does not imply that the contents of ethics should be as normative and prescriptive as its forms are. __Ethical prescriptions include the freedom from prescriptions. This paradoxical element of ethics cannot be__ fully __eliminated__. When Christ said, "Know the truth, and the truth will set you free," He expressed in prescriptive form the freedom from all prescriptions. If we look at the most elementary forms of ethics, such as politeness and courtesy, we find that even these most routine models of morality are based on the presumption of human freedom. __If you need__ somebody to give you a glass of __water, the polite way to express this need will be not an imperative or a command but a suggestion__, "Would you please be so kind as to bring me a glass of water?" "Would it be possible for you to do this or that?" __The politeness is implied in the modality "would," which transforms the action from the actual or imperative modality to a subjunctive mode. My need has to be transformed into somebody else's possibility or opportunity in order to be presented ethically__ (politely). __The imperative "Do this" is applied only__ between parents and children or officers and soldiers, thus __marking the relation of power or authority. But insofar as ethics challenges this power relation, it has to transform any command into a suggestion, every imperative into a subjunctive__. If this is true on the level of elementary politeness, __how much more important it must be on the level of the higher moral initiatives that are addressed to others. Even in the most fundamental and global issues of war and peace, power and freedom, authority and equality, discipline and responsibility, ethics should appeal to possibilities rather than impose necessity and constraints__. __Often the same person who uses the subjunctive "Would you" when asking for a glass of water would use a categorical imperative, demanding that humanity obey__ his __grand ethical schemes and prescriptions. Almost all our discourses and the **procedures of teaching**__ and writing __are imbued with the imperative mode__ : Do as I do, do as I say, do as I write. __Every interpretation avers its conclusive truthfulness instead of suggesting itself as just a possibility, a discourse in a subjunctive mode. **All disciplines of scholarship** and interpretation would benefit by incorporating these zones of__ politeness, __potentiality, and imagination, which are__ not only an "excess" of aesthetic subjectivity but are first of all __modes of ethical responsiveness that **multiply the levels of freedom** in our readers, students, interlocutors, instead of forcing their minds into our own persuasions__. Ethics is the domain of requests rather than commands, the domain of imagination rather than obligation. The commandments pronounced by God cannot help but be obligatory if we identify ourselves with the people of God and recognize the hierarchy that connects heavenly Father and earthly children. However, if ethics should be understood as a specific domain regulating the relationship between brothers and sisrers and distinct from the religious domain regulating the relationship between Father and children, we should formulate the principles of this ethics in a noncommanding mode, as a system of requests and proposals appealing to the freedom of the other person, to his "maybe or maybe not." __Certainly, this ethics "in the subjunctive mood" is much more favorable to the work of the transcultural imagination than an ethics that **prescribes us to obey already established laws**__. Thus, in addition to the golden rule of commonness, __we need a differential and interferential ethics based on imagining others as different from ourselves and **imagining ourselves as possibilities for others**__.
 * The policy interpretation of fiat makes ethical engagement with others impossible. We should imagine possibilities rather than legislate commands**
 * EPSTEIN 1999** (Mikhail, Associate Professor in the Department of Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures at Emory University, Transcultural Experiments: Russian and American Models of Creative Communication, p. 166-168)

// According to many polls, a majority of scientists think that __the human race is on a "collision course" with nature, that all of Earth's ecosystems are suffering, and that the ability of the planet to sustain lite is in serious jeopardy.__ (1) __There is a threat of rapid global climate change__ that will certainly have profound consequences. __The pollution of rivers, land, and the air we breathe threatens our health, We are destroying non-renewable resources like topsoil and the ozone layer instead of using these resources intelligently. We lace common threats that transcend national boundaries: overpopulation, energy shortages, water scarcity, economic catastrophe, the spread of uncontrollable diseases, and the technological displacement of people by machines,__ to name a few. __Eight hundred and fifty two million people across the world are hungry__. Every day, more than 16.000 children die from hunger-related causes- one child every five seconds. (1) World-wide more than 1 billion people currently live below the international poverty line, earning less than $1 per day, (2) A very small percent of the people own most of the world's wealth and resources. The gap between the rich and poor is widening. In the US as of 2002, the average CEO made 282 times as much as the average worker. (3) In 2005 the compensation of CEOs of major U.S. corporations rose 12% to an average of $9.8 million per year. Oil company CEOs did even better with raises that averaged a whopping 109% to 816.6 million per year. Meanwhile, workers' salaries barely kept up with inflation in most industries and occupations across the U.S. In Oregon, minimum wage workers saw their pay rise by a modest 2.8% to $15080 per year. What has been handed down to us does not seem to be working for the majority of people. With the advances in science and technology over the last two hundred years, you may be asking: "does it have to be this way?" With the observable fact that __scientific knowledge makes our lives better when applied with concern for human welfare and environmental protection, there is no question that science and technology can produce abundance so that no one has to go without. But the misuse and abuse of technology seems to make things worse. The problems we face in the world today are mostly of our own making__. We must accept that **__our future depends on us.__** While the values represented by religious leaders over the centuries have inspired many to act in a socially responsible manner, others have gone to war over their differences in religious beliefs. Hopes for divine intervention by mythical characters are delusions that cannot solve the problems of our modern world. The future of the world is our responsibility and it depends upon decisions we make today. **__We are our own salvation or damnation__**. __The shape and solutions of the future rely totally on the collective effort of people working together.__ We are all an integral pan of the web of life. __What affects other people and the environment has consequences in our own lives as well. **What is needed is a change in our sense of direction and purpose -- an alternative vision for a sustainable new world civilization unlike any in the past.**__ Although this vision is highly compressed here, it is based on years of study and experimental research. These writings offer possible alternatives for striving toward a better world. It arrives at decisions using the scientific method. Like any new approach, **__it requires some imagination and a willingness to consider the unconventional in order to be appreciated.__** Remember that __almost every new concept was ridiculed, rejected, and laughed at when first presented, especially by the experts of the time.__ That's what happened to the first scientists who said the earth was round, the first who said it went around the sun, and the first who thought people could learn to fly. __You could write a whole book, and many have, just on things that people thought were impossible up until the time they happened. Imagine going to the moon__ for example! Your great-grandparents would have laughed at such a notion! __Such notions were the ramblings of science fiction writers__. Many forward thinking people have been locked up and even executed for saying such things as the earth wasn't the center of the universe. Those who fought for social justice and change had even greater difficulties. People advocating change were beaten, abused, put in prison, and brutally murdered. For example, Wangari Maathai, who was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Price on December 10, 2004 was tear gassed, beaten unconscious, and imprisoned for fighting against deforestation in Kenya, Africa. Dianne Fosse, the naturalist who actively strived to protect declining gorilla populations from poachers, was found hacked to death in her hut. Unfortunately she did not provide for the needs of the poachers. Any number of volumes could be written on the hardships endured by those who sought change that threatened the status quo. //
 * Reimagining technology is critical to overcome threats to human survival—we must imagine an alternative technological society that brings us together in a common project**
 * Fresco and Meadows 07** (Jacque & Roxanne; Structural designer, architectural designer, philosopher of science, concept artist, educator, and futurist, founder of The Venus Project; B.F.A. from Maryland Institute of Art. She studied technical and architectural rendering and model making under Jacque Fresco for 4 years; “Designing the Future”)//RSW//

//**Every act of imagination has elements of science fiction—the very nature of fiat makes describing the “real world” impossible since every plan is a fictional alternative**// //**FREEDMAN 2000** -- Associate Professor of English at Louisiana State University (Carl, “Critical Theory and Science Fiction” Wesleyan University Press, University Press of London, 20-22) // // It is a priori likely that __most texts display the activity of numerous different genres, and that few or no texts can be adequately described in terms of one genre alone__. __Genre__ in this sense is analogous to the Marxist concept of the mode of production as the latter has gained new explanatory force by being contrasted, in the Althusserian vocabulary, with the category of social formation – a term that is preferred to the more familiar notion of society, because the latter connotes a relatively homogeneous unity, whereas the former is meant to suggest an overdetermined combination of //different //modes of production at work in the same place and during the same time. Though it is thus impossible simply to equate a given social formation with a given mode of production, it is nonetheless legitimate to affirm that (for instance) the United States "is" capitalist, so long as we understand that the copulative signifies not true equation or identity but rather conveys that, of the various and relatively autonomous modes of production active within the U.S. social formation, capitalism enjoys a position of// dominance. //In the same way, __the dialectical rethinking of genre does not in the least preclude generic discrimination. We may validly describe a particular text as science fiction if we understand the formulation to mean that cognitive estrangement is the dominant generic tendency within the overdetermined textual whole.__ Accordingly, __there is probably no text that is a perfect and pure embodiment of science fiction__ ( __no text, that is to say, in which science fiction is the__// __only //generic tendency operative//__// ) **__but also no text in which the science fiction tendency is altogether absent.__** Indeed **__, it might be argued that this tendency is the precondition for the constitution of fictionality__** – __and even of representation – itself__. __For the construction of an alternative world is the very definition of fiction__ : __owing to the character of representation as a nontransparent process that necessarily involves not only similarity but__// __difference //between representation and the "referent" of the latter, an irreducible degree of alterity and estrangement is bound to obtain even in the case of the most "**realistic" fiction** imaginable.//__// The appearance of transparency in that paradigmatic realist Balzac has been famously exposed as an illusion;2 ' nonetheless, __it is important to understand the operation of alterity in realism not as the failure of the latter, but as the sign of the estranging tendency of science fiction that supplies__ (if secretly) __some of the power of great realistic fiction__ 25 Furthermore, just as some degree of alterity and hence estrangement is fundamental to all fiction, finally including realism itself, so the same is true (but here the limit case is fantasy) of that other dialectical half of the science-fiction tendency: __cognition.__ The latter __is after all an unavoidable operation of the human mind__ (however precritical, and even if clinically schizophrenic) __and must exercise a determinant presence for literary production to take place at all.__ Even in //The Lord of the Rings//-to consider again what is perhaps the most thoroughgoing fantasy we possess, by an author who stands to fantasy rather as Balzac stands to realism – __cognition is quite strongly and overtly operative on at least one level: namely that of the moral and theological values that the text is concerned to enforce__. 2 It is, then, in this very special sense that the apparently wild assertions that __**fiction is science fiction and even that the latter is a wider term than the former may be justified**__ : __cognition and estrangement, which together constitute the generic tendency of science fiction, are not only actually present in all fiction, but are structurally crucial to the possibility of fiction and even____of representation in the first place__. Yet in more routine usage, the term of science fiction ought, as I have maintained above, to be reserved for those texts in which cognitive estrangement is not only present but dominant. And it is with this dialectical understanding of genre that we may not reconsider the apparently difficult cases of Brecht, on the one hand, and //Star Wars //on the other.//

//**Traditional conceptions of government fiat are also fiction, they simply present themselves as fact—fiat misrepresents the process of government decision-making, which means it’s neither educational nor predictable**// //**CLAUDE 1988** (Inis, Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia, States and the Global System, pages 18-20) // // This view of the state as an institutional monolith is fostered by the notion of sovereignty, which calls up the image of the monarch, presiding over his kingdom. __Sovereignty emphasizes the singularity of the state__, its monopoly of authority, its unity of command and its capacity to speak with one voice. __Thus, France wills__, Iran demands, __China intends__ , New Zealand promises __and the Soviet Union insists. One all too easily conjures up the picture of a single-minded and purposeful state that decides exactly what it wants to achieve, adopts coherent policies__ intelligently adapted to its objectives, knows what it is doing, does what it intends __and always has its act together. This view of the state is reinforced by political scientists’ emphasis upon the concept of__// __policy__ // and upon the thesis that governments derive policy from calculations of national interest. __We thus take it for granted that states act internationally in accordance with rationally conceived__ and consciously constructed __schemes of action, and we implicitly refuse to consider the possibility that alternatives to policy__ -directed behaviour may have importance–alternatives such as random, reactive, instinctual, habitual and conformist behaviour. __Our rationalistic assumption__ that states do what they have planned to do __tends to inhibit the discovery that states sometimes do what they feel compelled to do, or what they have the opportunity to do, or what they have usually done, or what other states are doing, or whatever the line of least resistance would seem to suggest__. __Academic preoccupation with the making of policy is accompanied by academic neglect of the execution of policy. We seem to assume__ that once the state has calculated its interest and contrived a policy to further that interest, the __carrying out__ of __policy is the__ virtually __automatic result__ of the routine functioning of the bureaucratic mechanism of the state. __I am inclined to call this the__// __Genesis //theory of public administration//__//, taking as my text the passage: ‘ __And God said, Let there be light: and there was light’__. I suspect that, in the realm of government, __policy execution rarely follows so promptly and inexorably from policy statement__. Alternatively, one may dub it the Pooh-Bah/Ko-Ko theory, honouring those denizens of William S. Gilbert’s Japan who took the position that when the Mikado ordered that something e done it was as good as done and might as well be declared to have been done. __In the real world, that which a state decides to do is not as good as done; it may, in fact, never be done. And what states do, they may never have decided to do.__ Governments are not automatic machines, grinding out decisions and converting decisions into actions. __They are agglomerations of human beings, like the rest of us inclined to be fallible, lazy, forgetful, indecisive, resistant to discipline and authority, and likely to fail to get the word or to heed it.__ As in other large organizations, left and right governmental hands are frequently ignorant of each other’s activities, official spokesmen contradict each other, ministries work at cross purposes, and the creaking machinery of government often gives the impression that no one is really in charge. I hope that no one will attribute my jaundiced view of government merely to the fact that I am an American–one, that is, whose personal experience is limited to a governmental system that is notoriously complex, disjointed, erratic, cumbersome and unpredictable. The United States does not, I suspect, have the least effective government or the most bumbling and incompetent bureaucracy in all the world. __Here and there__, now and then, __governments do__ , of course __perform prodigious feats of organization__ and administration: an extraordinary war effort, a flight to the moon, a successful hostage-rescue operation. __More often, states have to make do with governments that are not notably clear about their purposes or coordinated and disciplined in their operations.__ This means that, in international relations, states are sometimes less dangerous, and sometimes less reliable, than one might think. Neither their threats nor their promises are to be taken with absolute seriousness. __Above all, it means that we students of international politics must be cautious in attributing purposefulness and responsibility to governments. To say the that the United States was informed about an event is not to establish that the president acted in the light of that knowledge; he may never have heard about it.__ To say that a Soviet pilot shot down an airliner is not to prove that the Kremlin has adopted the policy of destroying all intruders into Soviet airspace; one wants to know how and by whom the decision to fire was made. To observe that the representative of Zimbabwe voted in favour of a particular resolution in the United Nations General Assembly is not necessarily to discover the nature of Zimbabwe’s policy on the affected matter; Zimbabwe may have no policy on that matter, and it may be that no one in the national capital has ever heard of the issue. We can hardly dispense with the convenient notion that Pakistan claims, Cuba promises, and Italy insists, and we cannot well abandon the formal position that governments speak for and act on behalf of their states, but __it is essential that we bear constantly in mind the reality that governments are never fully in charge and never achieve the unity, purposefulness and discipline that theory attributes to them–and that they sometimes claim.__//

