Transcripts

"Two Ways To Play"-Kevin Depew of Minyanville

SUSIE GHARIB: Well with jobless claims hitting a 26-year high, tonight's "Two Ways to Play" takes on new plans for public works jobs. Here with both sides of the story is Minyanville's Kevin Depew and Kevin Depew of Minyanville.

KEVIN DEPEW, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, MINYANVILLE.COM: From crisis to catastrophe. That's the recent warning on the economy from President Barack Obama. The unemployment rate in December hit a 17-year high and since then more than 100,000 additional jobs have been lost. So what's the answer? For that, we have to go back to the 1930's public works projects. While New Deal depression-era public works projects were no panacea, they did provide a boost in confidence to a country then, as now, deep in crisis. Today, President Obama is hoping for a similar effect with shovel-ready public works projects; part of an economic stimulus plan that will put some people back to work almost immediately. Economists can argue over the success of these projects, but in a crisis, action is more important than talk. Ah, there's nothing like a little revisionist history to make a point. But this isn't the great depression. Unemployment in the 1930s peaked at 25 percent. Our current rate of 7.2 percent is nowhere near that. So, let's look at an economic crisis similar to our own, namely Japan's deflation of the '90s. To battle their crisis, Japan spent massive amounts of money on useless public works projects, the most famous of which is a $268 million airport which has no planes. Sure, these so-called white elephant projects may put a shovel in someone's hands, but that's not the same thing as creating meaningful employment. Unfortunately, the only digging we're doing is a deeper hole of debt.