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Shorter work week as stimulus

Economist Dean Baker (co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and one of the good guys in that dismal profession) takes up one of my pet obsessions: a shorter work week:

One innovative policy that would provide a quick boost to the economy and jobs -- and lasting gains in reduced unemployment -- is a tax incentive for shorter workweeks or work years.

...

How would this help the economy? The tax break would allow the employer to compensate workers for fewer hours up to some limit, say a maximum of $2,500 per worker. That would cut work hours but maintain staffing levels.

As a result, workers would be getting just as much money as before the reduction in hours -- but putting in 10% fewer hours. If workers have the same amount of money, then demand in the economy will be the same. At the same time, firms would then need to hire more workers to meet this demand, since they would be getting 10% fewer hours from each worker.

I once did a column in Fast Company on the ecological benefits of a shorter work week. This seems like one of those things that's substantively win-win but sociopolitically completely out of reach. People have weird attitudes about work.

David Roberts Technology January 29, 2009

The president's budget hints at a coming battle over one kind of ag subsidy

When President Barack Obama said during his recent address to Congress that "in this budget, we will... end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them," he set off a firestorm of speculation. Now that the budget outline has been published, we finally have an understanding of what he meant. Yes, as we suspected, he was indeed referring to a specific subsidy program called "direct payments." Jill Richardson explains:

Direct payments are a result of the 1996 farm bill. Prior to that, subsidies were given based on need. If you couldn't sell your crops at a price the government thought was fair, you got a subsidy to make up the difference...

If you own land where commodities were grown (by you or someone else) in the past, you get a direct payment whether you grow anything or not. You could do nothing, potentially, and still receive a direct payment. Does that sound stupid? I think so too.

Your direct payment is calculated on your "base acres." They keep a running average of how much you grew on your land (or how much somebody grew on your land if it wasn't you), and that yield determines how much you get in government cash. During the past farm bill debate, grain prices were high and farmers were doing well, but the direct payments kept flowing in.

Meanwhile, the budget language looks like this [PDF]:

As part of an effort to transition large farms from direct payments provided to owners of base acres to increased income from revenue derived from emerging markets for environmental services, the President's Budget phases out direct payments over three years to farmers with sales revenue of more than $500,000 annually... Large farmers are well positioned to replace those payments with alternate sources of income from emerging markets for environmental services, such as carbon sequestration, renewable energy production, and providing clean air, clean water, and wildlife habitat.

Tom Laskawy Food February 28, 2009

NASA mission to monitor carbon dioxide fails

WASHINGTON –A US satellite to monitor global carbon dioxide emissions plummeted into the ocean near Antarctica Tuesday after failing to...

Grist staff Climate & Energy February 24, 2009

Obama says nice things about clean energy as he signs the $787 billion stimulus package

President Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus package into law Tuesday during a ceremony at the Museum of Nature and...

Kate Sheppard Politics February 18, 2009

Sierra Club delivers 'Coal is not the answer' slogans to ACCCE

Is clean coal as oxymoronic (and just plain moronic) as healthy cigarettes? Natalie of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network thinks so. She and others irked by the ubiquitous misinformation of the clean-coal lobby joined the Sierra Club to deliver more than 5,000 anti-coal slogans to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. The Sierra Club's contest for catchy coal smack-downs resulted in the top 10 slogans, including "Coal: Party like it's 1899!" and "Coal: It will take your breath away." The slogans are being featured on a digital billboard-on-wheels, alongside pictures from the Tennessee coal ash spill.

Watch the Sierra Club delivering all the slogans to the ACCCE:

Holly Richmond Uncategorized January 21, 2009

Turkey's only bidder for first nuclear plant offers a price of 21 cents per kilowatt-hour

New nuclear power is going to be very expensive -- no matter where the plants are built. The most detailed and transparent recent cost study on the new generation of plants put the cost of power at 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour -- triple current U.S. electricity rates (see "Exclusive analysis, Part 1: The staggering cost of new nuclear power").

Some have suggested that other countries will fare better -- in spite of Finland's nightmarish nuclear troubles (see "Satanic nukes? Finnish plant's cost overruns to $6.66 billion" and below). They should read the story in today's Today's Zaman, Turkey's largest English-language newspaper:

The only company bidding, the Russian-Turkish JSC Atomstroyexport-JSC Inter Rao Ues-Park Teknik joint venture, offered a price of 21.16 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Current electricity prices in the country vary between 4 cents and 14 cents per kWh.

[Wholesale prices in Turkey are 7.9 cents per kWh.]

That gives new meaning to the word "turkey."

The company apparently offered a revised price "Immediately after the envelope was opened ... that better reflected current market prices" (i.e. the global recession and collapse in commodity prices). But another English language news source, Hurriyet Daily News, reports today:

Joseph Romm Uncategorized February 1, 2009

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