Ed Schultz interviews Florida Rep. Alan Grayson about Congress finally demanding more transparency from the Federal Reserve, and auditing their massive secret bank bailouts. The recently passed legislation will now allow the Government Accountability Office to independently audit the Fed, and their nefarious Wall Street deals.  Alan Grayson and Ron Paul co-authored the amendment, which also had a whopping 311 co-sponsors in the house.

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“We need to stop giving money to the bad banks, they just eat it, they don’t actually hand it out to people and do anything useful with it. We have to give money to the good banks. The fundamental strategy that has been followed since the Bush Administration to try to recover from this is flawed…the good banks will go and make good loans to people, to businesses, to small businesses in particular, and the economy will recover.”

—Rep. Alan Grayson

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).

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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?

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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 Reserve Chairman Bernanke said that the response to the governments bank stress tests, (carried out to see how the nation’s major banks could handle worsening economy), have been encouraging. The tests have apparently helped banks to access private capital. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced that smaller banks — that hold less than $500 million in assets — can apply for the same TARP funds that have been made available for the largest ones in the nation.

After repeated outbreaks of food based sicknesses such as salmonella and e-coli, food companies have now put the onus of food safety on consumers.

China might be championed as the empire of carbon, but when it comes to  developing renewable energy businesses, it seems to be surging way ahead.

The latest industry to get a federal bailout is life insurance.  The sector has been struggling for sometime but many have questioned where the line should be drawn when it comes to industries and companies being bailed out.

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.

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

Originally, the Congressional Budget Office had projected that last year’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) would cost taxpayers $189 billion. With the new budget thrown in for 2009 and 2010, this figure has risen to $356 billion. (Reuters)

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Laurence Summers—head of the National Economic Council—responded to criticism of the Geithner Plan, “I don’t know of any economist who doesn’t believe that functioning capital markets in which assists can be traded are a good idea.” Economist Paul Krugman responded (NYT) saying that if Summers believe that bribing traders to participate is “better functioning” then Summers should get out more. Many economists believe that this plan could be disastrous.

The Plan would auction bad mortgages held by banks. The government would join the highest bidder with an equal purchase and provide a loan to the bidder up to 85% of the bid. The loan is supposed to provide leverage such that small upward movements will bring large gains to the speculator. According to Summers and Geithner, such auctions will determine their “fair” market value.

Of course small movements downward will bring loss to the speculator as well as the taxpayer, but the speculator can count on the government to do all it can to jack up home prices. Many economist, financers, and bankers have found the Plan disastrous.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning (2008) economist, challenges the notion that such an auction will determine fair value as “market mystique.” He analyzes the arithmetic of the Plan and shows that it’s just another attempt to subsidize the real estate industry and mortgage bankers.

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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.

Leno raised the issue of congress threatening to tax the bonuses at 90%. “As a American,” he said that he was distressed that Congress could use the tax laws to punish a particular group. Obama responded that he understood the anger. Significantly, he did not endorse Congress’s response.

Nor did Obama mention that Congress voted for these bonuses when it passed the bailout or whether he or congress was aware of this clause in the Bill. Senator Cris Dodd (D-Conn) had appeared outraged at the bonus and told CNN that he was unaware of such an amendment. Later he told CNN that he didn’t write the clause, and later he admitted adding the clause at the insistance of Treasury Secretary Geithner.

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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!

After all of the hullabaloo, AIG  paid $93 billion, more than half of what it has received in bailout cash, to Goldman Sachs Group Inc and a host of European banks. The money went to banks to cover their losses on complex mortgage investments, as well as for collateral needed for other transactions. This is in addition to its plan to pay $165 million in employees bonuses funded by bailout dollars.

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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.

• AIG, the nations’ biggest insurance group is now negotiating for more money following the $150 billion it has already received. It suffered a $60 billion loss in the 4th quarter of last year, the biggest in corporate history.
• Citibank is negotiating an injection of funds (over and above the $45 billion it has already received) that is likely to raise the U.S. government’s stake to about 40%.
• General Motors and Chrysler, two of Detroit’s biggest automakers, are seeking $22 billion on top of the $17 billion already granted to them. Steven Rattner, co-founder of a private equity firm, the Quadrangle Group, has been appointed an adviser to the Treasury on the auto industry.

Yet, according to Reuters, most Americans approve of President Obama’s economic plans.

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Sunday’s Financial Times has confirmed that the administration will be putting Wall Street banks through a “stress test.” The $2,000bn bank bailout plan was announced last week ahead of formal discussions with the industry’s representatives.