//**we do not link to their utopianism bad offense**// //**Roberts 2000** (Adam is a lecturer at the University of London, //Fredric Jameson//, “Jameson and Utopia”) BW Jameson’s writings return over and again to the notion of Utopia; indeed according to the contemporary critic Philip Goldstein, this Utopia transcendentalism – which is to say, this attempt to ‘transcend’ or go beyond the problems of present-day living into Utopian possibilities – is one of the most characteristic things about Jameson’s writings. A commitment to ‘Utopia’ explains why, for instance, Jameson is always coming back to analyses of science fiction, that mode of writing in which the everyday is most obviously ‘gone beyond’. But even his readings of mainstream writers attempt to ‘find utopian ideals’ in sometimes unpromising material, as with Lewis, above, and throughout his work Jameson is in ‘pursuit of a utopian realm transcending “instrumental” institutional conflicts’ (Goldstein 1990: 149, 151). In this respect Jameson is following a Marcusean reading of Marx. __Marx__ himself __distrusted the Utopian impulse__ : he thought, in Jameson’s words, that __‘Utopian thought represented a diversion of revolutionary energy into idle wish-fulfillments and imaginary satisfactions’__ (M&F: 110–11). __Marx repeatedly stressed the need for practical thought as a foundation for revolutionary resistance to the system of capitalism__. But Marcuse believed, and Jameson agrees, __that times have changed: ‘now it is practical thinking which everywhere stands as a testimony to the power of that system to transform even its adversaries into its own mirror image. The Utopian idea__, on the contrary, __keeps alive the possibility of a world qualitatively distinct from this one.’__ (M&F: 111). __Utopia has been a perennial theme of human discourse.__ Philosophers and political thinkers have pondered how we might convert our flawed world into a Utopia; and Karl Marx is only one of the most widely influential of these theorists. Many world religions have promised Utopias: Christianity, for example talks of a second coming of its Messiah, an event which will be followed by the setting up of a perfect society on the Earth for a thousand years. And literature and culture has demonstrated a repeated fascination with the ideas of Utopia that no critic can afford to ignore. Thomas More’s original book of Utopia was one kind of text in this respect: a rational, scholarly anatomy of a possible perfect society. But there are many other forms of Utopian literature, from the rhapsodic poetry of the last act of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s visionary Prometheus Unbound (1819) to the science fiction future of the long-running TV series Star Trek. __If we conceive of Marxist ‘communism’ as a form of Utopia, then it is difficult to be too precise about exactly how it might actually operate. Marx’s own pronouncements are a__ little __vague (he gives us only hints such as ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’)__, and __the most we can say is that we can at least be sure that a Marxist Utopia was not realised in Stalin’s Russia__ , Jameson, in fact, argues that __disillusionment with the communist experiment produced in the 1950s a waning of interest in Utopianism__ , but that __there was a ‘reawakenng of the Utopian impulse’ in the 1960s__ , something __that found its manifestation in__ wide-ranging cultural optimism apparent as much in the 1968 __student protests__ and flower power as in a new acceptance for fantasy such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1954–5) or Ursula LeGuin’s novel The Dispossessed (1974). Jameson’s essay ‘Of Islands and Trenches: Neutralization and the Production of Utopian Discourse’ (in IT2) invokes ‘islands’ and ‘trenches’ in its title because, as he observes, Thomas More’s original land was separated from the mainland by having a trench dug around it transforming it into an island. For Jameson what this signifies is not just that Utopia is a place removed from the world we all live in (indeed, that a Utopia like Thomas More’s is actually a deliberate negation of all the features of More’s England, a sort of anti-real world). We might expect that, but Jameson’s point is more subtle, that __the Utopian imagination has often worked by a process of exclusion and pushing away.__ In other words, __Utopias have often not solved the problems of society but just expelled them outside their boundaries.__ Of More’s Utopia he notes that ‘many of __the unpleasant tasks associated with the market and commercial activity’ are simply pushed ‘outside the city walls’.__ Money, for instance, ‘is excluded, and then used exclusively in foreign trade’. Another example is war, removed from More’s perfect world by the expedience of hiring foreign mercenaries to fight Utopia’s battles for it. In other words, __that two of the most problematic features of the actual world – money and violence – are not ‘solved’ but instead ‘ejected and then re-established outside the charmed circle that confirms the Utopian commonwealth’ (__ IT2: 100). This ‘act of disjunction/exclusion’ that Jameson argues ‘founds Utopia as a genre’ is where its problems begin; because this disjunction and repression is itself an act of violence. It is worth dwelling on this point for a moment, because it goes to the core of Jameson’s thinking about Utopia and therefore his whole political programme. __For Jameson, the danger with Utopian thinking is that it assumes a uniformity__, a conformity: __it has often been imagined as a place where everybody is happy in the same way, where people miraculously fit harmoniously with other people because nobody sticks awkwardly out from the whole.__ But as Jameson observes, __people only ‘work’ socially because they have been taught to repress antisocial impulses, and a world in which everybody had been__ utterly __purged of antisocial thoughts would be a world____completely defined by repression.__ As we might expect, __Jameson equates repression with violence__ , and this results in an interesting paradox. This is because Jameson argues that Adorno defines Utopia as the world free of violence (‘the mark of violence, whose absence, if that were possible or even conceivable, would at once constitute Utopia’ (LM: 102). So, in place of the monolithic conformist Utopias in the Thomas More tradition (with their magical avoidance of the damaging repression their fantasies require), __Jameson postulates something more diverse__, something that shares features with what we shall soon define as postmodernism: __a Utopia of misfits__ and oddballs, __in which the constraints for uniformization__ and conformity __have been removed,__ and __human beings grow wild like plants__ in a state of nature: not the beings of Thomas More, in whom sociality has been implanted by way of the miracle of the Utopian text, but rather __those of the opening of__ Altman’s __Popeye, who, no longer fettered by the constraints of a now oppressive sociality, blossom into the neurotics, compulsives, obsessives, paranoids, and schizophrenics whom our society considers sick but who, in a world of true freedom, may make up__ the flora and fauna of ‘ __human nature’ itself.__ It is not coincidental that Jameson reaches for an example from contemporary popular culture to illustrate his idea of Utopia. __The celebration of diversity and the particular instead of totality and uniformity is one of the key features of postmodernism__, and for Jameson as we shall see postmodernism is something particularly connected to popular culture. It might seem trivial, but in this Jameson is following on from Adorno himself, whose version of Utopia is that of a person on a lilo floating on the water and basking in the sunshine, the Utopia of ‘rien faire comme une bête [doing nothing like an animal], lying on water and looking peacefully at the sky’ (Minima Moralia: 208/157). Adorno himself, it should be said, would not thank Jameson for this popular culture citation; as we have seen, Adorno launched potent attacks on what he called ‘the Culture Industry’, devoted as it is to churning out deadening hypnotic popular culture in the form of films, music and latterly TV, all of which has the effect of distracting ordinary people from the social injustices under which they (we) live, of turning us all into non-political non-revolutionary sheep. But __Jameson thinks that postmodernism has changed the way popular culture works.__ In Late Marxism he wonders ‘whether watching thirty-five hours a week of technically expert and elegant television can be argued to be more deeply gratifying than watching thirty-five hours a week of 1950s “Culture Industry” programming.’ He goes on: The deeper Utopian content of postmodern television takes on a somewhat different meaning, one would think, in an age of universal depoliticization; while even the concept of the Utopian itself - as a political version of the Unconscious – continues to confront the theoretical problem of what repression might mean in such context. We have already looked at the ways in which Jameson took over the Freudian notion of the Unconscious and applied it to social and political contexts. __Here we have another definition of precisely what ‘the political unconscious’ actually is: Jameson thinks of it as the Utopian impulse, which is in itself repressed by the social superego – we see why repression is so incompatible with Jameson’s ideas of Utopia. At the same time, Jameson is tentatively suggesting that the fractured, decentred, surface-fixated variety of postmodern television can in its own way embody Utopia.__

=National Infrastructure Bank=

Economy

 * Economy is still in a crisis --- bolstering infrastructure investment is critical**
 * Rohatyn & Slater, 12** --- special adviser to the chairman and CEO of Lazard, AND **former US transportation secretary (2/20/2012, Felix Rohatyn and Rodney Slater, “America needs its own infrastructure bank,” [], JMP)**


 * America needs to invest in infrastructure. __ Despite signs of improvement, __**__our economy is still in crisis__**__ . We could create millions of jobs by __ rebuilding our transport and water systems – __ ending the congestion that stifles our ports, airports, railroads and highways; increasing productivity; and empowering the US to compete with countries that are investing in infrastructure on a massive scale. __**
 * __ Infrastructure financing tools __ are available, providing Washington wants to use them. They __ could bolster investment____ by leveraging hundreds of billions of dollars in ____ private and international capital. __**
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 11pt;">The potential tools include a national infrastructure bank and other relatively minor legislative changes to encourage private investors off the sidelines. American mutual funds, pension funds and retail **
 * investors allocate relatively small portions of their $37,000bn in capital to new infrastructure initiatives.**
 * Creating a national infrastructure bank is not a new idea but it finally may be gaining traction. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro has introduced a House bill to create one, and Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Kerry co-sponsored similar legislation in the Senate. President Obama also supports a such a project. So do the AFL-CIO labour group and the US Chamber of Commerce, organisations that differ sharply on many issues but unite in calling for the US to rebuild.**
 * __ A national infrastructure bank could be independent and transparent ____ . Government-owned but not government-run, it would have a bipartisan boardand a staff of experts and engineers to plan projects __**__based on quality and public need__**__, not on politics. The bank would leverage public-private partnerships to maximise private funding and launch projects of regional and national significance with budgets of $100m or more. __**
 * __ The ____ infrastructure bank also should have authority to finance projects by issuing bonds with maturities of up to 50 years. These long-duration bonds would align the financing of infrastructure investments with the benefits they create, and their repayment would allow the bank to be self-financing. __**

<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">US economy slowing—needs more stimulus, most recent evidence Reuters 6-20-12** -(Mark Felsenthal and Pedro da Costa, “Fed ramps up economic stimulus, says may do more”, Reuters, June 20, 2012, [|http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/20/us-usa-fed-idUSBRE85I1Q020120620)//sjl] **


 * Hiring by U.S. employers hasslowed sharply, factory outputhas slippedand consumer confidence has eroded.Europe's festering debt crisisand the** prospect of planned U.S. tax hikes and government spending cuts weigh on the outlook** . The economy grew at only a 1.9 percent annual rate in the first quarter , and economists expect it to do little better in the second** quarter** . **

AND, America’s transportation infrastructure is in serious decay --- worse has yet to come Economist, 11** (4/28/2011, “Life in the slow lane; Americans are gloomy about their economy’s ability to produce. Are they right to be? We look at two areas of concern, transport infrastructure and innovation,” [], JMP) **

Infrastructure spending is comparatively the best form of economic stimulus—NIB is the most efficient mechanism Tyson et al. 10** -* Professor @ the Haas School of Business of UC-Berkeley, PhD in Economics @ MIT, former Chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, served as the Director of the National Economic Council, **Phillips, former President of Oracle, MBA @ Hampton University, member of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, ***Wolf, CEO and Chairman of UBS Americas, member of the Economic Recovery Advisor Board, BS in Economics @ Wharton [Laura, Charles, Robert, The Wall Street Journal, “The U.S. Needs and Infrastructure Bank,” January 15, 2010, [], DKP]**
 * __America, despite its wealth and strength, often seems to be falling apart__ . American cities have suffered a rash of recent infrastructure calamities, from the failure of the New Orleans levees to the collapse of a highway bridge in Minneapolis, to a fatal crash on Washington, DC’s (generally impressive) metro system. But just as striking are the common shortcomings. __America’s civil engineers routinely give its transport structures poor marks, rating roads, rails and bridges as__** __deficient or functionally obsolete__** . And according to a World Economic Forum study America’s infrastructure has got worse, by comparison with other countries, over the past decade. In the WEF 2010 league table America now ranks 23rd for overall infrastructure quality, between Spain and Chile. __Its roads, railways, ports and air-transport infrastructure are all judged mediocre against networks in northern Europe.__ America is known for its huge highways, but with few exceptions (London among them) American traffic congestion is worse than western Europe’s. Average delays in America’s largest cities exceed those in cities like Berlin and Copenhagen. Americans spend considerably more time commuting than most Europeans; only Hungarians and Romanians take longer to get to work (see chart 1). More time on lower quality roads also makes for a deadlier transport network. With some 15 deaths a year for every 100,000 people, the road fatality rate in America is 60% above the OECD average; 33,000 Americans were killed on roads in 2010. There is little relief for the weary traveller on America’s rail system. The absence of true high-speed rail is a continuing embarrassment to the nation’s rail enthusiasts. America’s fastest and most reliable line, the north-eastern corridor’s Acela, averages a sluggish 70 miles per hour between Washington and Boston. The French TGV from Paris to Lyon, by contrast, runs at an average speed of 140mph. America’s trains aren’t just slow; they are late. Where European passenger service is punctual around 90% of the time, American short-haul service achieves just a 77% punctuality rating. Long-distance trains are even less reliable. The Amtrak alternative Air travel is no relief. Airport delays at hubs like Chicago and Atlanta are as bad as any in Europe. Air travel still relies on a ground-based tracking system from the 1950s, which forces planes to use inefficient routes in order to stay in contact with controllers. The system’s imprecision obliges controllers to keep more distance between air traffic, reducing the number of planes that can fly in the available space. And this is not the system’s only bottleneck. Overbooked airports frequently lead to runway congestion, forcing travellers to spend long hours stranded on the tarmac while they wait to take off or disembark. Meanwhile, security and immigration procedures in American airports drive travellers to the brink of rebellion. __And worse looms. The country’s already stressed infrastructure must handle a growing load in decades to come, thanks to America’s distinctly non-European demographics__ . The Census Bureau expects the population to grow by 40% over the next four decades, equivalent to the entire population of Japan. All this is puzzling. America’s economy remains the world’s largest; its citizens are among the world’s richest. The government is not constitutionally opposed to grand public works. The country stitched its continental expanse together through two centuries of ambitious earthmoving. Almost from the beginning of the republic the federal government encouraged the building of critical canals and roadways. In the 19th century Congress provided funding for a transcontinental railway linking the east and west coasts. And between 1956 and 1992 America constructed the interstate system, among the largest public-works projects in history, which criss-crossed the continent with nearly 50,000 miles of motorways. But modern America is stingier. Total public spending on transport and water infrastructure has fallen steadily since the 1960s and now stands at 2.4% of GDP. Europe, by contrast, invests 5% of GDP in its infrastructure, while China is racing into the future at 9%. America’s spending as a share of GDP has not come close to European levels for over 50 years. Over that time funds for both capital investments and operations and maintenance have steadily dropped (see chart 2). Although America still builds roads with enthusiasm, according to the OECD’s International Transport Forum, it spends considerably less than Europe on maintaining them. In 2006 America spent more than twice as much per person as Britain on new construction; but Britain spent 23% more per person maintaining its roads. America’s dependence on its cars is reinforced by a shortage of alternative forms of transport. Europe’s large economies and Japan routinely spend more than America on rail investments, in absolute not just relative terms, despite much smaller populations and land areas. America spends more building airports than Europe but its underdeveloped rail network shunts more short-haul traffic onto planes, leaving many of its airports perpetually overburdened. Plans to upgrade air-traffic-control technology to a modern satellite-guided system have faced repeated delays. The current plan is now threatened by proposed cuts to the budget of the Federal Aviation Administration. __The____C__ ongressional __B__ udget __O__ ffice __estimates that America needs to spend $20 billion more a year just to maintain its infrastructure at the present, inadequate, levels__ . Up to $80 billion a year in additional spending could be spent on projects which would show positive economic returns. Other reports go further. In 2005 Congress established the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. In 2008 the commission reckoned that America needed at least $255 billion per year in transport spending over the next half-century to keep the system in good repair and make the needed upgrades. Current spending falls 60% short of that amount. If they had a little money… If Washington is spending less than it should, falling tax revenues are partly to blame. Revenue from taxes on petrol and diesel flow into trust funds that are the primary source of federal money for roads and mass transit. That flow has diminished to a drip. America’s petrol tax is low by international standards, and has not gone up since 1993 (see chart 3). While the real value of the tax has eroded, the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure has gone up. As a result, the highway trust fund no longer supports even current spending. Congress has repeatedly been forced to top up the trust fund, with $30 billion since 2008. Other rich nations avoid these problems. The cost of car ownership in Germany is 50% higher than it is in America, thanks to higher taxes on cars and petrol and higher fees on drivers’ licences. The result is a more sustainably funded transport system. In 2006 German road fees brought in 2.6 times the money spent building and maintaining roads. American road taxes collected at the federal, state and local level covered just 72% of the money spent on highways that year, according to the Brookings Institution, a think-tank. __The federal government is responsible for only a quarter of total transport spending, but__** __the way it allocates funding shapes the way things are done at the state and local levels**. Unfortunately, it tends not to reward the prudent**__**, thanks to formulas that govern over 70% of federal investment. Petrol-tax revenues, for instance, are returned to the states according to the miles of highway they contain, the distances their residents drive, and the fuel they burn. The system is awash with perverse incentives. A state using road-pricing to limit travel and congestion would be punished for its efforts with reduced funding, whereas one that built highways it could not afford to maintain would receive a larger allocation. Formula-determined block grants to states are, at least, designed to leave important decisions to local authorities. But the formulas used to allocate the money shape infrastructure planning in a remarkably block-headed manner. Cost-benefit studies are almost entirely lacking. Federal guidelines for new construction tend to reflect politics rather than anything else. States tend to use federal money as a substitute for local spending, rather than to supplement or leverage it. The Government Accountability Office estimates that substitution has risen substantially since the 1980s, and increases particularly when states get into budget difficulties. From 1998 to 2002, a period during which economic fortunes were generally deteriorating, state and local transport investment declined by 4% while federal investment rose by 40%. State and local shrinkage is almost certainly worse now. States can make bad planners. Big metropolitan areas—Chicago, New York and Washington among them—often sprawl across state lines. State governments frequently bicker over how (and how much) to invest. Facing tight budget constraints, New Jersey’s Republican governor, Chris Christie, recently scuttled a large project to expand the railway network into New York City. New Jersey commuter trains share a 100-year-old tunnel with Amtrak, a major bottleneck. Mr Christie’s decision was widely criticised for short-sightedness; but New Jersey faced cost overruns that in a better system should have been shared with other potential beneficiaries all along the north-eastern corridor. Regional planning could help to avoid problems like this. **


