Clean Air Standards

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/02/news/economy/regulations/index.h

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"Men occasionally stumble over the truth but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." (Winston Churchill)

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I've attached an article out today on the President backing off "tough" clean air regulation. Obviously, we all want clean air but the jobs situation has pressured the President to stop a planned increase in clean air standards.

What I'd like to see stopped is stupid government. Since I started posting, my perspective has been that this "blog" is about business, economics and/or demographics. But, the actual administration of clean air standards could be a little more sophisticated than it is: why does everything have to be an "either/or"? I have no idea whether the President telling Lisa Jackson to withdraw the draft "Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards" has a direct relationship to the fact that Texas coal fired power plants could be shut down over some sort of air quality issue that Lisa Jackson has, but here's the deal: we could have cooperatively set standards nationally and locally to phase out coal fired plants over time while retraining employees and phasing in gas-fired or other alternative power plants so that "we" here in Texas are not faced with potential brown outs or black outs from possible plant shut downs.

Interestingly, within the article, there is an excellent video interview with Harvard economist Ken Rogoff who sides with those of us who said there never was a "recovery" from the recession. If you follow "jobs," nothing's changed. Rogoff prefers to call the worldwide recession that started in December, 2007, as the beginning of a second "Great Contraction" (the first being the Great Depression). In that sense, his position is very similar to Paul Krugman who refers to this current economic situation as a "Lesser Depression." As defined by jobs, the current economic situation has a real unemployment rate of 17% (standard BLS rate of 9.1% plus those who've given up - the BLS pros call that the "U6" unemployment rate), where the Great Depression had a 25% unemployment rate.

Both Rogoff and Krugman advocate infrastructure spending where it is needed NOW (bridges and roads, etc.). Top 500 CEOs and Private Equity gurus have both said that clearer regulatory and tax policy could bring pent up capital and other investment spending back the the U.S. economy.

At least there are ideas out there about what to do. Government needs to proactively participate in that and prime the pump where possible and necessary.

Forgive me if I don't get all teary-eyed over the appointment of Jeff Immelt (GE CEO) as the new "jobs czar" to lead the charge on creating jobs in the U.S. He recently moved one of his operating divisions from the upper Midwest to China. Speaking of China, while they are building a new coal fired power plant every week (at least, that was their pace), they have also been referred to as the world's largest investor in clean energy. Short term, they need power. Long term, they want clean air. What a concept! They're pragmatic.

Short term, we want clean air. Long term, we're unemployed (with brown outs and black outs).

Really?