The bailout package includes financial assistance to purchase toxic assets from banks and a guarantee to cover some of the losses on those assets. And get this; the administration plans to buy convertible preferred shares in that need capital following the “stress test”. Now who could possibly blame Wall Street for being upset about this “creeping nationalization” of the banking industry?

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Putting profit above all else, these clowns have dirtied our nation’s air and water and have stood in the way of energy and fuel-related progress for decades.

With $62.2 billion in the latest version of the Economic Stimulus Package going to environmental initiatives, said fat cats will surely live a comfortable existence as they ease into their “golden years”, but the new energy czars will be leading the way deriving energy and fuel from such sources as; wind, solar, waves, algae, cellulosic ethanol, and much more…

…Leading our great nation to a clean, energy independent future!

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EcoWorldly’s interview with Rolf Skar, Greenpeace’s Senior Forest Campaigner

EW: What are your initial impressions after the meeting between Presidents Obama and Lula da Silva?

RS: I think in terms of positive there was a god personal rapport and a general commitment to improve relations. Not that they were terrible under the Bush administration, but it was clear that there was a mutual respect and mutual interests that the two countries want to pursue. So I think that was positive. I think there was also a commitment to try and address the global economic crisis, which is affecting both countries. I know Lulu was talking about how Brazil’s economy is still robust, but of course there are plenty of challenges there two, so I think those are two positives.

EW: What’s your position on biofuels? Are you pro, con or is there a good middle ground that can be worked out?

RS: There can be. The problem right now is that many biofuels are a bit of a distraction from other technologies and other mechanisms which clearly produce better climate results for less investment, so I understand how Brazil is busy to reduce import tariffs on Brazilian ethanol. I don’t think those tariffs will be removed overnight, if they are at all; and I think biofuels, for example we saw a push for biofuel based on palm oil coming out of Southeast Asia, and then when we crunched the numbers, we found that that kind of biodiesel would result in as much as 15 to 30 times the greenhouse gas emissions because of the way it’s produced.

So lots of times, biofuels are seen as a quick fix–as an easy way to switch fuels–and unfortunately easy doesn’t always mean possible or effective. Certainly the ethanol that’s being produced in the US right now in terms of an energy investment and solving a greenhouse gas emissions problem, it’s definitely not the cure-all that  some proponents want to make it out to be.

EW: What can be done to make Brazilian ethanol more environmentally friendly?

RS: There need to be better efficiencies. Certainly when you’re producing biofuels and then shipping them around the planet, you reduce some of the efficiencies that are potentially built in to those kinds of fuels. And I think that the big consuming nations–I know Brazil uses a lot of it domestically–but the countries in Europe and the US are developing renewable fuel standards that the set really robust, scientifically sound benchmarks and sideboards on the kinds of fuels that can be purchased. There need to be true life cycle analyses showing that there are true environmental and climate benefits. And there need to be basic sideboards. For example, we shouldn’t be sacrificing in tact or ancient forests to produce biofuels which have small or minimum climate benefits; we don’t want to sacrifice biodiversity for small gains on the climate side.

EW: Greenpeace has talked about a $16 billion annual fund from the US to support the rain forest. What’s that number about?

RS: The number is based on a global Greenpeace assessment of contributions that are needed for from [rich] nations to developing countries. And the $16 billion is roughly what we think the US should contribute on an annual basis to a global fund to tropical forests worldwide. So $16 billion is a number that we suggest the US should invest annually to really produce enormous climate benefits around the world– not just in the Amazon, but also in SE Asia and the Congo basin. The debate around how to do this is basically framed around whether people want market based offsets in which green carbon credits are traded with black smokestack carbon, or whether you want some sort of fund based project, or something in the middle.

Greenpeace is proposing a hybrid fund based approach where we make sure that there’s sizable, predictable investment that countries can bank on into the future as they do their long term planning that can be available soon so we can take immediate action and that is adaptable to the different realities on the ground in different rain forest nations. So, Brazil has a relatively highly sophisticated infrastructure for measuring both deforestation and other important benchmarks that are needed to prove emissions reductions. Nations in the Congo Basin are completely without those capacities. The fund would allow us to invest in those nations and allow them to protect their forests alongside of Brazil.