 * __Our nation's investment in its physical infrastructure is far below what is necessary to meet its needs. Infrastructure spending__ in real dollars __is__ about th __e same__ now __as it was in 1968__ when the economy was a third smaller. __No wonder the A__ merican __S__ ociety of __C__ ivil __E__ ngineer __gave America's infrastructure a failing grade__ of D in its 2009 report. __Twenty-six percent of the nation's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete__, and __188 cities have "brownfield" hazardous waste sites__ awaiting clean up and redevelopment, according to the engineering society. __State and local governments account for about 75% of infrastructure spending, and most are reeling from budgetary shortfalls__ . In addition, the __contraction of monoline insurers__ (specialized insurers that guarantee repayment of bonds) __has made it much more difficult to issue infrastructure bonds. This has caused a growing backlog of economically justifiable projects that cannot be financed. Among the projects most at risk are projects of national or regional significance that span multiple states.__ The writing is on the wall: __Our aging infrastructure will__ eventually __constrain economic growth.__ This is why __the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, an independent bipartisan group of business, academic and labor leaders__ of which we are members, __recommends the establishment of a National Infrastructure Bank__ (NIB). The purpose of the bank is to invest in merit-based projects of national significance that span both traditional and technological infrastructure—roads, airports, bridges, high-speed rails, smart grid and broadband—by leveraging private capital. __Infrastructure banks have proven successful elsewhere in the world, most notably in the E__ uropean __U__ nion __where the European Investment Bank has been operating successfully for over 50 years.__ That bank is one of the top five issuers of debt in the world. In 2008, it lent 58 billion euros ($81 billion) to finance projects, and had a target of $112 billion last year. It's time we accept __that government alone can no longer finance all of the nation's infrastructure requirements. A national infrastructure bank could fill the gap.__ We believe that __the NIB should be structured as a wholly owned government entity to keep borrowing costs low, align its interests with the public's, and avoid the conflicting incentives of quasi-government agencies.__ We also recommend that the NIB be run by a government-appointed board of professionals with the requisite expertise to evaluate complex projects based on objective cost-benefit analysis. __Today, projects are subject to the uncertainties of the opaque congressional appropriations process, which is how we end up with__ proverbial and actual __bridges to nowhere. The private sector raised over $100 billion in__ dedicated __infrastructure funds__ in recent years, __but most of that money is being spent__ on infrastructure projects __outside the U.S. The NIB could attract private funds to co-invest in projects that pass rigorous cost-benefit tests__ , and that generate revenues through user fees or revenue guarantees from state and local governments. __Investors could choose which projects meet their investment criteria, and__ , in return, __share in project risks that today fall solely on taxpayers. The NIB would not only help the nation meet the infrastructure needs of the future, it would also support the economy's recovery over time.__ According to a study by Moody's Economy.com, __an increase in infrastructure spending of $1 increases GDP by about $1.59. This spending creates real jobs, particularly in the construction industry, which accounted for about a quarter of the nation's total job losses__ last year and shed another 53,000 jobs in December alone. __Construction could face years of anemic growth, and the NIB could help boost this sector.__ We are not advocating make-work projects, but wiser and timelier investment in sorely needed projects of national significance. President Obama has proposed $25 billion in federal funding for a national infrastructure bank in his 2010 budget. Whatever the amount of initial funding, we think it's important to establish the bank now and then justify its continued funding based on its performance and investment returns. **

A national bank will overcome failures endemic to the current system of funding transportation infrastructure --- lack of cooperation and insufficient resources make federal action necessary for __large-scale__ projects McConaghy & Kessler, 11 **--- * Director of the Third Way Economic Program, AND** Vice President for Policy at Third Way (January 2011, Ryan McConaghy and Jim Kessler, “A National Infrastructure Bank,” [], JMP) America’s economic future will hinge on how fast and well we move people, goods, power, and ideas. Today, our infrastructure is far from meeting the challenge. Upgrading our existing infrastructure and building new conduits to generate commerce will put people to work quickly in long-term jobs and will create robust growth. __ Funding for new infrastructure will be a crucial investment____ with substantial future benefits, but the current way that Congress doles out infrastructure financing is too political and wasteful. A National Infrastructure Bank will provide a new way to harness public and private capital to bridge the infrastructure gap, create jobs, and ensure a successful and secure future. __ THE PROBLEM __ America’s investment in infrastructure is not sufficient to spur robust growth. __ In October, __ Governor __ Chris __ Christie announced his intention to terminate New Jersey’s participation in the Access to the Region’s Core __ (ARC) __ Tunnel project, citing cost overruns __ that threatened to add anywhere from $2-$5 billion to the tunnel’s almost $9 billion price tag. At the time, Christie stated, “Considering the unprecedented fiscal and economic climate our State is facing, it is completely unthinkable to borrow more money and leave taxpayers responsible for billions in cost overruns. The ARC project costs far more than New Jersey taxpayers can afford and the only prudent move is to end this project.”1 __ Despite the fact that the project is absolutely necessary for future economic growth in the __ New Jersey-New York __ region __ and would have created thousands of jobs, __ it was **held captive to significant cost escalation, barriers to cooperation between local, state, and federal actors, and just plain politics.**__ Sadly, __ these factors are increasingly endemic in the execution of major infrastructure projects__. __ America’s infrastructure has fallen into a state of disrepair, and will be insufficient to meet future demands and foster competitive growth without significant new investment____. __ However, the public is fed up with massive deficits and cost overruns, and increasingly consider deficit reduction to be a bigger economic priority than infrastructure investment.2 They have lost confidence in government’s ability to choose infrastructure projects wisely, complete them, and bring them in on budget. At the same time, **__traditional sources of funding are strained to the breaking point__**__ and federal support is hindered by an inefficient process for selecting projects __. Finding the resources necessary to construct new infrastructure will be also be a significant challenge. __ A new of way of choosing and funding infrastructure projects ____ — from roads, bridges, airports, rail, and seaports __ to broadband and power transmission upgrades— __ is necessary ____ to ensure growth and create jobs in America. __ America’s infrastructure isn’t ready to meet future growth needs. The safety risks and economic costs associated with the deterioration of America’s infrastructure are increasingly apparent across multiple sectors. The American Society of Civil Engineers has awarded the nation’s overall infrastructure a grade of D.3 Since 1990, demand for electricity has increased by about 25% but construction of new transmission has decreased by 30%.4 Over about the last 25 years, the number of miles traveled by cars and trucks approximately doubled but America’s highway lane miles increased by only 4.4%.5 Over 25% of America’s bridges are de!cient6 and about 25% of its bus and rail assets are in marginal or poor condition.7 America’s broadband penetration rate ranks only 14th among OECD countries.8 __ As America’s population and economic activity increases, the stress on its infrastructure will only grow. __ The number of trucks operating daily on each mile of the Interstate Highway system is expected to jump from 10,500 to 22,700 by 2035,9 while freight volumes will have increased by 70% over 1998 levels.10 It is also expected that transit ridership will double by 2030 and that the number of commercial air passengers will increase by 36% from 2006 to 2015.11 Total electricity use is projected to increase by 1148 billion kWh from 2008 to 2035.12 In order to cope, America’s infrastructure will need a significant upgrade. America’s infrastructure deficit hurts its competitiveness and is a drain on the economy. __ America’s infrastructure gap poses a serious threat to our prosperity __. In 2009, the amount of waste due to congestion equaled 4.8 billion hours (equivalent to 10 weeks worth of relaxation time for the average American) and 3.9 billion gallons of gasoline, costing $115 billion in lost fuel and productivity.13 __ Highway bottlenecks __ are estimated to __ cost __ freight trucks about $ __ 8 billion __ in economic costs per year,14 and in 2006, total logistics costs for American businesses increased to 10% of GDP.15 __ Flight delays cost Americans $9 billion in lost productivity each year __ ,16 and power disruptions caused by an overloaded electrical grid cost between $25 billion and $180 billion annually.17 These __ losses sap wealth from our economy and drain resources that could otherwise fuel recovery and growth. ____ The infrastructure gap also hinders America’s global competitiveness __. Logistics costs for American business are on the rise, but similar costs in countries like Germany, Spain, and France are set to decrease.18 And while America’s infrastructure spending struggles to keep pace,19 __ several main global competitors are poised to make significant infrastructure enhancements __. China leads the world with a projected $9 trillion in infrastructure investments slated for the next ten years, followed by India, Russia, and Brazil.20 In a recent survey, 90% of business executives around the world indicated that the quality and availability of infrastructure plays a key role in determining where they do business.21 __ If America is going to remain on strong economic footing compared to its competitors, it must address its infrastructure challenges __. There are too many cost overruns and unnecessary projects—but not enough funds. __ Cost overruns on infrastructure projects are increasingly prevalent and exact real costs __. One survey of projects around the world found that costs were underestimated for almost 90% of projects, and that cost escalation on transportation projects in North America was almost 25%.22 Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel Project (a.k.a. the “Big Dig”) came in 275% over budget, adding $11 billion to the cost of the project. The construction of the Denver International Airport cost 200% more than anticipated. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge retrofit project witnessed overruns of $2.5 billion—more than 100% of the original project cost— before construction even got underway.23 And of course, there are the “bridge to nowhere” earmarks that solve a political need, but not an economic one. __ The current system ____ for funding projects is subject to inefficiency and bureaucratic complication. Funding for infrastructure improvements is divided unevenly among federal, state, local, and private actors based on sector. __ 24 __ Even in instances where the federal government provides funding, it has often ceded or delegated project selection and oversight responsibilities to state, local, and other recipients, **weakening linkages to federal program goals and efforts to ensure accountability**____. __ 25 __ Federal efforts are also hampered by organization and funding allocations ____ based strictly on specific types of transportation, as opposed to a system-wide approach____, which create inefficiencies that hinder collaboration and effective investment. __ 26 __ Complicating matters ____ even further are the emergence of **multi-state “megaregions,”which have common needs that require multijurisdictional planning and decision making ability**____. __ 27 Infrastructure funding has also become significantly politicized. Congressional earmarking in multi-year transportation bills has skyrocketed from 10 projects in the STAA of 1982 to over 6,300 projects in the most recent bill (SAFETEA-LU).28 Even under a working system, the infrastructure improvements necessary to foster growth will require substantial investment. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that it would require $2.2 trillion over the next five years to bring our overall infrastructure up to par.29 However, __ sources of funding ____ for infrastructure improvements are under significant strain and may not be sufficient __ .30 The Highway Trust Fund has already experienced serious solvency challenges, and inadequate revenues could lead to a $400 billion funding shortfall from 2010 to 2015.31 __ The finances of state and local governments, which are responsible for almost three-quarters of public infrastructure spending __ ,32 __ have been severely impaired__. __ At least 46 states____ have budget shortfalls ____ in the current fiscal year, and it is likely that state financial woes will continue in the near future __ .33 In a recent survey by the National Association of Counties, 47% of respondents indicated more severe budget shortfalls than anticipated, 82% said that shortfalls will continue into the next year, and 54% reported delaying capital investments to cope.34 __ THE SOLUTION A National Infrastructure Bank __In order to provide innovative, merit-based financing to meet America’s emerging infrastructure needs, Third Way supports the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB). __ The NIB would be a stand-alone entity capitalized with federal funds____, and would be able to use those funds through loans, guarantees, and other financial tools to leverage private financing for projects. As such, the NIB would be poised to seize the opportunity presented by historically low borrowing costs in order to generate the greatest benefit for the lowest taxpayer cost. __Projects would be selected by the bank’s independent, bipartisan leadership based on merit and demonstrated need. Evaluation criteria may include economic benefit, job creation, energy independence, congestion relief, regional benefit, and other public good considerations. Potential sectors for investment could include the full range or any combination of rail, road, transit, ports, dams, air travel, clean water, power grid, broadband, and others. The NIB will reform the system to cut waste, and emphasize merit and need. __ As a bank, the NIB would inject accountability into the infrastructure investment process __. Since the bank would offer loans and loan guarantees using a combination of public and private capital, it would have the opportunity to move away from the traditional design-bid-build model and toward project delivery mechanisms that would deliver better value to taxpayers and investors.35 __ By operating on principles more closely tied to return on investment and financial discipline, the NIB would help to prevent the types cost escalation and project delays that have foiled the ARC Tunnel. __ America’s infrastructure policy has been significantly hampered by the lack of a national strategy rooted in clear, overarching objectives used to evaluate the merit of specific projects. __ The politicization and lack of coordination of the process has weakened public faith in the ability of government to effectively meet infrastructure challenges __. In polling, 94% of respondents expressed concern about America’s infrastructure and over 80% supported increased federal and state investment. However, 61% indicated that improved accountability should be the top policy goal and only 22% felt that the federal government was effective in addressing infrastructure challenges.36 As a stand-alone entity, __ the NIB would address __these __ concerns by selecting projects for funding across sectors ____ based on broadly demonstrated need and ability to meet defined policy goals, such as economic benefit, energy independence, improved health and safety, efficiency, and return on investment. __The NIB will create jobs and support competitiveness. __ By providing a new and innovative mechanism for project financing, the NIB could help provide funding for projects stalled by monetary constraints. This isparticularly true for large scale projects____ that may be too complicated ____ or costly for traditional means of financing. __ In the short-term, providing resources for infrastructure investment would have clear, positive impacts for recovery and growth. It has been estimated that every $1 billion in highway investment supports 30,000 jobs,37 and that every dollar invested in infrastructure increases GDP by $1.59.38 It has also been projected that an investment of $10 billion into both broadband and smart grid infrastructure would create 737,000 jobs.39 In the longer-term, __ infrastructure investments supported by the NIB will allow the U.S. to meet future demand, reduce the waste currently built into the system, and **keep pace with competition from global rivals.**__ The NIB will harness private capital to help government pay for new projects. __ The NIB would magnify the impact of federal funds____ by leveraging them through partnerships with private entities ____ and other actors, providing taxpayers with more infrastructure bang for their public buck. Estimates have placed the amount of private capital readily available for infrastructure development at $400 billion __,40 __ and as of 2007, sovereign wealth funds—another potential source of capital—were estimated to control over $3 trillion in assets with the potential to control $12 trillion____ by 2012. __41 While these and other institutional funds have experienced declines as a result of the economic downturn, they will continue to be important sources of large, long-term investment resources. __ By offering loan guarantees to induce larger private investments or issuing debt instruments and securities, **the NIB could tap these vast pools of private capital to generate investments much larger than its initial capitalization**__. In doing so, it could also lower the cost of borrowing for municipalities by lowering interest on municipal bonds for state and local governments by 50 to 100 basis points.42 __ The NIB would also be poised to help taxpayers take full advantage of historically low borrowing costs __. In 2010, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries reached a historic low of 3.22%, as compared to a rate of 6.03% in 2000 and a peak rate of 13.92% in 1981. Prior to the Great Recession, this rate had not dipped below 4% since 1962.43 By allowing government and private actors to access financing at historically low rates, __ the NIB would help to **capitalize on a once-in-a-lifetime window to make enduring infrastructure investments.**__

