South By North Strategies, Ltd.

James Surowiecki of The New Yorker explains why calls for increased investments in infrastructure make eminent sense.

It’s hard to make a case for investing more when everyone believes we should be spending less, but there’s never been a better time. Interest rates are historically low, so borrowing is cheap. (Corporations have already realized this: they borrowed half a trillion dollars last year.) And the weak economy means that there’s less competition for labor and resources. Yet, instead of taking advantage of this, we’re too often doing the opposite. Only recently, a plan for a new tunnel under the Hudson River was killed. The tunnel would have reduced congestion, expanded commerce between New Jersey ports and New York, and created enormous long-term value for the entire region. But short-term budget constraints doomed it. This is a classic instance of eating your seed corn and of the way that fiscal “responsibility” can actually be irresponsible. At the moment, we’re spending too much on things that consume resources—like the military and earmarks—and not enough on things that create them.