>There is money now for a huge investment boom

Not in western Europe, because they spent almost all their excess economic output over the past few decades on welfare/transfer payments.

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psd1 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Are you aware that public spending is a transfer from the public sector to the private, and that poor people spend approximately 100% of their income? Would you argue that stock buy-backs are a better use of public money?

At some point, probably in the 80s, the prophets of Mammon convinced policymakers that the liquidity of capital markets was the highest good, that no liquidity was enough, and that the financial class is inherently productive.

When we bailed out the banks in 2008, it amounted to a wealth transfer from the public purse to Jamie Dimon. That's your counterproductive welfare spending.

Texas had blackouts last year because free-market fundamentalism. Perhaps Texans should run their fridges on investment boom.

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rapsey an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

That was my point. We in the EU are destroying ourselves. The US is racing ahead and investing in all kinds of power generation technologies.

	▲	everfrustrated an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The difference is Europeans expect government to "fix" things. Americans expect companies to do that. Eg, the disastrous energy policies all across Europe which have made price of energy insanely high with no hope of ever coming down (these high prices are all locked in with long term contracts). America just builds lots of new power. Because of fewer market distorting policies the new power comes online at cheaper marginal rates so the price doesn't go up. And now Texas has some of the greener and cheapest energy in the West.