When the World Needs Infrastructure, the OECD Embraces Austerity

May 15 (EIRNS)--The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD), founded to help Europe rebuild its industry and infrastructure after World War II, has turned into its opposite.

The OECD's report, "Infrastructure to 2030", issued coincidentally with their Paris conference today, argues that public infrastructure has become so expensive that the only way to pay for it is not to have it all. Instead, means should be found to restrict demand, such as raising road tolls and installing water meters!

According to today's Financial Times, the 400-page report documents a five-year collapse in the infrastructure portion of the OECD countries' budgets.

The report states that the world should spend 2.5% of annual gross domestic product on telecommunications, road, rail, electricity transmission, distribution, and water. Power stations and ports/airports somehow are supposed to come on top of that.

Alas, the report is forced to confess globalization will only destroy the possibilty for even minimal government investment. But rather than proposing a sweeping end to globalization, the report actually embraces austerity measures, disguising them as "alternatives such as private financing" and "means of restraining demand for infrastructure", such as higher road tolls and water meters.

Lyndon LaRouche has called for an increase in government expenditure for infrastructure, to no less than 50% of the budget, modeled after Franklin Roosevelt's programs, as the only means to bring about an economic recovery. See LaRouche on