investing
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Public investment and regulation can be main means to green
In the face of economic catastrophe, yesterday’s controversial assertion has become today’s conventional economic wisdom. That lack of regulation is one root of the current depression is not only the view of liberals and moderates, but also of sensible conservatives. And the need for public investment to fight the depression is no longer in doubt […]
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Like the interstate system, a new electrical grid would revolutionize power transmission
Cross posted at the NDN blog. —– Should the federal government build or incent others to build a new electron superhighway? In other words, a backbone for a 21st century electrical grid? At NDN’s recent event on clean infrastructure, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) asked precisely that question, and it’s one more and more energy leaders […]
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Alberta’s tar sands pose messy challenge for investors and ducks alike
Photo: Stop the Tar Sands What could beat Amazonian deforestation, massive coal plants next to elementary schools, factory farming, mountaintop removal, and giant trash heaps in the middle of the ocean for the title of “the most destructive project on Earth“? [PDF] Cue the tar sands, a vast expanse of the Albertan province opened […]
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Not investment advice
According to the DOE (see this excellent powerpoint [PDF] by the DOE Solar America program), U.S. electricity demand will grow by 386 terrawatt hours by 2015. According to the EPA, those new electrons won’t come from coal. And there’s no way nukes could come on-line fast enough, even if they got their way. Where are […]
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Cut defense spending in favor of clean-energy investing
Conventional wisdom, that dour specter, seems to be saying we don’t have enough money to fix many of our biggest problems, such as global warming or shifting to carbon-free energy. But wait! The Pentagon itself has determined that there are plenty of resources that the Defense Department could do without, according to the Boston Globe: […]
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Seven post-financial-crisis opportunities for healthier economies
Are there silver linings to the dark cloud of the financial crisis? It is a truism in our politics that only a crisis produces real change. So, looking on the positive side, what might we hope this crisis will bring forward? Here are seven outcomes worth seeking: 1. For decades, anti-regulation market fundamentalists have argued […]
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The Economist blows it on the Green New Deal
The Economist is probably the smartest newsweekly going, so it’s pretty stunning how bad this editorial is. It shows an almost willful disengagement with Obama’s proposals. The editorial argues that the newly popular idea of a Green New Deal is misguided. Yes, we need to address climate change. Yes, we need public spending to stimulate […]
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Green investment does create jobs
Robert Pollin has issued a direct rebuttal, “Green Investments and Jobs,” to the Heritage Foundation’s lame “debunking” of Green Recovery, a study Pollin co-authored for the the Center for American Progress. My line-by-line response to the disanalysis by Heritage’s Donald Kreutzer is here. Pollin, co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at U. Mass-Amherst, concludes: […]
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On the need to distinguish between consumption spending and investment spending
A while back, both Ezra and Ryan pointed to this post from James Surowecki, economics writer for the New Yorker. The first paragraph should be inscribed on the wall of Congress: One of the peculiarities of the U.S. budget process is that we don’t distinguish between "expenditures" that are actually long-term investments, often with high […]
