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States Stealing from Own Climate Funds

Monday, November 29th, 2010

Not so good…

In New York, government officials found $90 million to pay for schools by dipping into money generated by a multistate greenhouse gas initiative.

In New Hampshire, the state took $3.1 million from a similar environmental fund. And in New Jersey, the government diverted its whole share: $65 million.

At least three financially troubled states have discovered in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade system, a convenient pool of money that can be drawn on to help balance state budgets.

In just over two years, the initiative, known as RGGI, has generated more than $729 million for the 10 states that have participated. Each state is supposed to use its share of the money raised to invest in renewable energy and to promote energy efficiency and consumer benefits, like programs that help low-income electricity customers pay their utility bills.

But the money is proving too much of a temptation for states not to use in other ways.

NY Times

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Posted in Climate Change, Economy, Environment | Comments Off

Inside Job: A Must See Movie

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

One of the most dispriting things about Inside Job, the new documentary/advocacy film by Charles Ferguson who made No End In Sight, an inside-the-war documentary of the Iraq invasion, is that it is just just ooooold news and yet is still so shocking.  It is a quick history, with many interviews — some of them (properly) contentious– of the 2008 financial earthquake: the housing bubble, predatory lenders, get-rich-quick schemes by the major Wall Street Players, the complete lack of oversight or even common sense evaluation of what was being done.  The scoundrels are there – almost all still in positions of power and influence instead of behind bars.

Most of us have known this.  Many (Tea Partiers) have been angered into apoplexy at completely the wrong people yet still there has been no mass movement surrounding and sitting-in at the Federal Reserve, Wall Street’s trading floor or the White House.  The film ends with a prediction that it will all happen again, unless we fight to change the game.  It’s like smelling the whole elephant dropped mess, instead of along the road as we walked it, all piled, putrefying and combusting into another explosive mixture.  The only thing that might work to settle you down as you leave the film is a clean bath in pure alcohol.

Nevertheless, this is a Must See Movie.  You’ll have a better sense of CDOs, how the supply-chain of toxic loans worked, and drove the predatory lending.  You’ll delight in the fidgeting and circular responses of some of the interviewees.  You will learn how deeply implicated in the money trafficking are the top business schools.  So called “academics” are on Corporate Board payrolls to the tune of millions a year.  What sort of advice would they be expected to give?  You’ll be reminded how President Clinton and his own Wall Street cronies hopped on the Reagan de-regulation bobsled and said faster! faster!

There are a few stand-out men.  George Soros, Nouriel Roubini, Eliott Spitzer.  Christine Lagarde, Minister of Economy, Finance, Industry & Employment of France makes an appearance and reveals some telling meetings with the bluster boys.  Lee Hsien Loong Prime Minister, Republic of Singapore knew, and worried. Raghuram Rajan, chief economist at the IMF warned them all.  Plenty of people knew, contrary to what the culprits claim.

Mostly you’ll be re-stunned and angry and walk out asking yourself – what in the hell can be done. Don’t believe me? Watch the trailer.

It would be great to start a campaign to send copies to every member of Congress and several hundred to the White House.  At least some curious staffers will watch their “Change” boss wading in the same stinking waters as those who went before him.  It is truly an awful 15 minutes at the end of the film to watch Obama smile, shake hands and bring into his administration that same crime figures that nearly brought the world to its knees.

Reviews: (more…)

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Posted in Art & Culture, Corruption, Economy, Movies | Comments Off

Slump May Limit Moves on Clean Energy

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Elisabeth Rosenthal writes in the NY Times about the worst of all possible outcomes of the economic melt down.

From Italy to China, the threat to jobs, profits and government tax revenues posed by the financial crisis has cast doubt on commitments to cap emissions or phase out polluting factories.

Automakers, especially Detroit’s Big Three, face collapsing sales, threatening their plans to invest heavily in more fuel-efficient cars. And with gas prices now around $2 a gallon in the United States, struggling consumers may be less inclined than they once were to trade in their gas-guzzling models in any case.

Reading the comments in the article from national leaders tells us they do not get it yet. The crisis offers unparalleled opportunity to start afresh, to throw every nickle into climate stabilizing technologies. If Detroit in 1942 could completely remake itself from car production to tank and plane production it is possible to imagine such a remake towards wind turbines, electrical infrastructure, solar panels on every mall in America. Not another gas firing automobile should be made. Communities, especially in the sun-belt should no longer use fossil fuel for light, household electrical or cooking within four years.

Andrew Revkin, also in the Times, refers to Rosenthal’s article and to Joseph Romm’s challenge we posted yesterday to ask readers — how do we move out of TRANCE mode in the face of climate change?

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Posted in Climate Change, Economy | Comments Off

Green Public Policy

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

Next-Ten is a new public policy group, founded by F.Noel Perry, a Menlo Park venture capitalist, which describes itself as “focused on innovation and the intersection between the economy, the environment, and quality of life issues for all Californians. We create tools and provide information that fosters a deeper understanding of the critical issues affecting all Californians. Through education and civic engagement, we hope Californians will become empowered to affect change.”

Of particular interest is a Green Innovation Index which Next-10 commissioned, and is intended to be renewed yearly. The Index was created by Collaborative Economics and using polling data from Field Research, well known to us in California.

