Green Jobs for America

You know, as opposed to the Fake Economy that is now falling down around us like a house of cards.

Found in my email box today, from the Working Families Party:

… The reason investors poured so much money into real estate speculation and opaque financial instruments is the lack of investment opportunities elsewhere. In the long run, the only way we can have a vibrant economy without financial bubbles and crises is if the government takes the lead in creating major new opportunities for investment. In the 19th century that meant railroads and canals, in the 1930s it meant the public works programs of the New Deal, in the 1950s it meant the federal highway system. Today it means a crash program to respond to the challenge of climate change with massive public and private investment in green jobs and alternative energy. Without a commitment to to rebuilding the real economy, this bailout is just addressing the symptoms and not the underlying disease.

This line of thinking about where our economic future lies has been expressed by voices ranging from Thomas Friedman to Lester Brown to the AFL-CIO. Perhaps it’s simple-minded of me to say so, but I’d like to see our financial system based on products that actually exist, and see people get paid for working instead of for getting fired (after destroying other people’s lives and livelihoods). Is that too much to ask?