We think that Brazil’s a particularly important player in this debate because not only do they have the largest chunk of remaining rain forest in the world, but Lula’s administration has come out very clearly and said on the Eve of the talks in Poland this past December that they want their forests protected for the climate, they want the economic benefits for that, but in no way do they want market based credits or offsets coming from their rain forest land. So they’re very clearly made that statement. It was a bit of a bombshell for lots of folks, because of course they hold the majority of the world’s rain forests at least in terms of the nation by nation split and I know that they’ve been talking to other smaller rain forest nations about the benefits of a fund based approach as opposed to a market based approach.

In terms of coming back to the Obama and Lula visit, it was a bit of a missed opportunity for Obma because his administration has not yet come down on one side or the other of this issue, and they haven’t found a middle ground either. They haven’t really articulated a position. This would be a great opportunity for Obama to at least  hear out Lula on why Brazil has taken this position and then consider ways in which the two countries can work together. I think personally, it’s clear to me that both two men are the most important in the world on the deforestation issue.

EW: Brazil has just discovered 80 billion barrels of oil and there’s some talk of using that as a bargaining chip to lift the US import tariff on Brazilian cane ethanol. As a conservationist, does the discovery of oil make your job easier or more difficult?

RS: I think it makes it more difficult in some ways, of course. I mean, oil always tends to complicate political equations, and so I’m not sure it makes it any easier. I know that in Brazil it’s a source of national pride because for many years, they were told that they didn’t have oil reserves. They had everything else in the world, in terms of forests, water and mining resources, but not oil. And now they finally have that too, so it’s a bit of pride. As a conservationist, of course, I don’t want to see oil influence their national policy, so if we can minimize that as much as possible.

EW: How do you think the meeting between Presidents Obama and Lula da Silva will affect US relations with other South American countries?

RS: I think it will actually help. I’m not an expert on foreign relations, but I think Lula is seen a bit left of center from US perspective, but not as left as Chavez, and I think that if he can serve as a bit of a bridge–if he can be an ambassador to other nations in Central and South America–I think that’s a good thing.

I think, again, just to bring it back to the forest issues for just a minute and reduced emissions and deforestation, I think that Lula’s in a unique position to serve as an ambassador to a lot of other nations in Central and South America and even in other parts of the world, like the Congo Basin and SE Asia to show some strong leadership. And with commitments from the US on some funding, or you know with an olive branch from the US extended on this issue, they could use the necessary momentum. If you’ve got the largest potential donor nation in the world and then the largest rain forest nation in the world showing leadership on this issue, I think a lot of other nations would come along.

EW: In an ideal world, what would you like to see happen at this point?

RS: I’d love to see Obama visit Brazil. It sounds like there may be plans in the works for that, and I’d love to see that trip serve as an opportunity for the deforestation issue and reduced emissions to really be treated substantively for the two leaders. I think it actually needs to be handled at the top. It’s an important enough issue. There’s lots of money at stake, but I think it needs to be treated at the executive level. I’d also like to see members of the Obama administration within the state dept. under Hillary Clinton’s leadership start a dialogue with their counterparts in Brazil on this issue and to start developing a set of positions and a way to move forward cooperatively on the reduced emissions and deforestation program. This is not work that can happen at Copenhagen in December. It’s not even work that can happen in October of this year. It needs to happen now. We’ve got a lot of ground to make up; over the last eight years there was a lot of wasted time.

Image credit: The White House Blog via Global Voices, under a Creative Commons license.

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And Stewart didn’t pull any punches on former Senator John Sununu who is part of the bipartisan committee that will sort out the details of how the economic stimulus package is spent. Watch it:

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EcoWorldly’s interview with Rolf Skar, Greenpeace’s Senior Forest Campaigner

EW: What are your initial impressions after the meeting between Presidents Obama and Lula da Silva?

RS: I think in terms of positive there was a god personal rapport and a general commitment to improve relations. Not that they were terrible under the Bush administration, but it was clear that there was a mutual respect and mutual interests that the two countries want to pursue. So I think that was positive. I think there was also a commitment to try and address the global economic crisis, which is affecting both countries. I know Lulu was talking about how Brazil’s economy is still robust, but of course there are plenty of challenges there two, so I think those are two positives.

EW: What’s your position on biofuels? Are you pro, con or is there a good middle ground that can be worked out?

RS: There can be. The problem right now is that many biofuels are a bit of a distraction from other technologies and other mechanisms which clearly produce better climate results for less investment, so I understand how Brazil is busy to reduce import tariffs on Brazilian ethanol. I don’t think those tariffs will be removed overnight, if they are at all; and I think biofuels, for example we saw a push for biofuel based on palm oil coming out of Southeast Asia, and then when we crunched the numbers, we found that that kind of biodiesel would result in as much as 15 to 30 times the greenhouse gas emissions because of the way it’s produced.