The 10 main findings of the Index, the full report which can be downloaded here, are the following:

10 Main Findings

California’s first wave of green innovation, resulting from increasing energy efficiency since the 1970s, yielded significant economic and environmental benefits. This progress, coupled with the widespread recognition among Californians that global warming is a critical challenge that can be addressed by businesses, policymakers and citizens alike.

The First Wave of Green Innovation

1. California has become a world leader in addressing global warming.
2. California has one of the lowest per capita GHG emissions and highest growth domestic products in the nation.
3. California is more energy efficient than the nation and other comparable states resulting in significant savings to consumers.
4. California utility programs and efficiency standards yield major savings and reduced the need to build additional power plants.

Tracking Signs of the Next Wave of Green Innovation

5. Californians are at the forefront of recognizing that global warming is a critical challenge that can be addressed by citizens and businesses as well as government.
6. Widespread innovation in the adoption of green products and services is already happening in California.
7. Innovation in the creation of new green products and services is also increasing in California.

The Challenge and Prospects for the Future

8. California needs to rapidly increase its pace of change through breakthroughs in energy efficiency and the adoption of clean energy.
9. While California is currently a leader in green innovation, it needs to continue to invest in research and commercialization that promotes the creation and adoption of clean energy.
10. California is taking steps to achieve the goals of AB 32 and the public supports taking action to address global warming.

There are more details in the Index, of course, or for a summary, you could read David Baker’s article in the SF Chronicle.

Next-10 has interests beyond this Green Index and seems to have first come to prominence with an on-line game to involve citizens in the California budget discussion. Click here, and then on the orange button to the right of the screen. I took it, and of course ended up with a 6 billion deficit over 5 years. ho hum….

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Posted in Economy, Environment, General | Comments Off

Krugman: Conscience of a Liberal

Saturday, November 3rd, 2007

I, with 50 -100 mile days in the car, often turn to audio books, from Lincoln’s speeches to Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man. A few months ago I listened to Hampton Sides’ Blood and Thunder and shared weekly phone calls with three others reading it. [A very good demythification of Kit Carson and the American west before and after the Civil War.]

This month I have been listening to Paul Krugman’s Conscience of a Liberal.

This is not perhaps the best choice for in the car study. Though a book aimed at the educated it is not technical or abstruse. Krugman writes in the same accessible style we appreciate in his newspaper columns. By it’s nature however, there is a rich mine of quotes and data one, on listening, would like to remember. This is difficult in the car, with a porous brain and the impossibility of taking a few notes. Nevertheless one can follow his general argument and be struck by major themes, principally the centrality of race, as he sees it, in the skewing to the right of the electorate. The book is his worked out answer to two questions:

The first puzzle is economic: what happened to the middle class. I argue in the book that a large part of the rise in inequality is political in origin, having to do with the rise of movement conservatism, the cohesive set of people and institutions that has taken over the Republican Party. Maybe we’ll talk more about that in later conversation.

The other puzzle is why rising inequality, far from provoking a populist political backlash, has been accompanied by a move to the right: politicians who wanted to cut taxes on the rich and create bigger holes in the social safety net have more elections than not.

I’ll try to up date this post with my own thoughts and questions, but as time is pressing on with plenty of other tasks before me I thought I’d hook you up to TPM Bookclub where Professor Krugman starts off with an overview of the book, followed by 143 comments!

This opening post is followed by posts from other invited readers, each with a string of comments in their wake. [ To read the posts in sequence, start with the link above. When ready, click on the "Tag" "The Conscience of a Liberal (here) or below Krugman's post but before the comments. This will bring you to all the posts. Scroll down to find Krugman's, which you've just read, and go to the one above it, and then above that, etc.]

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Posted in Books, Economy, Essay | Comments Off

Green in D.C.

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

Good news from the streets of small business….

…this summer, the owners of Ben’s Chili Bowl joined with nine other small, independent and mostly food-related businesses on or near U Street to buy wind power energy credits.

“We see this as part of being involved in what is good for the neighborhood, what’s good for the city,” said Nizam Ali, whose parents, Ben and Virginia Ali, opened their chili place in 1958. “It’s a good idea that helps the environment and, it turns out, makes economic sense for all of us.”

Green Power in D.C.

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Edwards: Policy Hardball

Tuesday, June 19th, 2007

Dean Baker is one of the economists we pay great attention to. He likes John Edwards, a lot.

John Edwards may not end up as president, or even as the Democratic nominee, but he is having far more influence on the substance of this campaign than any other candidate. His strong opposition to the Iraq war (reversing his Senate vote in support of the war), has pushed the other leading Democratic contenders to also highlight their opposition to the war.

His proposal for universal health care, which allows businesses and individuals to buy into a government-run, Medicare-type system, was largely lifted by Senator Obama, and will certainly have a large impact on the plan that will eventually be put forward by Senator Clinton.

Last week, Edwards put forward a proposal on prescription drugs that is likely to set another benchmark for the other top candidates. Edwards proposed setting up a prize fund that would be used to buy up the patents for some important breakthrough drugs. The patents would then be placed in the public domain. This will allow the drugs to be sold as generics. With new drugs being sold in a competitive market, they will cost just a few dollars per prescription.

Baker on Edwards at Truthout

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Posted in Economy, Presidential 2008 | Comments Off

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