FORDHAM ‘10 (Tina Fordham, “Investors can’t ignore the rise of geopolitical risk”, Financial Times, 7-17-2010, []) Geopolitical risk is on the rise after years of relative quiet – potentially creating further headwinds to the global recovery just as fears of a double-dip recession are growing, says Tina Fordham, senior political analyst at Citi Private Bank. “Recently, markets have been focused on problems within the eurozone and not much moved by developments in North Korea, new Iran sanctions, tensions between Turkey and Israel or the unrest in strategically significant Kyrgyzstan ,” she says. “But taken together, we don’t think investors can afford to ignore the return of geopolitical concerns to the fragile post-financial crisis environment.” Ms Fordham argues the end of post-Cold War US pre-eminence is one of the most important by-products of the financial crisis. “The post-crisis world order is shifting. More players than ever are at the table, and their interests often diverge. Emerging market countries have greater weight in the system, yet many lack experience on the global stage. Addressing the world’s challenges in this more crowded environment will be slower and more complex. This increases the potential forproliferating risks : most notably the prospect of politically and/or economically weakened regimes obtaining nuclear weapons ; and military action to keep them from doing so. “Left unresolved, these challenges could disrupt global stability and trade. This would be a very unwelcome time to see the return of geopolitical risk.”
 * A double dip recession disrupts global stability, causing nuclear escalation**

**Scenario 2 is jobs**

**NIB infrastructure creates jobs and stimulates growth.** **Trumbull 11 -** Staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor (Mark, “Is Gary Johnson right about shovel-ready jobs? 5 infrastructure challenges,” September 23, 2011, The Christian Science Monitor, Lexis)//SPS//

// Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson scored a rhetorical winner in a Republican debate Thursday by saying that his neighbor's dogs 'have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration.' But President Obama's latest jobs plan includes a call for more spending on roads and bridges, an idea that has at least some Republican support. Here's a look at the debate over infrastructure and the economy. #5 How bad off is American infrastructure? Both Republicans and Democrats agree the nation has some big needs when it comes to repair and expansion of highways, ports, and airports, which serve as a foundation for economic growth. They differ on how much to spend and on the specific priorities. And, as former New Mexico Governor Johnson implied in his joke, the parties differ on whether federal construction spending can give a big boost to job creation. The White House emphasis on investing in "shovel-ready projects" dates back to the 2009 Recovery Act. And conservatives have been expressing skepticism ever since. (Johnson isn't the first to use references to canine cleanup). But whatever the impact on overall US employment, the backlog of work for backhoes and mixer trucks is significant __.__ The American Society of Civil Engineers puts it in stark terms: It gives the US a grade of 'D' on overall infrastructure. The bipartisan group Building America's Future says the __United States should be spending at least $200 billion per year on the problem - an estimate focused mainly on transportation needs__. That would require a sizable spending boost, and other analysts have come up with similar targets. " **__For every dollar we're investing, we should be investing three__** ," says Robert Atkinson, who heads the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington research group focused on economic growth. The US is spending just 2 percent of gross domestic product on infrastructure, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) of California said recently, citing a US Treasury report. "That is a 50 percent decline from 1960." By comparison, Canada is spending 4 percent of its GDP on transportation infrastructure, and China is spending 9 percent. #4 Didn't the US already spend big bucks on infrastructure? Yes, __the $787 billion American Reinvestment and Recovery Act included sizable spending on things like bridges and airports - some $48 billion for transportation.__ Proponents of infrastructure spending, including business groups, say __that's just a down payment on meeting the nation's long-term needs__. But why right now? Well, creating jobs in the short run is very much on the president's radar - both because lots of Americans want jobs and because he wants to keep his own when the 2012 election rolls around. Conservative critics say the Obama administration's original stimulus efforts didn't live up to expectations for job creation, despite all the talk about "shovel ready" projects. And they are wary of rushing more such money out the door. __The White House itself says the next round of infrastructure spending should include "innovative reforms to ensure that the best projects get financing__ ." #3 Why does infrastructure matter for jobs and economic growth? Infrastructure includes transportation as a central element, but also encompasses a range of structures and systems that support the economy. Water, energy, and communications systems are included, and they often land on infrastructure to-do lists. __Having those things, and having them in good shape, is a fundamental building block for growth__, economists say. __It paves the way for things like exports, tourism, and the sharing of information. But building or repairing the systems can also add some jobs in the near term__. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, estimates that **__Obama's $60 billion in proposed infrastructure investments would create 400,000 jobs__**. That's no magic fix for the nation's high unemployment rate. __But the spending would come at a time when many construction workers are unemployed__. __More important gains come over the long term__. Consider one simple example: Maintaining roads and bridges in good repair, or investing in urban light-rail systems, means families can spend less on gasoline or new tires and more on other things. Economists say __that means more US jobs, and more of them in sectors like professional services__ or entertainment rather than car repair. #2 But the US is running big deficits. What should the priorities be? Yes, budgets are tight at both the federal and state levels as Congress considers both Obama's jobs bill and a highway-fund reauthorization. Robert Puentes, an expert on economic development at the Brookings Institution in Washington, says smart choices would be tethered to specific national goals and regional needs __. "If you're going to be much more global, and if you're going to double exports within five years, then there are a set of infrastructure projects that are going to help you do that,"__ he says. "There are port projects ... border crossings, gateways." Similarly, other goals might lead toward different projects. To create a low-carbon economy, one focus might be on charging stations for electric cars __.__ To reduce delays in air travel, updated air-traffic control is needed. Good old roads and bridges can't be ignored either. Some transportation experts call for a "fix it first" approach, to keep existing systems in good repair. #1 What strategies can the US pursue? One idea pushed by Obama: __Set up a bipartisan-run "infrastructure bank," by which the federal government would provide loans to leverage private investment in projects. Of the $60 billion for infrastructure in the president's plan, some $10 billion would provide launch money for the bank.__ Building America's Future, which represents bipartisan elected officials, has embraced that idea but also proposes other priorities: Develop a 10-year strategy for the nation's transportation, water, and electric-grid systems. Pass a six-year transportation bill for highway, mass-transit, and aviation needs. Consider raising the gas tax and linking it to inflation. It's not popular, but the tax is a fraction of what other nations charge, the group says, and covers only half the cost of maintaining US roads. Use other creative funding mechanisms, from congestion pricing on busy roads to letting states charge tolls on federal highways that need repair. //

//**AND, job creation is the biggest internal link to the economy—outweighs cutting the deficit**// //**Tyson 11** -Professor @ the Haas School of Business of UC-Berkeley, PhD in Economics @ MIT, BA Summa Cum Laude in Economics @ Smith College, former Chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, served as the Director of the National Economic Council [Laura, The Washington Post, “What it will take for President Obama and big business to bring back American jobs,” 9/18/2011, [], DKP] //

//__The immediate crisis confronting the U.S. economy is the jobs deficit, not the budget deficit. Nearly 14 million__ Americans __are unemployed__, another __8.4 million are working part time because they cannot find full-time jobs, and__ yet another __2.8 million want a job__ and are available to work __but have given up an active search.__ At 64 percent, __the labor force participation rate is lower than it has been in__ nearly __three decades.__ The magnitude of this jobs crisis we’re in is best measured by the jobs gap—the number of jobs the U.S. economy needs to add in order to return to its pre 2008-2009 [|employment] level and absorb new entrants to the work force since then. __The jobs gap__ at the end of August __was more than 12 million__ jobs. __Even at double the rate of employment growth__ realized during the last year, __it would take more than 12 years for the U.S. economy to close this gap. The U.S. labor market__, long admired for its flexibility and strength, __is badly broken.__ Most American jobs are in the private sector, and private sector jobs have in fact been growing for 17 consecutive months; indeed, the private sector added about 1.8 million nonfarm [|payroll] jobs during the last year. This pace of job creation is faster than during the previous recovery in the early 2000s and in line with the recovery of the early 1990s. But there’s one major problem: __Private-sector job losses were more than twice as large in the recent recession as in the previous two, and job growth has fallen far short of what is necessary to offset these losses.__ In addition, __public-sector employment has been declining__ in this recovery—this in contrast to other postwar recovery periods, in which such employment has increased. We’ve lost 550,000 public-sector positions in the last year alone, __making the jobs crisis even more severe.__ Since the private sector creates (and eliminates) most jobs in the United States, and __since budget constraints will__ likely __mean more painful cuts in public-sector employment__ for the foreseeable future, __Americans are understandably looking to business for solutions__ to the jobs crisis. To uncover the business solutions that could work, __however, we first must acknowledge the fundamental cause of the problem: the dramatic collapse in aggregate demand__ that began with the 2008 financial crisis and __that triggered huge job losses.__ Even with unprecedented amounts of monetary and fiscal stimulus, __the recovery has been weak because consumers have curbed their spending, increased their saving and started to reduce their personal debt.__ And they still have a long way to go. Business [|surveys] confirm that f __or both large and small companies, the primary constraint on job growth is weak demand__, not regulation or taxation. In the apt words of a small business owner, “If you don’t have the demand, you don’t hire the people.” So __what can the business community do to boost demand and job creation? It can convince Congress to establish a National Infrastructure Bank__ and pass a multi-year surface transportation bill to boost infrastructure [|investment]. And while it’s at it, business can work with the Obama administration to reduce multi-year delays in the approval of infrastructure projects that would otherwise create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs in the next few years. // //**Plan __immediately__ boosts employment and growth—prevents economic decline**// //**Zakaria, 11** -PhD in Political Science @ Harvard (6/13/2011, Fareed, “Zakaria: U.S. needs an infrastructure bank,” [], JMP) //

// President Obama has proposed a number of specific policies to tackle the jobs crisis, but they have gone nowhere because Republicans say that their top concern is the deficit and debt. Those of us worried about the debt - and I would strongly include myself - need to remember that __if unemployment doesn't go down fast, the deficit is going to get much worse. **If you're serious about deficit reduction, the single most important factor that will shrink it is to have more people working and paying taxes.**__ I want to focus on __one of Obama's proposals__ because it actually would add very little to the deficit, it has some Republican supporters and it __would have an immediate effect on boosting employment and growth__. Plus, it's good for the country anyway. __We need a national infrastructure bank to repair and rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure.__ The House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, has played down this proposal as just more stimulus, but if Republicans set aside ideology, they would actually see that this is an opportunity to push for two of their favorite ideas - privatization and the elimination of earmarks. That's why Republicans like Kay Bailey Hutchison and Chuck Hagel are strongly in favor of such a bank. The United States builds its infrastructure in a remarkably socialist manner. The government funds bills and operates almost all American infrastructure. Now, __in many countries in Europe and Asia the private sector plays a much larger role in financing and operating roads, highways, railroads, airports and other public resources. An infrastructure bank would create a mechanism by which you could have private sector participation.__ Yes, there would be some public money involved, though mostly through issuing bonds. And with interest rates at historic lows, __this is the time to use__ those __low interest rates to borrow money and rebuild America's infrastructure. Such projects have huge long-term payoffs and can genuinely be thought of as investments, not expenditures.__ A national infrastructure bank would also address a legitimate complaint of the Tea Party - earmark spending. One of the reasons federal spending has been inefficient is that Congress wants to spread the money around in ways that might make political sense but are economic nonsense. __An infrastructure bank would make those decisions using cost-benefit analysis in a meritocratic system__ rather than spreading the wealth around and basing these decisions on patronage, politics and whimsy. Let's face it, America's infrastructure is in a shambles. __Just a decade ago, we ranked sixth in infrastructure in the world according to the World Economic Forum. Today we rank 23rd and dropping. **We will not be able to compete with the nations of the world if we cannot fix this problem.**__ Is it too much to ask that Republicans and Democrats find a way to come together on this? That moment of bipartisanship might actually be the biggest payoff of all // //**The US is the underpinning of the global economy**// // RAHMAN ‘11 - former Ambassador and Chairman of the Centre for Foreign Affairs Studies. (Ashfaqur . “Another global recession?”. August 21. http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=199461) //

// Several developments, especially in Europe and the US, fan this fear. First, the US recovery from the last recession has been fragile. Its economy is much more susceptible to geopolitical shocks. Second there is a rise in fuel prices. The political instability in the Middle East is far from over. This is causing risks for the country and the international economy. Third, the global food prices in July this year is markedly higher than a year ago, almost 35% more. Commodities such as maize (up 84%), sugar (up 62%), wheat (up 55%), soybean oil (up 47%) have seen spike in their prices. Crude oil prices have also risen by 45%, affecting production costs. In the US, even though its debt ceiling has been raised and the country can now continue to borrow, credit agencies have downgraded its credit rating and therefore its stock markets have started to flounder. World Bank President Zoellick recently said: "There was a convergence of some events in Europe and the US that has led many market participants to lose confidence in economic leadership of the key countries." He added: " Those events, combined with other fragilities in the nature of recovery, have pushed US into a new danger zone ." Employment in the US has, therefore, come near to a grinding halt. Prices of homes there continue to slide. Consumer and business spending is slowing remarkably. So, when the //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 8pt;">giant consumer economy // slows down, there would be less demand for goods she buys from abroad, even from countries like Bangladesh. This would lead to decline in exports from such countries to the US. Then these economies would start to slide too, leading to factory closures and unemployment on a large scale. There would be less money available for economic development activities. Adding to the woes of the US economy are the travails of European economies. There, countries like Greece and Portugal, which are heavily indebted, have already received a first round of bailout. But this is not working. A second bailout has been given to Greece. But these countries remain in deep economic trouble. Bigger economies like Spain and Italy are also on the verge of bankruptcy. More sound economies like France and Germany are unwilling to provide money through the European Central Bank to bail them out. A proposal to issue Euro bonds to be funded by all the countries of the Euro Zone has also not met with approval. A creeping fear of the leaders of such big economies is that their electorate is not likely to agree to fund bankruptcies in other countries through the taxes they pay. Inevitably, they are saying that these weaker economies must restrain expenditures and thereby check indebtedness and live within their means. Thus, with fresh international bailouts not in the horizon and with possibilities of a debt default by countries like Greece, there is a likelihood of a ripple going through the world's financial system. Now what is recession and especially one with a global dimension ? There is no commonly accepted definition of a recession or for that matter of a global recession. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) regards periods when global growth is less than 3% to be a global recession. During this period, global per capita output growth is zero or negative and unemployment and bankruptcies are on the rise. Recession within a country implies that there is a business cycle contraction. It occurs when "there is a widespread drop in spending following an adverse supply shock or the bursting of an economic bubble." The most common indicator is "two down quarters of GDP." That is, when GDP of a country does not increase for six months. When recession occurs there is a slowdown in economic activity. Overall consumption, investment, government spending and net exports fall. Economic drivers such as employment, household savings, corporate investments, interest rates are on the wane. Interestingly, recession can be of several types. Each type may be literally of distinctive shapes. Thus V-shaped, or a short and sharp contraction, is common. It is usually followed by a rapid and sustained recovery. A U-shaped slump is a prolonged recession. The W-shaped slowdown of the economy is a double dip recession. There is also an L-shaped recession when, in 8 out of 9 three-monthly quarters, the economy is spiraling downward. So what type of recession can the world expect in the next quarter? Experts say that it could be a W-shaped one, known as a double dip type. But let us try to understand why the world is likely to face another recession, when it has just emerged from the last one, the Great Recession in 2010. Do not forget that this recession had begun in 2007 with the "mortgage and the derivative" scandal when the real estate and property bubble burst. Today, many say that the last recession had never ended. Despite official data that shows recovery, it was only a modest recovery. So, when the recession hit the US in 2007 it was the Great Recession I. The US government fought it by stimulating their economy with large bailouts. But this time, for the Great Recession II, which we may be entering, there is a completely different response. Politicians are squabbling over how much to cut spending. Therefore, we may be in a new double dip or W-shaped recession. //

