Survey: Bail Out the Banks or The Environment? Or Both?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 10.10.08
In the last Depression, Franklin Roosevelt put thousands to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps planting trees, fixing drains, digging canals. Over in Huffington Post, Van Jones proposes much the same thing, a Green Bailout, including a Clean Energy Corps to put people to work on solar panels, wind turbines, smart bio-fuels and a massive program to weatherize every building and home in America.
"We just found $700 billion. Let's find another $350 billion. That's half the price tag of the Wall Street rescue - which has no guarantee of success. But with $350 billion investment, we absolutely and positively could retrofit and repower America using clean, green energy - and create millions of new jobs, in the process."
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My idea:
For people who are eligible for LIHEAP (federal heating assistance program) give them loans for improvements to insulation/HVAC systems that don't require payments for ~5 years (people on LIHEAP are in no position to put money down) with a heavily subsidized interest rate. This would create jobs, reduce the need for subsidization in the long run, and reduce fossil fuel usage.
In the end, we're going to need a technological revolution of sorts. Our economy moves forward by doing more with less. Right now, it would be nice if we could do the same but without having to pay for fuel.
The U.S. spends $700 billion every year on imported oil (Pickens). We could spend maybe $100 billion on moving to natural gas powered vehicles and virtually eliminate our need for foreign oil.
I say give the shaft to OPEC.
We already have a tried and true method for stimulating the economy. It is getting the dollars to the people who are going to spend them and spend them en mass. Things like realistic groceries and housing, not bailing out CEO's who are going to spend that money on vacations in exotic locals. To get the dollars to the people I believe it is most effective to create jobs that people with little or no training can get instead of the government handing us an extra $300. What's the old saying "Give a man a fish.....
"To get the dollars to the people I believe it is most effective to create jobs that people with little or no training can get instead of the government handing us an extra $300. What's the old saying 'Give a man a fish...'"
You seem to have missed the point of the saying you've quoted here. Jobs that people with little or no training can get are necessarily going to be low-paying and undesirable jobs; we can have those now, and put an end to outsourcing, but we have to be willing to take an 80% or so wage cut to make it happen. I don't want that, do you?
One key to "creating jobs" (I hate that phrase) is to find the people with no training, and TRAIN THEM. Have them do the jobs that NEED DOING and aren't being done, rather than the ones they already know how to do. You can't have change or growth without new skills and knowledge, no improvement without applying them properly.
The other is to accurately predict what fields are going to grow, and what fields we NEED to grow, and what areas will not be obviated or sent abroad. These, of course, include infrastructure, electronics, clean energy, other clean tech, education, research, and other high-value-added or necessarily local areas.