The stimulus ought at the very least to make us more productive
What is it that makes a rice farmer in India, and therefore India itself, more productive — a toilet, food stamps, a rural clinic, a school, or a cell phone? Eric Bellman’s piece in today’s Wall Street Journal makes it clear that it’s the cell phone. A tractor might have been similarly effective but the farmer could never afford one.
“His phone has changed the way he farms. He uses it to decide when to plant and harvest by calling other farmers, to get the best prices for his rice, coconuts and jasmine by calling wholesalers, and to save hours of time waiting on the road for deliveries and pickups that rarely come on time.”
“Life is much better with the cellphone,” he said from his rice paddy in the shadow of the new tower. “I bring it with me to the fields and anyone can reach me here.”
I know what he means, about life being much better. In my case it was the internet. Broadband access has done for me what the cell phone has done for the rice farmer.
Government spending, as in the current stimulus package passed by the Senate, ought at the very least do this sort of thing. Does it? Does it make the American people more productive. Is anyone even asking that question?
The internet, no less than the Indian farmer’s cell phone, is transformative. I wake up to it every morning and at the speed of light without having to go out the door, I can be anywhere in the world. And once out there I can find help with whatever it is I am doing from people who know more than I do about whatever it is that may interest me.