// Economic decline triggers nuclear war // // Harris and Burrows 9( Mathew, PhD European History at Cambridge, counselor in the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and Jennifer, member of the NIC’s Long Range Analysis Unit “Revisiting the Future: Geopolitical Effects of the Financial Crisis” [], AM)// Increased Potential for Global Conflict Of course, the report encompasses more than economics and indeed believes the future is likely to be the result of a number of intersecting and interlocking forces. With so many possible permutations of outcomes, each with ample Revisiting the Future opportunity for unintended consequences, there is a growing sense of insecurity. Even so, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">history may be more instructive than ever. While we continue to believe that <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">the Great Depression is not likely to be repeated, the <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">lessons to be drawn from that period <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">include the harmful effects on fledgling democracies and multiethnic societies (think Central Europe in 1920s and 1930s) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">and on the <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">sustainability of multilateral institutions (think League of Nations in the same period). <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is no reason to think that this would not be true in the twenty-first as much as in the twentieth century. For that reason, the ways in which <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">the potential for greater conflict could grow would seem to be even more apt <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">in a constantly volatile economic environment as they would be if change would be steadier. In surveying those risks, the report stressed the likelihood that terrorism and nonproliferation will remain priorities even as resource issues move up on the international agenda. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Terrorism’s appeal will decline if economic growth continues in the Middle East and youth unemployment is reduced. For those terrorist groups that remain active in 2025, however, the diffusion of technologies and scientific knowledge will place some of the world’s most dangerous capabilities within their reach. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Terrorist groups in 2025 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">will likely be a combination of descendants of long established groups_inheriting organizational structures, command and control processes, and training procedures necessary to conduct sophisticated attacks_and newly emergent collections of the angry and disenfranchised that <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">become self-radicalized, particularly in the absence of economic outlets that would become narrower in an economic downturn. The most dangerous casualty of any economically-induced drawdown of U.S. military presence would almost certainly <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">be the Middle East. Although Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is not inevitable, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">worries about a nuclear-armed Iran <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">could lead states in the region to develop new security arrangements with external powers, acquire additional weapons, and consider pursuing their own nuclear ambitions __. __ It is not clear that the type of stable deterrent relationship that existed between the great powers for most of the Cold War would emerge naturally in the Middle East with a nuclear Iran. Episodes of low intensity <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">conflict and terrorism taking place under a nuclear umbrella <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">could lead to an **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 11pt;">unintended escalation ** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and broader conflict if clear red lines between those states involved are not well established. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">The close proximity of potential nuclear rivals combined with underdeveloped surveillance capabilities and mobile dual-capable Iranian missile systems also <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">will produce inherent difficulties __<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 11pt;"> in achieving reliable indications and warning of an impending nuclear attack __<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 11pt;">. The lack of strategic depth in neighboring states like Israel, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">short warning and missile flight times, and uncertainty of Iranian intentions <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">may place more focus on preemption rather than defense, potentially <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">leading to **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 11pt;">escalating ****<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 11pt;">crises ** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">. 36 Types of <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">conflict that the world continues to experience, such as <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">over resources, could reemerge, __particularly if__ <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">protectionism grows and there is a resort to neo-mercantilist practices. Perceptions of renewed energy scarcity will drive countries to take actions to assure their future access to energy supplies. In the worst case, this <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">could result in interstate conflicts if government leaders deem assured access to energy resources, for example, to be <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">essential for maintaining domestic stability and the <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">survival of their regime. Even actions short of war, however, will have important geopolitical implications. Maritime security concerns are providing a rationale for naval buildups and modernization efforts, such as China’s and India’s development of blue water naval capabilities. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">If the <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">fiscal stimulus focus for these <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">countries indeed turns inward, one of the most obvious funding targets may be military. Buildup of regional naval <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">capabilities could lead to increased tensions, rivalries, and counterbalancing moves, but it also will create opportunities for multinational cooperation in protecting critical sea lanes. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">With water also <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">becoming scarcer in Asia and the Middle East, cooperation to manage changing water resources is likely to be increasingly difficult both within and between states in a more dog-eat-dog world. //** Slow growth makes the US uncooperative and desperate – leads to hegemonic wars **// //** Goldstein 7 ** - Professor of Global Politics and International Relations @ University of Pennsylvania, Avery Goldstein, “Power transitions, institutions, and China's rise in East Asia: Theoretical expectations and evidence,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Volume30, Issue 4 & 5 August 2007, pages 639 – 682 //

// Two closely related, though distinct, theoretical arguments focus explicitly on the consequences for international politics of a shift in power between a dominant state and a rising power. In War and Change in World Politics, Robert __ Gilpin suggested that __ peace prevails when a dominant state’s capabilities enable it to ‘govern’ an international order that it has shaped. Over time, however, __as economic and technological diffusion proceeds__ during eras of peace and development, __ other states are empowered .__ Moreover, the burdens of international governance drain and distract the reigning hegemon, and __challengers__ eventually __emerge____ who seek to rewrite the rules of governance. As the power advantage of the__ erstwhile __hegemon ebbs, it may become desperate enough to resort to__ theultima ratio of international politics, __force, to forestall the__ increasingly urgent __demands of a rising challenger__. Or __as the power of the challenger rises, it may be tempted to press its case with__ threats to use __force. It is the rise and fall of the great powers that creates__ the circumstances under which major wars, what Gilpin labels __ ‘ hegemonic wars’____, __ break out.13 Gilpin’s argument logically encourages pessimism about the implications of a rising China. It leads to the expectation that international trade, investment, and technology transfer will result in a steady __diffusion of American economic power, benefit__ ing the __rapidly developing states__ of the world, including China. As ** the US ** simultaneously scurries to put out the many brushfires that threaten its far-flung global interests (i.e., the classic problem of overextension), it ** will be unable to devote sufficient resources to maintain **** or restore ** its former advantage over emerging competitors like China. __While the erosion of the__ once clear __American advantage plays itself out, the US will find it__ __ ever more difficult to preserve the order__ in Asia __ that it created__ during its era of preponderance **. **__The expectation is an increase in the likelihood for the use of force – either by a__ Chinese __challenger__ able to field a stronger military in support of its demands for greater influence over international arrangements in Asia __, or____ by a besieged American hegemon____ desperate to head off further decline __. __Among the trends that____ alarm __ those who would look at Asia through the lens of Gilpin’s theory __are China’s expanding share of world trade and wealth__ (much of it resulting from the gains made possible by the international economic order a dominant US established); __its acquisition of t____ echnology ____ in key sectors__ that have both civilian and military applications (e.g., information, communications, and electronics linked with to forestall, and the challenger becomes increasingly determined to realize the transition to a new international order whose contours it will define. the ‘revolution in military affairs’); and an expanding military burden for the US (as it copes with the challenges of its global war on terrorism and especially its struggle in Iraq) that limits the resources it can devote to preserving its interests in East Asia.14 Although similar to Gilpin’s work insofar as it emphasizes the importance of shifts in the capabilities of a dominant state and a rising challenger, the power-transition theory A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler present in The War Ledger focuses more closely on the allegedly dangerous phenomenon of ‘crossover’– the point at which a dissatisfied challenger is about to overtake the established leading state.15 In such cases, __when the power gap narrows, the dominant state becomes increasingly desperate.__ Though suggesting why a rising China may ultimately present grave dangers for international peace when its capabilities make it a peer competitor of America, Organski and Kugler’s __power-transition theory__ is less clear about the dangers while a potential challenger still lags far behind and faces a difficult struggle to catch up. This clarification is important in thinking about the theory’s relevance to interpreting China’s rise because a broad consensus prevails among analysts that Chinese military capabilities are at a minimum two decades from putting it in a league with the US in Asia.16 Their theory, then, __points with alarm to trends in China’s growing wealth and power relative to the U____ nited S____ tates __, but __especially__ looks ahead to what it sees as __the period of maximum danger__ __ – that time when__ __ a dissatisfied China could__ __ be in a position to overtake the US on dimensions believed crucial for assessing power. R____ eports __ beginning in the mid-1990s that offered extrapolations __ suggest __ ing __ China’s growth would give it the world’s largest __ gross domestic product ( __ GDP __ aggregate, not per capita) __ sometime in the first __ few __ decades of the twentieth century __ fed these sorts of concerns about a potentially dangerous challenge to American leadership in Asia.17 The huge gap between Chinese and American military capabilities (especially in terms of technological sophistication) has so far discouraged prediction of comparably disquieting trends on this dimension, but inklings of similar concerns may be reflected in occasionally alarmist reports about purchases of advanced Russian air and naval equipment, as well as concern that Chinese espionage may have undermined the American advantage in nuclear and missile technology, and speculation about the potential military purposes of China’s manned space program.18 Moreover, __ because a dominant state may react to the prospect of a crossover and__ __ believe that it is wiser to embrace the logic of preventive war__ __ and act early to delay a transition____ while the task is more manageable __, Organski and Kugler’s __power-transition theory__ also __provides grounds for concern about the period prior to the possible crossover____. __ 19 pg. 647-650 //

//** Growth eliminates the only rational incentives for war **// //** Gartzke 11 ** – associate Professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego PhD from Iowa and B.A. from UCSF Erik, "SECURITY IN AN INSECURE WORLD" www.cato-unbound.org/2011/02/09/erik-gartzke/security-in-an-insecure-world/ //

// Almost as informative as the decline in warfare has been where this decline is occurring. Traditionally, nations were constrained by opportunity. Most nations did not fight most others because they could not physically do so. Powerful nations, in contrast, tended to fight more often, and particularly to fight with other powerful states. __Modern “zones of peace” are dominated by powerful, militarily capable countries. These____ countries could fight each other, but are not inclined to do____ so. __ At the same time, __ weaker developing nations that continue to exercise force in traditional ways are incapable of projecting power __ against the developed world, with the exception of unconventional methods, such as terrorism. The world is thus divided between those who could use force but prefer not to (at least not against each other) and those who would be willing to fight but lack the material means to fight far from home. __Warfare in the modern world has thus become an activity involving weak__ (usually neighboring) __nations, with intervention by powerful__ (geographically distant) __states in a policing capacity.__ So, the riddle of peace boils down to why capable nations are not fighting each other. There are several explanations, as Mack has pointed out. __ The easiest, and I think the best, explanation has to do with an absence of motive.__ Modern states find little incentive to bicker over tangible property, since __ armies are expensive and the goods that can be looted are no longer of considerable value. __ Ironically, this is exactly the explanation that Norman Angell famously supplied before the World Wars. __ Yet, today the evidence is abundant that the most prosperous, capable nations prefer to buy rather than take.__ Decolonization, for example, divested European powers of territories that were increasingly expensive to administer and which contained tangible assets of limited value. __ Of comparable importance is the move to__ **__ substantial __**__consensus among powerful nations about how international affairs should be conducted. The great rivalries__ of the twentieth century __ were ideological rather than territorial. These have been substantially resolved____, __ as Francis Fukuyama has pointed out. __ The fact that remaining differences are moderate, while the benefits of acting in concert are large (due to economic interdependence in particular) means that____ **nations prefer to deliberate** __**__ rather than fight __**. Differences remain, but for the most part the capable countries of the world have been in consensus, while the disgruntled developing world is incapable of acting on respective nations’ dissatisfaction. While this version of events explains the partial peace bestowed on the developed world, it also poses challenges in terms of the future. __ The rising nations of Asia __ in particular __ have not been __ equal __ beneficiaries in the world political system. These nations have benefited from economic integration, and this has proved sufficient in the past to pacify them.__ The question for the future is whether the benefits of tangible resources through markets are sufficient to compensate the rising powers for their lack of influence in the policy sphere. The danger is that established powers may be slow to accommodate or give way to the demands of rising powers from Asia and elsewhere, leading to divisions over the intangible domain of policy and politics. Optimists argue that at the same time that these nations are rising in power, their domestic situations are evolving in a way that makes their interests more similar to the West. Consumerism, democracy, and a market orientation all help to draw the rising powers in as fellow travelers in an expanding zone of peace among the developed nations. Pessimists argue instead that capabilities among the rising powers are growing faster than their affinity for western values, or even that fundamental differences exist among the interests of first- and second-wave powers that cannot be bridged by the presence of market mechanisms or McDonald’s restaurants. __If the peace observed among western, developed nations is to prove durable, it must be because warfare proves futile as nations transition to prosperity.__ Whether this will happen depends on the rate of change in interests and capabilities, a difficult thing to judge. __ We must hope that the optimistic view is correct, that ____ what ended war in Europe can be exported globally. Prosperity has made war expensive,__ while the fruits of conflict, both in terms of tangible and intangible __spoils have declined in value.__ These forces are not guaranteed to prevail indefinitely. Already, research on robotic warfare promises to lower the cost of conquest. If in addition, fundamental differences among capable communities arise, then warfare over ideology or policy can also be resurrected. We must all hope that the consolidating forces of prosperity prevail, that __war becomes a durable anachronism.__//

Competitiveness //**A national infrastructure bank is necessary to maintain economic competitiveness**// //**Puentes 11** (Robert, Senior Fellow at the Brookings institution “Infrastructure Investment and U.S. Competitiveness” http://www.cfr.org/united-states/infrastructure-investment-us-competitiveness/p24585) //

