THOSE trying to fly to or from Chicago in the past week learned first-hand the shortcomings of America’s public infrastructure. A suicidal employee set fire to a nearby air-traffic-control centre, resulting in the cancellation of thousands of flights, the third such interruption this year. The chaos is aggravated by a system dating from the 1950s that relies on radar. Unpredictable funding has delayed its planned replacement with a system that uses satellites.Public infrastructure is one of the few forms of government spending that both liberals and conservatives support. Ports, power lines and schools are essential to the smooth running of the economy. But as America’s outdated air-traffic-control system shows, public investment is at the mercy of the fiscal weather. Cash-strapped governments are loth to pile on debt or raise taxes even for something as popular as a new road. After a burst of stimulus spending in the immediate wake of the recession, public investment has fallen back in the rich world (see charts).This is profoundly short-sighted. That is the message of a new study by the International Monetary Fund, released as part of...
from The Economist: Finance and economics http://ift.tt/1uE3jOB
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