Re: [Pen-l] Green public investment - spend how much and on what

["Jim Devine" <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

great stuff, however utopian it may seem! It makes more sense to me
than dumping the idea of "growth" into the crapper, especially if the
meaning of "growth" is left unexamined. (BTW, it's Akerlof.)

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 10:52 PM, Gar Lipow <gar.lipow@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/11/25/17212/723
>
> How much should we spend to green the U.S.?
> Public investment and regulation can be main means to green
> Posted by Gar Lipow (Guest Contributor) at 11:59 AM on 29 Nov 2008
>
> 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 either. There are really only two tools in the
> conventional economic toolbox to fight a depression: lower interest
> rates, and public investment. Given that real interest rates are close
> to zero, that doesn't leave a whole lot of alternatives.
>
> Most of the economists who predicted the crash, Nobel laureates Joseph
> Stiglitz, Robert Solow, and George Akerlo, not to mention Roubini, now
> support [PDF] really large scale public investment -- $300 to 400
> billion annually. Dean Baker and Paul Krugman suggest the right number
> may be more like $500 to 600 billion.
>
> At same time, Joe Romm wrote an open letter to Jim Hansen indicating
> how much technology we have to deploy very quickly to meet the 350 ppm
> target Hansen has set. Below the fold I describe in detail how we
> could deploy existing technology to meet these goals, how much we'd
> have to spend on grants, and how much we'd have to spend on loans. All
> figures are taken from the spreadsheet Jon Rynn and I have put
> together on green scenarios.
>
> The bottom line is that we have about $275 billion a year we could
> productively invest in a green transformation, rising over the course
> of 20 years to $475 billion, and then dropping down to $265 billion
> for a decade after the transformation was complete, to pay off the
> last of the "green debt." Those subsidies would make up for any
> difference in cost between green energy and dirty energy.
>
> Social benefits from such a transformation (aside from global warming
> reduction) would result in net economic growth compared to the
> scenario in which we continue to use dirty energy.
>
> Read the rest at: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/11/25/17212/723
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-- 
Jim Devine /  "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange
days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL.
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