// Most experts agree the __United States must address the nation's aging network of roads, bridges, airports, railways, power grids, water systems, and other public works to maintain its global economic competitiveness__. In 2010, President Barack Obama proposed a[|national infrastructure bank]that would leverage public and private capital to fund improvements, and in April 2011 a bipartisan coalition of senators put forward asimilar concept ( //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">NYT //). Four experts discuss how the United States can best move forward on infrastructure development__. Robert Puentes of the Brookings Institution suggests focusing on increasing exports, low-carbon technology, innovation, and opportunity. Renowned financier Felix Rohatyn endorses the concept of a federally owned but independently operated national infrastructure bank that would provide a "guidance-system" for federal dollars__. Infrastructure policy authority Richard Little argues that adequate revenue streams are the "first step in addressing this problem," stressing "revenue-based models" as essential. Deputy Mayor of New York City Stephen Goldsmith says that the "most promising ideas" in this policy area involve public-private partnerships. __Infrastructure is central to U.S. prosperity and global competitiveness. It matters because state-of-the-art transportation, telecommunications, and energy networks--the connective tissue of the nation--are critical to moving goods, ideas, and workers quickly and efficiently and providing a safe, secure, and competitive climate for business operations__. __But for too long, the nation's infrastructure policies have been kept separate and apart from the larger conversation about the U.S. economy. The benefits of infrastructure are frequently framed around short-term goals about job creation. While the focus on employment growth is certainly understandable, it is not the best way to target and deploy infrastructure dollars__. And it means so-called "shovel ready projects" are all we can do while long-term investments in the smart grid, high-speed rail, and modern ports are stuck at the starting gate. So in addition to the focus on job growth in the short term, we need to rebalance the American economy for the long term on several key elements: higher exports, to take advantage of rising global demand; low-carbon technology, to lead the clean-energy revolution; innovation, to spur growth through ideas and their deployment; and greater opportunity, to reverse the troubling, decades-long rise in inequality. __Infrastructure is fundamental to each of those elements. Yet while we know America's infrastructure needs are substantial, we have not been able to pull together the resources to make the requisite investments__. And when we do, we often fail to make infrastructure investments in an economy-enhancing way. __This is why the proposal for a national infrastructure bank is so important. If designed and implemented appropriately, it would be a targeted mechanism to deal with critical new investments on a merit basis, while adhering to market forces and leveraging the private capital we know is ready to invest here in the United States.__//

//**AND, transportation infrastructure is a vital internal link to economic leadership**// //**AGC, 11** (5/19/2011, The Associated General Contractors of America, “THE CASE FOR INFRASTRUCTURE & REFORM: Why and How the Federal Government Should Continue to Fund Vital Infrastructure in the New Age of Public Austerity,” [], JMP)// //It also is important to note that the federal programs for investing in highway and transit projects has traditionally been self-funded. Since the 1950s, highway users have, through a mixture of gas taxes and other use-related fees, provided all of the funds that go into the Highway Trust Fund. Until only recently all federal surface transportation investments had come from this self-funded Trust Fund. In other words, structured correctly, the federal surface transportation program does not have to cost anyone that doesn’t use the highway system a single penny. As important, there is a strong argument to be made for the fact that __ the proper role of the federal government is to create and set conditions favorable to private sector job creation __. For example, __ in an economy where the difference between success and failure is ____ often measured by a company’s ability to deliver goods quickly and efficiently, maintaining transportationinfrastructure is as important to the success of the private sector as are stable and low tax rates, minimal red tape and regulations and consistent and stable rule of law. __ Officials in Washington also need to understand that __ allowing our transportation infrastructure to deteriorate will serve as an added tax ____ on private citizens and the business community alike __. That is because __ added congestion, shipping delays and transportation uncertainty will raise ____ commuting costs, the price of most retail and grocery goods and the cost of getting supplies and delivering products for most U.S. businesses. __ **__ Investing in infrastructure is vital to our national economic security. __**__ **America’s position and power in the world is directly dependent on its economic supremacy**. __ __ It is __, after all, __ our national wealth that funds the country’s highly skilled Armed Forces, that allows us to direct global trade policy and that allows our currency to dominate global marketplaces __. __ Without continued investments ____ to support and nurture that economic vitality, **America will surely be eclipsed by other, fast-growing competitors** __ like China, Brazil and/or India. __ Given that so much of the U.S. economy has evolved into a just-in-time model where as-needed deliveries are far more efficient than expensive warehousing and storage, **maintaining our transportation infrastructure is vitally important to the health of our economy**. __ __ Traffic congestion and aging roads already cost U.S. businesses $80 billion a year because of deferred infrastructure maintenance and our failure to keep pace with the growth of shipping and other traffic. __ Allowing our transportation infrastructure to deteriorate will only further undermine our businesses and erode our national economic security. In other cases, __ the federal government has an obligation to invest in infrastructure to avoid imposing costs on U.S. businesses __ and imposing unfunded mandates on state and local governments. For example, local governments had long been responsible for paying to maintain and operate water systems. That meant only major cities and wealthy towns had access to modern water systems. Much of that changed when the federal government began mandating quality standards for drinking water and wastewater discharge through legislation like the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act. These standards were in the best interest of the nation, ensuring protection of public health and environmental quality. By mandating quality standards, however, the federal government forces local governments to spend billions of dollars to upgrade equipment and comply with regulatory burdens. The federal government must not foist the burden of maintaining national standards onto local ratepayers alone. Given that it is in the federal interest to set water quality standards, then so too must it be in the federal interest to provide – primarily in the form of state revolving loan funds – financing help to operators so they can meet those standards// //**NIB sends a signal that the US is committed to rebuilding**// //**Tyson 11** -Professor @ the Haas School of Business of UC-Berkeley, PhD in Economics @ MIT, BA Summa Cum Laude in Economics @ Smith College, former Chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, served as the Director of the National Economic Council [Laura, Harvard Business Review, “A Better Stimulus Plan for the U.S. Economy,” 2011, [], DKP] //

// Although stimulus spending is a politically contentious issue, __America is now in urgent need of a national infrastructure bank to help finance transformative projects of national importance.__ During the coming year I will work with the Obama administration; Senator John Kerry, Representative Rosa DeLauro, and other members of Congress; governors; mayors; and business leaders on legislation to establish and provide the capital for such an institution. I will also foster public support for its creation through speeches, interviews, and opinion columns like this one. __Unlike most other forms of stimulus, infrastructure spending benefits the economy in two ways: First, it creates [|__jobs__]—which__, because those jobs put money in consumers' pockets, __spurs demand. Analysis by the C__ ongressional __B__ udget __O__ ffice __indicates that infrastructure spending is a cost-effective demand stimulus as measured by the number of jobs created per dollar of__ budgetary __expenditure.__ Second, __the resulting infrastructure enhancement supports supply and growth over time.__ By contrast, __underinvestment not only hobbles U.S. competitiveness but also affects America's national security as vulnerabilities go unaddressed.__ In its 2009 report on the state of the nation's infrastructure, __the A__ merican __S__ ociety of __C__ ivil __E__ ngineers __gave the U.S. a near-failing grade__ of D. Perhaps that should not be surprising, given that real __infrastructure spending today is about the same as it was in 1968__, when the economy was smaller by a third. __A__ 2008 __CBO [|__study__] concluded__, for example, __that a 74% increase in annual spending on transportation infrastructure alone would be economically justifiable.__ That calculation leaves out additional infrastructure spending needed for other key public goals such as water delivery and sanitation. __Realizing the highest possible return on infrastructure investments depends on funding the projects with the biggest impact and [|__financing__] them in the most advantageous way. Properly designed and governed, a national infrastructure bank would overcome weaknesses in the current selection of projects by removing funding decisions from the politically volatile appropriations process.__ A common complaint today is that __projects are often funded on the basis of politics rather than efficiency. Investments would instead be selected after independent and transparent cost-benefit analysis by objective experts. The bank would provide the most appropriate form of financing for each project, drawing on a flexible set of tools such as direct loans, loan guarantees, [|__grants__], and interest subsidies for B__ uild __A__ merica __B__ onds. It should be given the authority to form partnerships with __private investors__, which __would increase funding for__ infrastructure __investments and foster efficiency in project selection, operation, and maintenance. That would enable the bank to tap into the significant pools of long-term private capital in pension funds and dedicated infrastructure equity funds looking for such investment opportunities.__ Crafting the law to achieve these goals is a serious and challenging undertaking, particularly in view of large budget deficits and a contentious political atmosphere. But I believe they are worthy of the political and legislative effort required to realize them. __The U.S. must invest considerably more in its infrastructure to secure its competitiveness and deliver rising standards of living. This__ effort w __ould__ also __put millions__ of Americans __to work in meaningful jobs. The time has come to make it happen.__//

// **AND, it reduces the trade deficit** // // **Skidelsky and Martin 11** -*Emeritus Professor of Economics @ the University of Warwick, Fellow of the British Academy, Chairmen of the Governors of Brighton College, **PhD in Economics @ Oxford, Senior Investment Analyst @ Thames River Capital, Writes for the Institute for New Economic Thinking [Robert, “For a National Investment Bank,” 3/30/2011, [], DKP]** //

//**__Rebalancing the economy toward exports is one example of what is needed.__ The twenty-five-year credit boom that began in the mid-1980s generated an unbalanced economy, in which domestic sectors such as construction and real estate grew at an excessive rate, while exporting industries such as manufacturing lagged behind. America’s foreign trade was roughly in balance in the 1970s; in the two years leading up to the recession, __the current account deficit in foreign trade averaged 6.5 percent of GDP. To reverse the trade imbalance, the administration has stated its ambition to double exports by 2015. A National Investment Bank could support the__ President’s __National Export Initiative by giving priority to new export industries because of the real economic benefits they would bring in reducing America’s dependence on borrowing from abroad to pay for foreign products. Another example of the structural economic challenges that a National Investment Bank could help meet is the deterioration of American infrastructure. Investment in America’s transport, energy, and water systems has been allowed to fall to critically low levels__ over the past four decades. In 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated investment needs over the next five years alone of $2.2 trillion. Its “Report Card” gave a D or D–rating to the country’s current facilities for aviation, energy, hazardous waste, roads, levees, schools, and transit, among others. But infrastructure is a prime example of a sector in which the benefits of a project to the broader economy are larger than the private financial return to the owner, with the result that __private capital markets, left to their own devices, tend to fund less infrastructure investment than is optimal for the economy as a whole.__ What is more, __the current system of allocating public money to such investment is hopelessly politicized, subject to the pressures of state and local governments and the individual demands of congress[persons]__ men __and senators.__ As Felix Rohatyn and Everett Erlich proposed in these pages before the crisis struck, __a National Investment Bank is the ideal vehicle for solving__ both __these problems.3__ The traditional arguments for a public development bank strongly apply in the fields of energy and the environment. __The development of new technologies in renewable energy production to help meet America’s energy security and environmental challenges is a national priority. Because such energy resources require long lead times, critical levels of volume, and an effective regulatory policy, private capital markets will__ tend to __fall short__ of America’s needs. __A N____ational Investment Bank could take the lead in financing green technologies__ such as wind and geothermal power __by evaluating__ __and incorporating into its appraisals the value of their benefits to the broader economy.__**//

//Economic primacy prevents all conflict escalation// //Freidberg & Schonfeld, 8 **--- *Professor of Politics and IR at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, AND** senior editor of Commentary and a visiting scholar at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton (10/21/2008, Aaron and Gabriel, “The Dangers of a Diminished America”, Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455074012352571.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)// //__ With the global financial system in serious trouble ____, is America's geostrategic dominance likely to diminish? __ If so, what would that mean? One immediate implication of the crisis that began on Wall Street and spread across the world is that __ the primary instruments of U.S. foreign policy will be crimped __. The next president will face an entirely new and adverse fiscal position. Estimates of this year's federal budget deficit already show that it has jumped $237 billion from last year, to $407 billion. With families and businesses hurting, there will be calls for various and expensive domestic relief programs. In the face of this onrushing river of red ink, both Barack Obama and John McCain have been reluctant to lay out what portions of their programmatic wish list they might defer or delete. Only Joe Biden has suggested a possible reduction -- foreign aid. This would be one of the few popular cuts, but in budgetary terms it is a mere grain of sand. Still, Sen. Biden's comment hints at where __ we may be headed: toward a major reduction____ in America's world role ____, and perhaps even a new era of financially-induced isolationism.Pressures to cut defense spending, and to dodge the cost of waging two wars, already intense before this crisis, are likely to mount. __ Despite the success of the surge, the war in Iraq remains deeply unpopular. Precipitous withdrawal -- attractive to a sizable swath of the electorate before the financial implosion -- might well become even more popular with annual war bills running in the hundreds of billions. __ Protectionist sentiments are sure to grow stronger as jobs disappear __ in the coming slowdown. Even before our current woes, calls to save jobs by restricting imports had begun to gather support among many Democrats and some Republicans. __ In a prolonged recession, gale-force winds of protectionism will blow. __ Then __ there are the dolorous consequences of a potential collapse of the world's financial architecture. For decades now, Americans have enjoyed the advantages of being at the center of that system. The worldwide use of the dollar, and the stability of our economy __, among other things, __ made it easier for us to run huge budget deficits ____ , as we counted on foreigners to pick up the tab by buying dollar-denominated assets as a safe haven. __ Will this be possible in the future? Meanwhile, __ traditional foreign-policy challenges are multiplying ____. The threat from al Qaeda and Islamic terrorist affiliates has not been extinguished. Iran and North Korea are continuing on their bellicose paths __, while Pakistan and Afghanistan are progressing smartly down the road to chaos. __ Russia's new militancy and China's seemingly relentless rise also give cause for concern. ____ If America now tries to pull back from the world stage, it will leave a dangerous power vacuum. The stabilizing effects of our presence in Asia, our continuing commitment to Europe, and our position as defender of last resort for Middle East energy sources and supply lines could all be placed at risk. In __ such a scenario there are shades of __ the __ 19 __ 30s __, __ when global trade and finance ground nearly to a halt, the peaceful democracies failed to cooperate, and aggressive powers led by the remorseless fanatics who rose up on the crest of economic disaster exploited their divisions. Today we run the risk that **rogue states may choose to become ever more reckless with their nuclear toys**____, just at our moment of maximum vulnerability. The aftershocks of the financial crisis will almost certainly rock our principal strategic competitors even harder __ than they will rock us. The dramatic free fall of the Russian stock market has demonstrated the fragility of a state whose economic performance hinges on high oil prices, now driven down by the global slowdown. China is perhaps even more fragile, its economic growth depending heavily on foreign investment and access to foreign markets. Both will now be constricted, inflicting economic pain and perhaps even sparking unrest in a country where political legitimacy rests on progress in the long march to prosperity. __ None of this is good news if the authoritarian leaders of these countries seek to divert attention from internal travails with external adventures. __ As for our democratic friends, the present crisis comes when many European nations are struggling to deal with decades of anemic growth, sclerotic governance and an impending demographic crisis. Despite its past dynamism, Japan faces similar challenges. India is still in the early stages of its emergence as a world economic and geopolitical power. What does this all mean? __ There is no substitute for America on the world stage __. The choice we have before us is between the potentially disastrous effects of disengagement and the stiff price tag of continued American leadership. // //**Competitiveness prevents great power nuclear war.**// // Khalilzad, ’11 [Zalmay Khalilzad was the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations during the presidency of George W. Bush and the director of policy planning at the Defense Department from 1990 to 1992, “ The Economy and National Security”, 2-8-11, []] //