So lots of times, biofuels are seen as a quick fix–as an easy way to switch fuels–and unfortunately easy doesn’t always mean possible or effective. Certainly the ethanol that’s being produced in the US right now in terms of an energy investment and solving a greenhouse gas emissions problem, it’s definitely not the cure-all that  some proponents want to make it out to be.

EW: What can be done to make Brazilian ethanol more environmentally friendly?

RS: There need to be better efficiencies. Certainly when you’re producing biofuels and then shipping them around the planet, you reduce some of the efficiencies that are potentially built in to those kinds of fuels. And I think that the big consuming nations–I know Brazil uses a lot of it domestically–but the countries in Europe and the US are developing renewable fuel standards that the set really robust, scientifically sound benchmarks and sideboards on the kinds of fuels that can be purchased. There need to be true life cycle analyses showing that there are true environmental and climate benefits. And there need to be basic sideboards. For example, we shouldn’t be sacrificing in tact or ancient forests to produce biofuels which have small or minimum climate benefits; we don’t want to sacrifice biodiversity for small gains on the climate side.

EW: Greenpeace has talked about a $16 billion annual fund from the US to support the rain forest. What’s that number about?

RS: The number is based on a global Greenpeace assessment of contributions that are needed for from [rich] nations to developing countries. And the $16 billion is roughly what we think the US should contribute on an annual basis to a global fund to tropical forests worldwide. So $16 billion is a number that we suggest the US should invest annually to really produce enormous climate benefits around the world– not just in the Amazon, but also in SE Asia and the Congo basin. The debate around how to do this is basically framed around whether people want market based offsets in which green carbon credits are traded with black smokestack carbon, or whether you want some sort of fund based project, or something in the middle.

Greenpeace is proposing a hybrid fund based approach where we make sure that there’s sizable, predictable investment that countries can bank on into the future as they do their long term planning that can be available soon so we can take immediate action and that is adaptable to the different realities on the ground in different rain forest nations. So, Brazil has a relatively highly sophisticated infrastructure for measuring both deforestation and other important benchmarks that are needed to prove emissions reductions. Nations in the Congo Basin are completely without those capacities. The fund would allow us to invest in those nations and allow them to protect their forests alongside of Brazil.

We think that Brazil’s a particularly important player in this debate because not only do they have the largest chunk of remaining rain forest in the world, but Lula’s administration has come out very clearly and said on the Eve of the talks in Poland this past December that they want their forests protected for the climate, they want the economic benefits for that, but in no way do they want market based credits or offsets coming from their rain forest land. So they’re very clearly made that statement. It was a bit of a bombshell for lots of folks, because of course they hold the majority of the world’s rain forests at least in terms of the nation by nation split and I know that they’ve been talking to other smaller rain forest nations about the benefits of a fund based approach as opposed to a market based approach.

In terms of coming back to the Obama and Lula visit, it was a bit of a missed opportunity for Obma because his administration has not yet come down on one side or the other of this issue, and they haven’t found a middle ground either. They haven’t really articulated a position. This would be a great opportunity for Obama to at least  hear out Lula on why Brazil has taken this position and then consider ways in which the two countries can work together. I think personally, it’s clear to me that both two men are the most important in the world on the deforestation issue.

EW: Brazil has just discovered 80 billion barrels of oil and there’s some talk of using that as a bargaining chip to lift the US import tariff on Brazilian cane ethanol. As a conservationist, does the discovery of oil make your job easier or more difficult?

RS: I think it makes it more difficult in some ways, of course. I mean, oil always tends to complicate political equations, and so I’m not sure it makes it any easier. I know that in Brazil it’s a source of national pride because for many years, they were told that they didn’t have oil reserves. They had everything else in the world, in terms of forests, water and mining resources, but not oil. And now they finally have that too, so it’s a bit of pride. As a conservationist, of course, I don’t want to see oil influence their national policy, so if we can minimize that as much as possible.

EW: How do you think the meeting between Presidents Obama and Lula da Silva will affect US relations with other South American countries?

RS: I think it will actually help. I’m not an expert on foreign relations, but I think Lula is seen a bit left of center from US perspective, but not as left as Chavez, and I think that if he can serve as a bit of a bridge–if he can be an ambassador to other nations in Central and South America–I think that’s a good thing.

