infrastructure spending

Speaking in Cleveland, President Obama laid out the details of his plan to boost the economic recovery: $50 billion for infrastructure spending; a $100 billion R&D tax credit; and $200 billion to induce U.S. companies to make capital improvements now rather than later.

President Obama will announce billions more in infrastructure spending and tax cuts this week. Supporters say it's just what the sagging economy needs. But critics worry that with mid-term elections just a few weeks away, the main motivation may be political.

The U.S. construction industry went from bad to worse in July, and then retroactively worse still. The Commerce Department announced Wednesday that spending in the sector fell a worse-than-expected 1% in July, and revised June's estimate downward from a 0.1% increase to an 0.8% decline.

Boosted by fiscal stimulus, construction spending rose 0.1% in June, the Commerce Department said. But spending for May was revised downward.

Construction stocks have lately been dormant, if not huge losers. But some analysts are starting to divine that global engineering and heavy construction will come alive in the second half of 2010. And they're changing their tune on Foster Wheeler.