Dumb as we wanna be  After reading Hot, Flat, and Crowded and From Beirut to Jerusalem I've become a fan of Thomas Friedman. I've added a link to his website where his Times articles can be found, including Time to Reboot America published in December. He's right on regarding the upcoming stimulus package:

My fellow Americans, we can't continue in this mode of "Dumb as we wanna be." We've indulged ourselves for too long with tax cuts that we can't afford, bailouts of auto companies that have become giant wealth-destruction machines, energy prices that do not encourage investment in 21st-century renewable power systems or efficient cars, public schools with no national standards to prevent illiterates from graduating and immigration policies that have our colleges educating the world's best scientists and engineers and then, when these foreigners graduate, instead of stapling green cards to their diplomas, we order them to go home and start companies to compete against ours.

In an article from The Chapter 18 Project he discusses the need for a price signal, a gas and/or carbon tax:

Producing new energy, or protecting the environment—in the Energy-Climate era, which is more important? Is it possible to do both? How we are going to do either without a price signal—i.e. gasoline or carbon tax—beats me. Consider this headline from CNNMoney.com on Dec. 22: "After nearly a year of flagging sales, low gas prices and fat incentives are reigniting America's taste for big vehicles. Trucks and SUVs will outsell cars in December, according to researchers at the automotive Website Edmunds.com, something that hasn't happened since February. Meanwhile the forecast finds that sales of hybrid vehicles are expected to be way down."

posted by Bruce Wright at 11:23 PM #