I think, again, just to bring it back to the forest issues for just a minute and reduced emissions and deforestation, I think that Lula’s in a unique position to serve as an ambassador to a lot of other nations in Central and South America and even in other parts of the world, like the Congo Basin and SE Asia to show some strong leadership. And with commitments from the US on some funding, or you know with an olive branch from the US extended on this issue, they could use the necessary momentum. If you’ve got the largest potential donor nation in the world and then the largest rain forest nation in the world showing leadership on this issue, I think a lot of other nations would come along.

EW: In an ideal world, what would you like to see happen at this point?

RS: I’d love to see Obama visit Brazil. It sounds like there may be plans in the works for that, and I’d love to see that trip serve as an opportunity for the deforestation issue and reduced emissions to really be treated substantively for the two leaders. I think it actually needs to be handled at the top. It’s an important enough issue. There’s lots of money at stake, but I think it needs to be treated at the executive level. I’d also like to see members of the Obama administration within the state dept. under Hillary Clinton’s leadership start a dialogue with their counterparts in Brazil on this issue and to start developing a set of positions and a way to move forward cooperatively on the reduced emissions and deforestation program. This is not work that can happen at Copenhagen in December. It’s not even work that can happen in October of this year. It needs to happen now. We’ve got a lot of ground to make up; over the last eight years there was a lot of wasted time.

Image credit: The White House Blog via Global Voices, under a Creative Commons license.

President Obama has come under the radar. Publications like the Huffington Post and the Financial Times are questioning whether he has failed already. Why? Because Tim Geithner has proposed a bailout plan for zombie banks that capitalists believe should be allowed to fail.

The writing is on the wall. Critics and journalists are pointing fingers at Geithner’s plan.  Martin Wolf of the FT goes as far as to say that if the plan fails then so will Obama’s credibility. Arianna Huffington says that Time Geithner is on the wrong side of the issue and that much like his predecessor Hank Paulson, he is more concerned about saving certain banks rather than saving the banking industry.

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Despite a solid PR launch of Chrysler’s ENVI electric vehicle group, the current Dodge EV is little more than UK-only Lotus Europa with Dodge badges and fly-yellow paint.  This new concept, however, promises to be something more.

From Automotive News:

The Dodge EV shown in September was a Lotus-derived electric sports car. Look for the show version to have more Dodge styling cues and possibly be a four-passenger coupe.

Reading between the lines a bit, then, what can we expect from Chrysler?

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Hope-Despair, a painting by Feroza Unvala

2008 - what a year! As we get ready to draw the curtains on one of the most unsettling economic years in history, we the writers of the Inspired Economist are still wondering… was this year one that has left our battered economy begging for inspiration? Or have the sustainable events of 2008 spearheaded the initiation of what we believe is truly an Inspired Economy?

2008 was about the $700 billion bailout. Foreclosures. The plummeting stock market. As the year came to a close, the nation’s economic turmoil battled with the presidential election. But it was also a time when new businesses were born into what appears to be an unprecedented sustainability boom. When energy, economy and environment have taken on a new and inter-dependent definition.

As we position our economy to take off on this inspiring eve of the Obama generation, let’s reflect on the change that has come into play this year……

The First Quarter

The first quarter of the year saw the idea of social entrepreneuring take flight beyond the borders of America.

Cover of Jeffery Sach’s book Common Wealth

It was also the time when the Center for Resource Solutions launched the Environmental Tracking Network of North America – North America’s first network organization for renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions tracking systems and registries.

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Like Madoff’s scheme, the house market became dependent on a steady price increase. Buyers were willing to pay high prices with the expectation that they could later sell for a profit.

Eventually, without substantial inflation, houses had to become unaffordable. House prices had reached levels that often required most of a household’s income. Subprimes were just a frantic attempt to continue this pyramid. Like every ponzi scheme, some means must be found to get more money from new “investors” to payoff old.

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Car sales are down dramatically - in the UK, November sales were around 35% down on the same time last year - and it is hardly surprising. Big purchases like cars are not on most people’s shopping lists at the moment.  This leaves the industry in big trouble.

As readers will be aware, the auto industry is a major employer on both sides of the Atlantic, both with an enormous chain of suppliers employing a vast workforce, all of whom will be affected by the failure of the industry.

>>More about the auto industry bailout at Green Options

So what is to be done? There are obviously those on the Right whose view is that the industry (and other industries) should stand or fall in a free market - one presumes they were the people who formed the US Senate opposition to bail-out plans. Equally, there are plenty of environmentalists on the Left who are not conceptually very concerned about a reduction in production capacity for the quintessential fossil-fuel-guzzling consumable that is the automobile.

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