//We face this domestic challenge while other major powers are experiencing rapid economic growth. Even though countries such as China, India, and Brazil have profound political, social, demographic, and economic problems, their economies are growing faster than ours, and this could alter the global distribution of power. These trends could in the long term produce a multi-polar world. If U.S. policymakers fail to act and other powers continue to grow, it is not a question of whether but when a new international order will emerge. The closing of the gap between the United States and its rivals could intensify geopolitical competition among major powers,increase incentives for local powers to play major powers against one another, and undercut our will to preclude or respond to international crises because of the higher risk of escalation. The stakes are high. In modern history, the longest period of peace among the great powers has been the era of U.S. leadership. By contrast **, ** multi-polar systems have been unstable, with their competitive dynamics resulting in frequent crises and major wars among the great powers. Failures of multi-polar international systems produced both world wars. American retrenchment could have devastating consequences. Without an American security blanket, regional powerscould rearm in an attempt to balance against emerging threats. Under this scenario, there would be a heightened possibility of arms races, miscalculation, or other crises spiraling into all-out conflict. Alternatively, in seeking to accommodate the stronger powers, weaker powers may shift their geopolitical posture away from the United States. Either way, hostile states would be emboldened to make aggressive moves in their regions. As rival powers rise, Asia in particular is likely to emerge as a zone of great-power competition. Beijing’s economic rise has enabled a dramatic military buildupfocused on acquisitions of naval, cruise, and ballistic missiles, long-range stealth aircraft, and anti-satellite capabilities. China’s strategic modernization is aimed, ultimately, at denying the United States access to the seas around China. Even as cooperative economic ties in the region have grown, China’s expansive territorial claims — and provocative statements and actions following crises in Korea and incidents at sea — have roiled its relations with South Korea, Japan, India, and Southeast Asian states. Still, the U nited S tates is the most significant barrier facing Chinese hegemony and aggression. Given the risks, the United States must focus on restoring its economic and fiscal condition while checking and managing the rise of potential adversarial regional powers such as China. While we face significant challenges, the U.S. economy still accounts for over 20 percent of the world’s GDP. American institutions — particularly those providing enforceable rule of law — set it apart from all the rising powers. Social cohesion underwrites political stability. U.S. demographic trends are healthier than those of any other developed country. A culture of innovation, excellent institutions of higher education, and a vital sector of small and medium-sized enterprises propel the U.S. economy in ways difficult to quantify. Historically, Americans have responded pragmatically, and sometimes through trial and error, to work our way through the kind of crisis that we face today// Plan //**Plan: The United States federal government should establish a national infrastructure bank to substantially increase its transportation infrastructure investment through loans and loan guarantees.**//

Solvency // **The NIB’s competitive, inter-modal, multijurisdictional approach is key—only federal action solves** // // **Istrate and Puentes 9** (Istrate, Emilia, senior research analyst and associate fellow with the Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative specializing in transportation financing, and Puentes, Robert, Senior Fellow and Director of the Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative, December 2009, “Investing for Success Examining a Federal Capital Budget and a National Infrastructure Bank”, Brookings Institute)FS //

// A properly designed NIB is an attractive alternative for a new type of federal investment policy. In theory, an independent entity, insulated from congressional influence, would be able to select infrastructure projects on a merit basis. The federal investment through this entity would be distributed through criteria-based competition. It would be able to focus on projects neglected in the current system, such as multi-jurisdictional projects of regional or national significance. An NIB may introduce a federal investment process that requires and rewards performance, with clear accountability from both recipients and the federal government. These advantages are described below. Better selection process. At its heart, an NIB is about better selection of infrastructure projects. The bank would lend or grant money on a project basis, after some type of a BCA. In addition, the projects would be of national or regional significance, transcending state and local boundaries. The bank would consider different types of infrastructure projects, breaking down the modal barriers. This would be a giant step from the current federal funding for infrastructure, most of which is disbursed as federal aid transportation grants to states in a siloed manner. Multi-jurisdictional projects are neglected in the current federal investment process in surface transportation, due to the insufficient institutional coordination among state and local governments that are the main decisionmakers in transportation.102 The NIB would provide a mechanism to catalyze local and state government cooperation and could result in higher rates of return compared to the localized infrastructure projects. An NIB would need to articulate a clear set of metropolitan and national impact criteria for project selection. Impact may be assessed based on estimated metropolitan multipliers of the project. This criterion would allow the bank to focus on the outcomes of the projects and not get entangled in sector specific standards. Clear evaluation criteria would go a long way, forcing the applicants, be it states, metros or other entities, to have a baseline of performance. This change, by itself, would be a major improvement for the federal investment process, given that a major share of the federal infrastructure money goes to the states on a formula basis, without performance criteria. Keeping the recipients accountable. An NIB would have more control over the selection and execution of projects than the current transportation grants within broad program structures. It would be able to enforce its selection criteria, make sure that the projects are more in line with its objectives and have oversight of the outcomes of the projects. The new infrastructure entity should require repayment of principal and interest from applicants. This would bring more fiscal discipline and commitment from the recipients to the outcomes of the project. The extensive use of loans by an NIB contributes to the distinction between a bank and another federal agency. The interest rates charged to the state and local recipients of NIB loans might be set to repay slowly the initial injections of federal capital, while still maintaining a sufficient capital base .103 Some experts argue that an NIB would be able to be sustainable and effective only if it is truly a “bank”.104 Correcting the maintenance bias. The mere establishment of an NIB would not correct for the problem of deferred maintenance.105 However, through the selection process, the bank could address the current maintenance bias in the federal investment process. For example, the bank could impose maintenance requirements to recipients including adequately funded maintenance reserve accounts and periodic inspections of asset integrity. Better delivery of infrastructure projects. An NIB could require that projects be delivered with the delivery mechanism offering best-value to the taxpayer and end user. The design-bid-build public finance model has been the most commonly used project delivery method in the transportation sector in the United States.106 Until very recently, there has been little experimentation with other delivery contracting types. Evidence from other federal states, such as Australia, shows that private delivery saves money on infrastructure projects. 107 Filling the capital structure of infrastructure projects. Although the U nited S tates has the deepest capital markets in the world, they are not always providing the full array of investment capital needed —especially for large infrastructure projects with certain credit profiles. 108This has been even more obvious during the current recession, with the disruptions in the capital markets. An NIB could help by provid ing more flexible subordinate debt for big infrastructure projects. Generally bonds get investment-grade ratings, and have ready market access, only if they are senior obligations with secure repayment sources. For more complicated project financings that go beyond senior debt, there is a need for additional capital, such as equity capital or subordinated debt. However, this market gap is relatively small relatively to federal investment. 109 An NIB would build upon the current Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act ( TIFIA) by providing subordinated debt to public or private entities in leveraging private co-investment. 110 //

// **An AIFA would cause an immediate investment of billions- private investors are on their toes.** // // **Hayley 11** MA Candidate at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (Andrea, “BUILD Act Holds Promise of Rebuilding America // // Bipartisan Senate proposal taps private investment”, 6-10-11, Epoch Times http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-states/build-act-holds-promise-of-rebuilding-america-57495.html) RaPa //

// WASHINGTON— A new bipartisan Senate bill that has won rare backing from both business and labor presents an opportunity to rebuild America’s roads, bridges, ports, sewers, levees, and airports. The Building and Upgrading Infrastructure for Long-Term Development, also known as the BUILD Act, proposes a new bank specifically to fund infrastructure projects. Unlike similar proposals out there, namely one on offer by the president, BUILD does not include any offer of grant money. The bank is modeled after the profitable Export-Import Bank model. A $10 billion dollar initial government investment would be used to establish the bank so it can begin leveraging private investment. The bipartisan proposal requests just one-fifth of the appropriation that the president has proposed for funding transportation projects. Projects would be chosen based on their ability to provide a regular revenue stream to ensure the loans get paid back. Ultimately the bank is required to be self-sustaining. Bill co-sponsor Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) said she worked with sponsor, Sen. John Kerry, (D-Mass.), to craft the bill in such a way that it offered the greatest chance of success, even in a Congress that is in no mood to spend or invest more money. “It is essential to think outside the box as we work to solve national challenges, particularly in this fiscal crisis,” Hutchison said when the bill was introduced in March. Sens. Kerry and Hutchison spoke of their proposal while attending a forum on Wednesday sponsored by The Atlantic magazine. An audience of over 200 people took in the event, which listed an impressive set of supporters. Economic Growth Engine Sen. Kerry predicts that up to $600 billion in private capital will be unleashed and millions of jobs would be created over the next 10 years. It is essentially a job-creating enterprise, since infrastructure built in America, would be built by Americans. In the last 100 years, U.S. companies have built up first class infrastructure in America and around the world, from the national highway project, to the railway, to air traffic control. “We are builders. It is part of our DNA,” said Sen. Kerry. The bank, which has the support of the Chamber of Commerce, as well as the nation’s biggest union, the AFL-CIO, would be a government-owned entity—but it would operate independently and outside of the purview of any federal agency. Supporters say that the United States needs to create opportunities for quality, stable investments that can bring regular returns. Global pension funds, private equity funds, mutual funds, and sovereign wealth funds are potent investors that require low-risk places to park their cash. Robert Dove, managing director with the American giant asset management firm, the Carlyle Group, says he has a $1 .2 billion investment fund that he would love to investin the U nited S tates, but can’t under the current circumstances. “Our nation’s policymakers have to agree that it is essential to access private capital for public infrastructure,” said Dove at the conference. When it comes to infrastructure investment, many businesses are reliant on long-term, low-interest loans or loan guarantees of the kind that only a government sponsored entity can provide. The European Investment Bank (EIB), a similar bank operating in Europe, “makes projects viable that would not otherwise be viable,” Dove said. Making America Competitive Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, stood beside labor leader Richard Trumka from the AFL-CIO at the press conference announcing the BUILD Act in March. “ A n ational i nfrastructure b ank is a great place to start securing the funding we need to increase our mobility, create jobs, and enhance our global competitiveness ,” Donahue said. Big business and investment firms point out that in today’s global market, the United States is competing with every other country for the trillions of dollars in investment capital known to be sitting on company ledgers right now. The U.K., China, Australia, and Brazil already have attractive infrastructure-focused incentives in place, and in most cases companies find it more attractive to invest there than in America. At the same time, America badly needs the investments. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the country’s infrastructure a D grade. The society predicts that if Congress doesn’t act within five years, the infrastructure deficit—the amount required to get us to a B grade—will top $2.2 trillion. Anyone who drives down pothole-ridden roadways, deals with broken elevators and escalators, or tries to get to an airport, understands the reality of the nation’s state of disrepair. Sen. Kerry is inviting Americans and Congress to consider what the country’s future will look like without the significant investments in infrastructure he says the country needs. “ Where are the great infrastructure projects of our generation? What have we built for the future ?” he asked. “ This is not the future of the United States with the road we are on,” he said, “uh … the path we are on,” realizing the unintentional pun. “It’s hardly a road.” // //**Only federal action solves**// // HALLEMAN ‘11 - Business graduate with analytical and program management experience across a range of transportation and infrastructure issues; Head of Communications & Media Relations at International Road Federation (Brendan, “Establishing a National Infrastructure Bank - examining precedents and potential”, October 2011, []) //

// The merits of establishing a National Infrastructure Bank are once again being debated in the wake of President Obama’s speech to a joint session of the 112th United States Congress and the subsequent introduction of the American Jobs Act 1. // // A review of the Jobs Act offers a vivid illustration of how far the debate has moved under the Obama Administration. Earlier White House budgets had proposed allocating USD 4 billion as seed funding to a National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund tasked with supporting individual projects as well as “broader activities of significance”. Offering grants, loans and long term loan guarantees to eligible projects, the resulting entity would not have constituted an infrastructure bank in the generally accepted sense of the term. Nor would the Fund have been an autonomous entity, making mere “investment recommendations” to the Secretary of Transportation2. // // Despite a number of important alterations, the Jobs Act contains the key provisions of a bipartisan Senate bill introduced in March 20113 establishing an American Infrastructure Financing Authority (AIFA). Endowed with annual infusions of USD 10 billion (rising to USD 20 billion in the third year), the Authority’s main goal is to facilitate economically viable transportation, energy and water infrastructure projects capable of mobilizing significant levels of State and private sector investment. The Authority thus established: // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8pt;"> is set up as a distinct, self-supporting entity headed by a Board of Directors requiring Senate confirmation // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8pt;"> offers loans & credit guarantees to large scale projects with anticipated costs in excess of USD 100,000,000 // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8pt;"> extends eligible recipients to corporations, partnerships, trusts, States and other governmental entities // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8pt;"> subjects loans to credit risk assessments and investment-grade rating (BBB-/ Baa3 or higher) // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8pt;"> conditions loans to a full evaluation of project economic, financial, technical and environmental benefits // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8pt;"> caps Federal loans at 50% of anticipated project costs // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8pt;"> requires dedicated revenue sources from recipient projects, such as tolls or user fees // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8pt;"> sets and collects loan fees to cover its administrative and operational costs (with leftover receipts transferred // // to the Treasury) // // Particularly striking are the layers of risk assessment contained in the BUILD Act. These translate into a dedicated risk governance structure with the appointment of a Chief Risk Officer and annual external risk audits of AIFA’s project portfolio. At project level, applicants are required to provide a preliminary rating opinion letter and, if the loan or loan guarantee is approved, the Authority’s associated fees are modulated to reflect project risk. Lastly, as a Government-owned corporation, AIFA is explicitly held on the Federal balance sheet and is not able to borrow debt in the capital markets in its own name (although it may reoffer part of its loan book into the capital markets, if deemed in the taxpayers’ interest). // // Rationale // // As a percentage of GDP, the United States currently invests 25% less on transportation infrastructure than comparable OECD economies 4. There is broad agreement that absent a massive and sustained infusion of capital in infrastructure, the backlog of investment in new and existing transportation assets will hurt productivity gains and ripple economy-wide5 // // The establishment of AIFA is predicated on a number of market considerations // // Dwindling demand for municipal bonds, resulting in //__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">significantly decreased capacity __// to invest at the State and local level. This scenario is confirmed by recent Federal Reserve data 6 indicating a sharp drop in the municipal bond market for the first two quarters of 2011 despite near-identical ten-year yields, a trend that can partly be explained by record-level outflows prior to the winding down of the Build America Bonds program on 31 December 20107. Considering that roughly 75% of municipal bond proceeds go towards capital spending on infrastructure by states and localities 8, this shortfall amounts to USD 135 billion for the first six months of 2011 alone. // // Insufficient levels of private sector capital flowing in infrastructure investments. Despite the relatively stable cash flows typically generated by infrastructure assets, less than 10% of investment in transportation infrastructure came from capital markets in 2007 8. By some estimates 9, the total equity capital available to invest in global infrastructure stands at over USD 202 billion and investor appetite remains strong in 2011. Federal underwriting may take enough of the risk away for bonds to achieve investment grade rating on complex infrastructure programs, particularly if they protect senior-level equity against first loss positions and offer other creditor-friendly incentives. For instance, the planned bill already includes a “cash sweep” provision earmarking excess project revenues to prepaying the principal at no penalty to the obligor. // // Convincing evidence across economic sectors that Federal credit assistance //__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">stretches public dollars further __// 10. The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) already empowers the Department of Transportation to provide credit assistance, such as full-faith-and-credit guarantees as well as fixed rate loans, to qualified surface transportation projects of national and regional significance. It is designed to offer more advantageous terms and fill market gaps by cushioning against revenue risks (such as tolls and user fees) in the ramp up phase of large infrastructure projects. A typical project profile would combine equity investment, investment-grade toll bonds, state gas tax revenues and TIFIA credit assistance to a limit of 33%. TIFIA credit assistance is scored by the Office of Management and Budget at just 10%, representing loan default risk. In theory, a Federal outlay of just USD 33 million could therefore leverage up to USD 1 billion in infrastructure funding 11. To date, 21 projects have received USD 7.7 billion in credit assistance for USD 29.0 billion in estimated total project cost 12. // // 32 States (and Puerto Rico) currently operate State Infrastructure Banks (SIBs) offering an interesting case study for the American Infrastructure Financing Authority. Moreover the BUILD Act explicitly authorizes the Authority to loan to “political subdivisions and any other instrumentalities of a State”, such as the SIBs. // // SIBs were formally authorized nationwide in 2005 through a provision of the SAFETEA-LU Act 13 to offer preferential credit assistance to eligible and economically viable surface transportation capital projects. A provision of the Act also authorizes multistate Banks, although such cooperative arrangements have yet to be established. // // SIBs operate primarily as revolving loan funds using initial capitalization (Federal and state matching funds) and ongoing funding (generally a portion of state-levied taxes) to provide subordinated loans whose repayments are recycled into new projects loans. Where bonds are issued by SIBs as collateral to leverage even greater investment capacity, these can be secured by user revenues, general State revenues or backed against a portion of federal highway revenues. As of December 2010, State Infrastructure Banks had entered into 712 loan agreements with a total value of over USD 6.5 billion12. // // While SAFETEA-LU provided a basic framework for establishing SIBs, each State has tailored the size, structure and focus of its Bank to meet specific policy objectives. The following table14 illustrates the scales of SIBS at the opposite end of the spectrum. // // These State-driven arrangements warrant a number of observations: // // The more active SIB States are those that have increased the initial capitalization of their banks through a combination of bonds and sustained State funding. South Carolina’s Transportation Infrastructure Bank receives annual amounts provided by State law that include truck registration fees, vehicle registration fees, one-cent of gas tax equivalent, and a portion of the electric power tax. Significantly, all SIBs have benefited from the ability to recycle loan repayments – including interest and fees – into new infrastructure projects, a facility currently not available to the American Infrastructure Financing Authority under the terms of the BUILD Act. // // More than 87 percent of all loans from such banks made through 2008 were concentrated in just five States : South Carolina, Arizona, Florida, Texas and Ohio 14. As a case in point, South Carolina’s Transportation Infrastructure Bank has provided more financial assistance for transportation projects than the other 32 banks combined. Most State banks have issued fewer than ten loans, the vast majority of which fall in the USD 1-10 million size bracket 14. This suggests that not allStates presently have //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 8pt;">experience, or the ability //, to deal with capital markets for large-scale funding. // // States are, by and large, left to define specific selection criteria for meritorious projects , the SIB’s share of the project as well as the loan fee it will charge. Kansas, Ohio, Georgia, Florida and Virginia have established SIBs without Federal-aid money and are therefore not bound by the same Federal regulations as other banks. California’s Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank extends the scope of eligible projects to include water supply, flood control measures, as well as educational facilities. While adapted to local circumstances, this //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 8pt;">patchwork of State regulations // can also constitute an entry barrier for private equity partners and multistate arrangements. // // Given the structure of their tax base, SIBs are// __<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">vulnerable to short term economy swings __ //as well as the longer term inadequacy of current user-based funding mechanisms. SIBs borrow against future State and highway income.Many States are already reporting declining gas tax revenues and, on current projections, the Highway Trust Fund will see a cumulative funding gap of USD 115 billion between 2011 and 2021 18. It is notable that Arizona’s Highway Extension and Expansion Loan Program is currently no longer taking applications citing “state budget issues ”. //

