Green Options

Millions of Americans are declaring financial sustainability, even if they don’t exactly call it that. After all, we can’t borrow our way out of debt.

We’re paying down or paying off credit cards. We’re getting rid of our mortgage or putting an extra payment toward the principal balance (which has huge cost savings advantages). Or we’re practicing other frugality rules. According to data from the Federal Reserve, the amount Americans owe on consumer loans and credit cards plummeted $21.6 billion in July of 2009 – the largest monthly drop in consumer debt since the Federal Reserve started to track it in 1943. The “cash for clunkers” will, no doubt, alter the outcomes for August and September, but the trend continues to be less appetite for debt, not more.

People are working to get the bankers out of our lives, demanding that we become someone other than a “consumer.” So while the Federal government continues to re-affirm their “wise” decisions to bailout bankers and big finance, Americans are choosing to fire their credit card companies and break their “death pledge” (aka mortgage) by paying it off early. Of course, there are also many Americans who are in so far over their heads that unfortunately, personal bankruptcy and home foreclosure are the only remedy.

I am, however, focusing on those who thrive in abundance, simplicity and sustainability when it comes to community, lifestyle and, yes, financial intelligence. As my wife and I write about in ECOpreneuring, you cannot have ecological sustainability without a large degree of social and economic equity. The ECOnomy is not about “free trade” but fair trade; it’s about commerce that restores the planet, not destroys it or exploits people.

You can join these financial freedom-seekers too, by practicing financial sustainability. As most of us intuitively recognize, the best things in life are free (or close to it).

Three more car companies received sizeable loans from the federal government yesterday, but don’t worry; it’s not another bailout. In fact, the$8 billion is just the start of a larger $25 billion project called the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM for short) that was thought up back in 2007 and funded by Congress in late 2008 during the Bush administration. The project, overseen by the Department of Energy, is a federal grant and loan initiative bent on providing [...]

I’m coming to the conclusion that there’s very little that’s sustainable about the company known as GM.

It’s frustrating and sad, because I was raised in the auto city and had family members who worked in the industry.  I even spent a summer at the GM Tech Center (working for then EDS as an intern at the time).  I’m perplexed by the company’s name which most of us recognize only as a vehicle company.  But it wasn’t always this way.

There was a time when GM was diversified, and innovative.  I was amazed by the poor decision making at GM when it recalled and promptly crushed their all-electric EV1s after bringing them to market in 1996.  I drove an EV1 in California; it rocked!  The company used to also make refrigerators starting in the 1920s under the Frigidaire brand and airplane components during WWII (my grandfather was an engineer who worked on a few).

So when, exactly, did the General Motors Corporation stop becoming a “generalist” industrial powerhouse making motors and instead, devote all its energies to making only motors in transportation vehicles and to lesser extent, but profitable one, vehicles for the military — you know, Humvees and the like?

This column highlights the top economic stories of the week.

Last weekend, the biggest players in the health care industry announced that they would put together a cost-cutting plan to present to the Obama Administration.  The expectation is that the measures will save a family of four $500 a year in the first year, and  $2,500 a year by the fifth year.

Federal [...]

Regional officials are talking about using $25 million in bailout money to help MARTA cover its operating costs.

The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) recommended last week that funds earmarked for transit improvements go towards keeping MARTA afloat. The transit system is unable to cover its budget shortfall and operating costs, due to strict regulations on how it spends its revenue. MARTA gets the bulk of its funding from sales tax revenue, and it’s required to spend 50% on operating costs and 50% on capital expenses. This $25 million dollars would be a band aid fix, but it certainly beats cutting a day of service, like the MARTA board was proposing.

Not everyone is thrilled about this idea.

Bailout funds to fix the economy come at a higher cost to U.S. taxpayers.

For years politician have promised affordable housing. When the market delivers it, the politicians act like it’s the bubonic plaque!

Despite public outrage over AIG bonuses, Obama had a good week. He traveled across America expressing his own outrage over the bonuses. He was warmly greeted in Orange County, California — once a bastion of conservative Republicanism. Republican Governor Swarzenegger warmly embraced him and assured him that California supported the stimulus plan. Obama appeared on the Tonight Show displaying his quick wit with the show’s host Jay Leno.

Depending on how you look at it, Obama’s meeting with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva this past weekend could be interpreted as either a first step toward cooperating on biofuel trade or a missed opportunity to protect the Amazon rain forest.

The banks have been paid after all as have massive bonuses for the very AIG employees that dragged the company down. All this with bailout money!

The bailout plan is not working. This morning’s New York Times has reported that the U.S. government is facing mounting pressure to add to the bailout kitty. Should the government continue to plug the hole?