English: Bard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Walter Russel Mead, professor of foreign affairs and humanities at Bard College, wrote a piece for The Wall Street Journal about the type of government involvement needed to assist the economy. Mead notes that today’s economy is in need of a different type of investment- ‘infostructure.’ He wrote, “Internet connectivity and bandwidth are going to improve so that today’s technologies behind services like Skype are going to change beyond recognition…We are going to have more, better and cheaper alternatives to traditional business and commuting travel patterns, and our society will find it more and more natural and desirable to shift from expensive, time-consuming travel in “meat space” to doing business online.”
He also insists that the improvement of technology will allow us to utilize already existing infrastructure more efficiently. Mead argues, “We aren’t going to need 20 lanes in either direction on the New Jersey Turnpike by 2050, or $100 billion high-speed rail projects, to save us from national gridlock.” Instead, he calls for more investment in moving information through the Internet.
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