// **Federal investment into loan guarantees bridges bureaucratic and budget gaps between the states and is the best approach for a NIB** // // **McConaghy and Perez 11** Ryan McConaghy, Director of the Economic Program, and Jessica Perez, Economic Program Policy Advisor (Ryan, Jessica, “Five Reasons Why BUILD is Better”, The Schwartz Initiative on American Economic Policy, June 2011, []) RaPa //

// Across the country, job-creating infrastructure projects are stalled for lack of investment from cash-strapped federal, state, or local governments. Imagine the progress our country could make and the millions of jobs we could create if we could multiply our money by mobilizing the private sector to improvethe nation’s transportation, water, and energy systems. As America struggles to create jobs for the nation’s more than 29 million unemployed or under employed, 1 it’s widely acknowledged that our outdated infrastructure is a drag on the economy. A multi-billion dollar program of infrastructure investment would no doubt create good jobs and increase our competitiveness. But, in an era of budgetary constraints the federal government simply cannot foot the entire bill. The American Society of Civil Engineers projects a five-year deficit of over $973 billion 2 for water and transportation infrastructure alone—equal to 247% of what the federal government spent in those areas from 2005 to 2009. 3 Clearly, in the current fiscal environment it’s unlikely that a more than tripling of direct federal infrastructure investment is on the horizon. At the same time, state and local governments are also facing budget shortfalls that make maintaining—let alone increasing—infrastructure spending a challenge. However, the way most infrastructure is currently funded, private capital is severely underutilized. Only a fraction of the trillions of dollars in sovereign wealth, hedge, and pension funds seeking long-term, stable avenues for investment are being used to rebuild America. Sovereign wealth funds alone have an aggregate value of $4.1 trillion, and are seeking to invest some of those resources in infrastructure development. A number of America’s foreign competitors have actively courted such sources of financing for their own infrastructure upgrades. 4 Despite our need for infrastructure financing, America has not been as aggressive in pursuing such investors. The recently introduced BUILD Act (Building and Upgrading Infrastructure for Long-Term Development Act), a bipartisan bill introduced by Senators Kerry, Hutchison, Warner, and Graham, would change that. By establishing the American Infrastructure Financing Authority (AIFA) to make loans and loan guarantees for up to half the cost of major projects in transportation, water, and energy infrastructure , the BUILD Act will create new incentives for investment and provide private capital with a new entryway into the infrastructure market. The AIFA’s improvements on the current Third Way Memo 2 system would make it possible to use private financing to create jobs and close the infrastructure gap without drowning the federal budget in more red ink. This memo lays out five reasons why the BUILD Act would improve our current system of infrastructure funding. Five Reasons Why BUILD is Better 1) It Stretches Dollars by Moving from Grants to Loans Much of federal infrastructure funding is dispensed in the form of direct spending through formula allocations to states and annual appropriations . These are scored as single year federal spending. In any given year, $1 billion in appropriated spending means $1 billion that must be paid for or tacked on to the deficit. For FY2010, this amounted to $52 billion for highway and mass transit grants alone. 5 However, in the current fiscal environment, the federal government is simply incapable of providing enough financing year after year to make the improvements needed to advance our economy . The BUILD Act offers an alternative model by providing loans and loan guarantees rather than direct grants for construction . The difference in terms of impact on the federal budget is stark . Since the loans and guarantees under AIFA are long-term credit vehicles as opposed to year-to-year spending, they score differently. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scores against the budget only the subsidy cost (amounts not expected to be recouped through principal, interest, and fee payments) of the loan or guarantee, rather than the entire amount. For example, the Administration estimates a subsidy cost of 20% for direct loans made by its proposed National Infrastructure Bank. 6 At that rate, a $100 million loan would score at a cost to the federal budget of only $20 million. Loan guarantees under the existing Transportation Infrastructure, Finance and Innovation (TIFIA) program have a subsidy rate of 10%, 7 meaning that a $100 million loan guarantee would come at a cost of $10 million. But under AIFA, because loans will be paid back with interest and fees will be charged on guarantees, loan recipients—not the government—will ultimately bear the subsidy cost. Much like the U.S. Export-Import Bank, which has supported more than $400 billion in U.S. exports at no cost to the government, AIFA will generate revenue and become self-sustaining over time. 8 This fact, combined with the dollarstretching capabilities of its credit instruments, means the AIFA will use less taxpayer money to build far more. This is crucial in light of America’s two separate, serious financial challenges: a $2.2 trillion overall infrastructure gap (including aviation, water, energy, rail, roads, bridges, schools, and other systems) 9 that hampers economic growth, and a $1.5 trillion annual budget deficit that has led to calls for cuts across all sectors of government. Not only do these shortfalls have their own negative consequences for the American economy, but each one makes the other harder to address. The BUILD Act will allow our nation to tackle our infrastructure deficiencies without expanding our budget deficit. Third Way Memo 3 2) BUILD Identifies a Potential One Trillion Dollars in Private Investment Under the current direct spending system, federal funding can finance a significant portion of a project and is often accompanied by a state or local government match. For example, the federal government pays 90% of costs for highway interstate bridges, such as the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed in 2007. 10 Other examples include the Federal Highway Administration’s High Priority Projects 11 and Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts and Small Starts 12 programs, under which the federal government provides 80% of the funding for selected projects. Estimates, however, place potential global private investment in infrastructure at more than $1 trillion annually, as hedge, pension, and sovereign wealth funds increasingly seek secure, long-term investments. 13 There is no reason why America’s infrastructure should not benefit from this tremendous pool of resources. The BUILD Act creates an avenue by which the U.S. can tap this available capital to upgrade our infrastructure. The AIFA will use credit instruments to attract investment. In fact, the BUILD Act requires that at least half of a project’s cost be financed by non-AIFA funds. By moving private capital off of the sidelines and into American bridges, railroads, and power plants, the AIFA will leverage taxpayer dollars many-times over and cost- efficiently begin to close the nation’s infrastructure gap. In each of its first two years BUILD would be authorized to provide $10 billion in loans and guarantees, with $20 billion authorized per year for years three through nine. It’s been estimated that, depending on the percentage of federal matching capital used, under AIFA, this potential $160 billion in direct assistance could generate between $320 and $640 billion in total investment over the first decade of operations. 14 3) BUILD is Targeted to Big Projects with Economic Merit The most effective catalysts for economic growth and job creation are those projects that go beyond localities to impact entire regions and make nationwide connection s. These undertakings, however, are often the most difficult for state and local governments to launch, due to cost and cross-jurisdictional disconnects . For example, the Southeast High-Speed Rail Corridor, which stretches from Virginia to northern Florida, contains some of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the nation and the region is expected to grow 26% by 2030. High-speed rail service connecting these cities could tap the region’s potential and be a major catalyst of commerce, with a projected $30 billion in economic development, and 228,000 jobs. 15 However, the recent elimination of high speed rail funding in the FY11 budget 16 may—literally—keep projects in this, and similar regions, from leaving the station. The AIFA will target just this type of development by financing projects that cost a minimum of $100 million and that have true economic merit—meaning they will create jobs, generate revenue, and have widespread growth effects. By drawing in private capital, and providing coordination across city and state lines, the AIFA will enable significant, strategic improvements that are all too often thwarted by our current system.Third Way Memo 4 The BUILD Act also recognizes the unique value and scale of rural infrastructure. By setting a lower minimum of $25 million for rural projects, the legislation allows for a fair distribution of benefits across all regions of the country. 4) BUILD Takes Politics out of Infrastructure Spending Decisions Project selection has, to this point, been sullied by inefficient and politicized funding allocation . The most recent transportation authorization bill included more than 6,300 earmarks, benefitting individual Congressional districts, but overlooking larger regional and economic needs. 17 The BUILD Act takes politics out of the process and puts project selection in the hands of an independent, bipartisan Board of Directors and CEO appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.They will focus on economic benefits rather than parochial interests. And because the AIFA would provide only loans and loan guarantees, only projects that pass the initial market test of attracting private capital would be able to move forward . 5) BUILD Reduces Cost Overruns Another factor that has hampered the effectiveness of infrastructure investment is the prevalence of cost overruns. Estimates have placed cost escalation on transportation projects in North America at almost 25%. 18 By limiting assistance to loans and loan guarantees, the AIFA would inject private sector discipline into supported projects by giving project managers a financial incentive for efficient execution. Since loans and loan guarantees must ultimately be repaid, borrowers will have extra motivation to ensure that construction is completed in a timely and economical manner. Additionally, the BUILD Act provides for strict oversight of the AIFA to ensure that the board operates with integrity and financial prudence. Treasury’s Inspector General would provide initial oversight to the AIFA, with an independent AIFA Inspector General to be created after five years. An independent auditor would review the AIFA’s books, and the AIFA will be required to commission an independent assessment of its risk portfolio. Conclusion Looking into the future, America’s success will hinge in large part on how well our infrastructure supports commerce, travel, and living standards. Other countries realize this and are moving full-steam ahead. And while America cannot lose this race, in today’s budget environment we cannot expect government to be the sole financier of our infrastructure overhaul.The BUILD Act is a novel approach to a vexing problem. It brings in the private sector and modern financing techniques to leverage scarce dollars into abundance. It’s hard to imagine America investing what it needs to win the future without such innovative approaches. //

//**<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Infrastructure spending is a unique form of stimulus – benefits last longer than the government program, creating a strong multiplier effect **// // Derviş, 11 – Director of Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution, Ph.D. from Princeton (Kemal, “To Solve the Fiscal Dilemma, Look to the Details,” Financial Times, 9/1/2011, http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2011/09/01-fiscal-dilemma-dervis) //HK

One should beware, however, of a naive version of the “stimulate now, retrench later” argument. Companies and households do not base spending decisions on immediate income and incentives only. They do look ahead. An immediate tax cut, matched by an expectation of tax increases two or three years from now, is unlikely to be expansionary. One does not have to be a strong believer in what economists call “Ricardian equivalence,” to expect economic agents to look at prospects over a few years when making their spending decisions, rather than at their immediate income only. This means that the high debt overhang in many of the advanced economies, which makes fiscal retrenchment unavoidable over time, is of itself a brake on private spending and makes it difficult to stimulate in the short run. Some argue, therefore, that there is no way out of the current crisis and that we have to endure a prolonged slowdown, because short term stimulus will be self-defeating. To solve the fiscal conundrum, one has to look beyond aggregates at details and structure. In the United States, for example, immediate tax breaks accompanied by the promise or strong expectation of future tax increases cannot be an effective stimulus, unless targeted on the poorest, who tend to spend whatever they can. On the contrary, federal or state spendingtoimproveinfrastructure, whose cost could be recovered through tolls or other charges, and which would//<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">also raise productivity in the private sector // , could be strongly expansionary if well designed. After all, the government today can borrow at real interest rates close to zero. If the financial rate of return on investment so financed is modestly positive, such spending will actually improve the public sector’s balance sheet, reducing future pressure to tax. Moreover, the economic return on good infrastructure will be greater than the financial return to the public sector alone, because of its positive effects on the activity and income of private sector businesses, both small and large. Structural reforms of entitlements can also contribute to the recovery, if they succeed in making the system more sustainable without creating a fear of the future among the broad middle class. For example, raising the age of access to Medicare, by itself, may not pass that test. It would save money and appear to reduce future debt, but that could be offset, at least in part, by increased anxiety among those with insufficient medical coverage, leading them to cut back spending at once and so reducing growth. A more targeted reform of Medicare, with greater cost sharing by those most able to afford it, would have the same effect in reducing debt with less deflationary anxiety. Simplicity is generally a virtue, but there can be too much of a good thing. Neither fiscal stimulus nor fiscal retrenchment is the answer to our current dilemma. Stimulate now and announce future retrenchment can be the answer. But the stimulus must be targeted to lead to an immediate rise in effective demand and be mindful of the public balance sheet, while the retrenchment must not create anxiety about the future that would nullify the stimulus. Taking into account the likely response of different groups and distinguishing between public investment and pure consumption is key for both measures.

Blinder & Zandi 12 —Alan S. Blinder - Serves at Princeton University as the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs in the Economics Department. vice chairman of The Observatory Group, and as co-director of Princeton’s Center for Economic Policy Studies And Mark Zandi- Chief Economist of Moody's Analytics, where he directs the company's research and consulting activities. 10 (“How the Great Recession Was Brought to an End,” Research Paper, July 27, 2012, [] //EH)
 * <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Investment in transportation infrastructure succeeds in the long term- empirically proven **

Funds for infrastructure projects generally do not generate spending quickly, as it takes time to get projects going. That isnot a bad thing: rushing raises the risks of financing unproductive projects. But infrastructure spending does pack a significant economic punch, particularly to the nation’s depressed construction and manufacturing industries. Almost $ 150 billion in ARRA infrastructure spending is now flowing into the economy, and is particularly welcome, as the other stimulus fades while the economy struggles. The ARRA has also been criticized for including a hodgepodge of infrastructure spending, ranging from traditional outlays on roads and bridges to spending on electric power grids and the internet. Given the uncertain payoff of such projects, diversification is probably a plus. As Japan taught everyone in the 1990s, infrastructure spending produces diminishing returns. Investing only in bridges, for example, ultimately creates bridges to nowhere.

= Negative =


 * Rd. 2 vs. Title XI**
 * 2nr: p3 CP w/ internal NB**

some awesome info **[|eCommerce Training]**