Just-in-Time: Obama Takes Long View, Builds-to-Last
The president-elect’s recovery plan emphasizes job creation, and the path to that end winds through the nation’s long-neglected infrastructure. The idea that the nation had all but stopped investing in its infrastructure, and that officials in Washington have ignored the crucial role of job creation as the cornerstone of a thriving economy is beyond mind-boggling. It’s impossible to understand.
Bob Herbert Op-Ed "Not a Moment Too Soon," New York Times, November 24, 2008
Reading Bob Herbert's column this morning, I remembered two "business books" from the nineties that bear re-reading: "The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World" by Peter Schwartz of the Global Business Network, and "Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies" by Stanford Graduate School of Business professors James Collins and Jerry Porras.
"Just-in-Time," applied to the election of Barack Obama, is to be taken in Bob Herbert's literal sense: "not a moment too soon," not the JIT of management-speak (reducing inventories and related costs). Just in time, before the economy suffers even more at the hands of the "bandits." Time to start building tangible, lasting structures, not just impossible-to-fathom structured financial instruments.
Infrastructure is a word that we're going to hear much more often as we approach January 20. This should make the American Society of Civil Engineers happier: every year they update their "Infrastructure Report Card" to show how far the US has fallen behind in maintaining its roads, bridges, levees... and every so often a Katrina strikes or an I-35W bridge collapses to remind us that infrastructure is for real, and ignored at our peril.
The ASCE Report Card is the point of departure for Felix Rohatyn and Everett Ehrlich, writing in the October 9 New York Review of Books, "A New Bank to Save Our Infrastructure." They propose the creation of a
National Infrastructure Bank, an institution that would be similar to the World Bank, a private investment bank, or any other entity that evaluates project proposals and assembles a portfolio of investments to pay for them.
Before you wince at the idea of yet more government spending on - of all things - another bank, just remember the $4.28 trillion (not a typo) bailout tab thus far. Incredulous? Then check this must-read from CNBC, and be sure to look at the graph. At least with the Rohatyn/Ehrlich NIB, the public gets to own and use the investment, which will hopefully be built-to-last. As far as the bailout to Wall Street is concerned, don't ever count on seeing your $4.28 trillion again. Add it to I.O.U.S.A.
Infrastructure doesn't just mean bricks-and-mortar; it can be as high-tech as the networks that will be needed to re-route electricity produced in remote solar and wind farms to the national grid, or the lines necessary to hook everyone up to high-speed internet. As internet pioneer George Gilder told the BBC's "Global Business" host Peter Day, "if you don't build it, they won't come." And if the US doesn't build it, China certainly will.
The long view is exactly the outlook that has been missing-in-action in recent years. It's not all the fault of capitalism, nor the fault of all capitalists. People like Felix Rohatyn, Warren Buffet, and George Soros like to make a buck, but the difference is that they can keep their perspective and remember that something has to remain, not only for their grandchildren, but for ours too.
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