Back Door Stimulus

[zipplewrath]

It occurs to me that Sandy may have finally provided a kind of "back door stimulus" that the president really needs. The dollar value of damage is going to be enormous, probably the biggest of all time for a long time. The breadth of damage is huge and has affect a very large portion of the population. Billions of dollars in insurance money will be paid out over the next 9 months or so. In addition, the states themselves will be spending billions in infrastructure repairs. The feds will be spending billions as well. All of this will create jobs. It will also inject billions into the economy over a very large area.

It would seem that the president has an opportunity here to leverage this reality. He can encourage/allow localities to not just "fix" infrastructure, but to upgrade and modernize. Federal grants could be focused on "smart grids" and widening broadband access as part of the clean up and repair. Major projects could become truly "shovel ready" efforts that could be fast tracked through approval processes. And congress could have a hard time saying no to many of these efforts and funding. Insurance companies could be required/incentivized to payout early and to reduce restrictions on how and when the money can be spent. Regulators could be empowered to oversee insurance company payouts to ensure that they don't get caught up in log jams. States could be encouraged to bring specific efforts to the feds even though they might not obviously qualify under existing regulations for federal support. Let the regulators figure it out.

This vastly increased level of economic activity could end up stimulating the economy from Chicago to Maine, and from NC to Boston for the better part of a year with 10's of billions of dollars. And when the private money from insurance is included, it could reach into the hundreds of billions. Throw in some borrowed cash from the banking sector and we might finally reach some meaningful levels of DIRECT stimulus.

[Whisp]

1. yes. n.t

[Still Sensible]

2. Absolutely

Construction, technology and clean up jobs galore in the Northeast for a while. It will last longer if attempts to finally have the will to deal with crumbling infrastructure are successful.

[coalition_unwilling]

3. Plus, the disaster recovery provides the few sane Republicans left the political cover to

support Keynesian pump-priming while not having to renounce publicly the anti-big-government ideology prevalent since Reagan. Instead of calling this 'big government' or 'deficit spending' or (pick your favorite Republican perjorative for modern, centralized government), it can be called 'disaster recovery' and sold as such across partisan lines.

Truly a win-win scenario, if played properly. Means getting sane Republicans ready ahead of time to smash Rush and his ilk like bugs when they start foaming at the mouth.

[Politicub]

4. Agree... Although

that sounds a little naughty.

[JimGinPA]

5. I Thought This Was Going To Be A Sex Thread

[MineralMan]

6. No sex toy threads, please. nt

[politicat]

7. The upgrade/modernize option needs to be available to homeowners, too.

I've dealt with homeowners' insurance for disasters three times (twice for my grandmother's house, once for mine) and each time, instead of altering whatever failed to reduce the potential for future catastrophic failure, they insisted on restoring to same spec, even when the alteration would have been cheaper.

The most frustrating example was my grandmother's kitchen when a pipe burst. We had several days to think out the fix, and came to the conclusion that we needed to a) remove the carpet that had been installed in there, b) take advantage of the natural settling of an old house and use the slope in the floor to install a drain that ran into the basement drain. (it's a 140 year old house, so the kitchen slopes about 2 degrees.) We also needed to replace the kitchen cabinets (severely damaged) and wanted to replace them with IKEA type, which are elevated on plastic feet.

The insurance company refused. They would pay for recapreting and rebuilding the same cabinetry, but the much cheaper tile and cabs that would prevent a high flood claim in the future? Forget it.

A lot of the houses affected can be rebuilt to a cheaper and more permaculture spec, because materials tech has so vastly improved since the houses were built. I hope the state insurance commissions and the Feds can convince the insurance companies to take the long view here.

[zipplewrath]

10. Agree completely

It's why I suggested that ways needed to be found to require/incentivize insurance companies to process claims quickly. Home owners should be able to get the check, and then fix their homes. If that means modernizing them in the process, all the better. Fast track the permits and inspections too. Anything that gets the money flowing in the same 9 month period will "prime the pump" of economic recovery.

I am fairly convinced that much of the '90s "dot com" boom was fueled by the Y2K fiasco. It got tons of companies to do whole sale upgrades to their IT infrastructure at roughly the same time and made if vastly easier to usher in the internet age. We could see something very similar here if whole states are upgrading their infrastructure all at the same time. Smart grids, improved mass transit, modernized road systems in general, all could contribute to a huge shift forward in the economy. You might even find states NOT affected feeling they had to improve their infrastructure just to "compete".

[The Doctor.]

8. Recced for Freud.

[OldDem2012]

9. Agree 100%. nt.