is that, as with the proposed $700 billion for the financial bailout, it's not really an expenditure, because we'll be getting the money back.  Except in the case of a renewable infrastructure, we'll be getting everything back that we invest, and then some (here's an idea: make all climate mitigation spending off-budget!).  So in the long-run, a new energy and transportation infrastructure will cost nothing.  

Climate expert Terry Barker fears that governments are underestimating climate risks just as they underestimated climate risks, and says that massive investment is needed to reduce those risks.

Should that second "climate" be "economic" or "credit" or "debt" or something?

Great stuff, all of it. I especially like Johnson's take on the fraudulence of the military-industrial complex as the best job generator. Has anyone done a study comparing the ratio of federal spending to job creation in various Keynesian scenarios vs. the military and weapons procurement?

So in the long-run, a new energy and transportation infrastructure will cost nothing.

On the other hand, the bailout as it is currently conceived must necessarily cost us money.  If it doesn't, it will fail.  This is because the root cause of the bailout is excessive lending: lots of money has been injected into the system which has no wealth to back it up (high leverage ratios), and poor prospects of creating that wealth in the near future (poor lending decisions) even if you ignore the problem of trying to grow the economy while energy supplies shrink.

What we are seeing now is the mother of all market corrections:  We're confronted with the fictitious nature of the wealth created during the housing bubble.  And I think we're still carrying alot of false wealth from the dot-com bubble, which was never allowed to properly deflate (the housing bubble picked up where it left off).

The crisis is the sudden realization that the emperor has no clothes, or more to the point, no money.  It's the abruptness of this correction that makes it so dangerous, and so likely to have long-term impacts on the economy.  A bailout plan that recognizes this essential truth will not attempt to avoid financial pain, or to prevent the destruction of wealth on paper; it will simply try to spread the pain out over a long enough time that it doesn't cripple us in the short term.

However, the bailout as it is being presented is all about avoiding this pain, and trying to get back to business as usual.  This is doomed to fail, because it's ignoring the root cause of the problem, and the essential remedy that is required: real wealth and the money supply must come back to equilibrium.  Any program that tries to avoid this rebalancing, and the pain associated with it, is simply putting the inevitable off to the future.  And as with anything painful that you postpone dealing with, it will be worse later.

To make it clear what I am saying: To the extent that we need the bailout, it should be as minimal as possible, so that we can get the pain over with as quickly as possible.  The lion's share of the resources should be spent on investments, ideally in renewable energy and education, which will pay dividends down the road and even help stimulate the economy in the short term.  Unfortunately, that's not what I see happening: the focus is all on the short term impact and relief.

Yeah, that was a typo -- fixed, tx.

grist.org

I'm saving that link - looks good.

The energy efficient family would be living in a semi-rural, semi-suburban home, powered by solar cells that create hydrogen.

They would have enough capital so that no one has to leave the home for too long to go to "work".  In fact, traveling to work like a robot every day has become an anachronism.

Thanks to the big payoffs from research during 8 years of Bush, nanotechnology allows 100 percent conversion of solar to hydrogen.  

The family communicates with its community via WiMax, that serves for all voice, text and video data -- one channel, no wires -- very efficient.

The dynamic actions of the Fed will put more money into the hands of more Americans so we can regain our economic independence.   Big time enslavement by Libs using light rail and massive government spending works are successfully defeated by the people.

None of this makes any sense to me.  If credit lines dry up, who is going to invest billions in green energy? All those notable quotables saying that "a major recession or depression is no reason not to invest now" are full of hooey. If you want to print more money, you'll just drive up inflation, making everything more expensive. Higher interest rates and costs mean less demand.

Including green, renewable energy sources.

Anyone who has faith that a trillion could solve the current financial dilemma is probably smoking something really good.  There is 43 trillion in funny money around the globe. Yet we still hold onto our dreams, promised, and visions. I guess it is the American thing to do.

Onward through the fog