Historians push for Equity in Government Stimulus Packages

4 posts / 0 new

Tue, 2009-01-06 19:07

500_Apples

First, I apologize if this has already been posted. I have not been a babble regular lately.

I received this from my roommate:
http://www.femst.ucsb.edu/projects/crwsj/feminist_historians.php
MORE THAN 1,000 AMERICAN HISTORIANS CALL FOR EQUITY
IN THE STIMULUS PACKAGE IN OPEN LETTER TO OBAMA

[The following is my own writing, I think the link is well-worth reading].

1000 or so American historians of the new deal are concerned that Obama's stimulus packages will be discriminatory. I imagine the same argument can be made to apply to Canada. There has been a media focus on physical infrastructure, aka airports and bridges and roads. These are male dominated industries. The writers point out that the social infrastructure (schools, hospitals, etc) is also crumbling, and that the social infrastructure has a much bigger relative impact on how women experience the economy.

My first thought is that this analysis seems so trivially obvious that I'm ashamed I had to read it written out by someone else rather than realize it on my own. My second thought was an incomplete one debating with myself whether or not they're "correct". They write: "Women today make up 46 percent of the labor force. Simple fairness requires creating that proportion of job opportunities for them." my previous frame of mind was to only think about the macroeconomic impacts of different projects, and now I see a sliding scale between the two priorities. I doubt it should be purely about equity as they imply. They cite the statistic that women composed 18% of those hired by New Deal projects, such an impact would yield undesirable social engineering ramifications.

They also mention racial equity, but they give it much less detail. I am not sure why that is, I would guess it is also very important and that there are also differences in profession among racial groups of the same gender.

Tue, 2009-01-06 19:59

KeyStone

Well, I don't think the focus is to hand out money equally - the focus is to inject money into badly failing industries.

While I don't agree with the bailout, I can see what they are trying to do. Letting our banks or auto manufacturers collapse now would definitely not be good for the economy.

I'm not saying that money isn't needed in other areas. It certainly is. If it were up to me, we'd take the bailout money and use it to increase social assistance and foreign aid, but this particular action is solely directed at keeping industries alive that might otherwise fail and create a huge rippled effect that would be felt by everyone.

Never the less, it frustrates me to no end, that when we have people living in abject poverty, the government does absolutely nothing, because we can't run a deficit, but when the businesses get into trouble, then the sky is the limit as to how much we can spend.

Frankly, giving it to the least wealthy would be a huge boost for our economy as they are much less likely to spend it on foreign goods, or out of the country than the wealthy.

Tue, 2009-01-06 20:27

500_Apples

KeyStone wrote:

Well, I don't think the focus is to hand out money equally - the focus is to inject money into badly failing industries.

While I don't agree with the bailout, I can see what they are trying to do. Letting our banks or auto manufacturers collapse now would definitely not be good for the economy.

I'm not saying that money isn't needed in other areas. It certainly is. If it were up to me, we'd take the bailout money and use it to increase social assistance and foreign aid, but this particular action is solely directed at keeping industries alive that might otherwise fail and create a huge rippled effect that would be felt by everyone.

Never the less, it frustrates me to no end, that when we have people living in abject poverty, the government does absolutely nothing, because we can't run a deficit, but when the businesses get into trouble, then the sky is the limit as to how much we can spend.

Frankly, giving it to the least wealthy would be a huge boost for our economy as they are much less likely to spend it on foreign goods, or out of the country than the wealthy.

Key Stone,

Do you think maybe your first two paragraphs are contradicted by your 2 final paragraphs?

Wed, 2009-01-07 15:14

KeyStone

Hmm, not really...although I can see why you might say that.

I am simply explaining the government intent which is to fix those two sectors of the economy. I would prefer they help the least fortunate, and let those sectors sink. But, I am sure there are many union supporters who would disagree with me, and I can see their point to some degree.

But, analyzing the bailout to ensure that a proportionate amount goes to each gender and race, would be a huge constraint on how the money is spent, and would no doubt delay everything considerably.

I think a better question to ask, is why there are not more women and/or other races, in the automotive industry. That's the real problem. As for banks, I'm fairly certain that there are more women working in banks than men.