How to Save the Auto Industry, the American Economy, and the Planet: A Ten Step Plan

1) Nationalize Chrysler and GM. They have received huge sums of government money and are about to fail. The reason we have attempted to save these two companies is not for the managers or the shareholders, but for the American economy as a whole, and the job loss that would result. To that end, it makes more sense to nationalize those industries and ensure that they can provide jobs, rather than continue to reward the management of these companies, who have utterly failed to present a coherent vision of the future. Their management is extremely poor, yet they are vital to the economy. It would be far better to nationalize these industries and turn them to the good of the American People than to let them crash and burn, taking out the American economy. Further, in the case of a clearly failing company, nationalization isn't even economically harmful to the shareholders and owners--regardless of nationalization, they are set to lose all value.

2) The nationalization should proceed through Congressional creation of a Parastatal Corporate Structure ("PCS"). The PCS would consist of a now-existing or newly created Executive Agency("EA") which will act as the "Board" of the Nationalized Companies ("NCs"). In its capacity as the Board, the EA will hire individuals for high management positions, such as CEO, CFO, COO, Legal Counsel, and other upper-level management. The Management will in turn implement the policies directed by Congress and the EA in order to achieve the goals of the Nationalization: economic stimulus, job creation, environmental protection, and debt and trade deficit reduction.

3) Once nationalized, Chrysler and GM should be directoed to produce electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and other high fuel economy vehicles("HFEVs") exclusively. They should use the technology available, right now. The increase in sales volume of the products required for assembly of HFEVs will lead to better economies of scale, and lower prices for both production and final sale price.

4) The majority of the profits should go towards further research and development into green technology. This can occur both within Chrysler and GM and the United States as a whole, through grants to research projects and tech startups with promising proprietary technology they want to attempt to commercialize. Until such time as there are profits realized, the U.S. government should invest sufficient amounts of capital to the country-wide research project in order to spur the technical and manufacturing innovation required to get us out of the recession.

5) Any later profits, in an amount to be determined by Congress or the EA should be applied to service and reduce the enormous U.S. debt.

6) Ford, and other profitable carmakers, should not be nationalized. Only companies which are vitally important to the U.S. economy and are funadamentally flawed and unprofitable require the drastic step of nationalization.

7) Private market and capitalist fundamentals should still apply--and, in fact, the government should do its best to encourage competition with the state-owned car companies. The should achieve this by freely licensing Intellectual Property Rights ("IPRs") on the fruits of the research to any U.S. entrepreneur who will create jobs in the United States. The IPRs would spur competition, and allow the companies that are best able to organize to make parts or entire vehicles would always be capable of using the best research in the world. In doing this, we would create a vibrant and cutting edge industry able to comepte with carmakers around the globe, and being to increase our exports and reduce our trade deficit. The release of new, high quality IPRs into the American economy will lead to a real addition of value--that much freely licensed and readily available technology will do a great deal to spur innovation and provide opportunities for entrepreneurship.

8) Free licensing of the research is the key, allowing the American auto industry as a whole to move in a more eco-friendly and energy independent direction favored by most Americans. Essentially, Chrysler and GMs earning potential should be harnessed to provide the surviving automotive companies--i.e., Ford and the parts manufacturers--with the cutting edge technology they need to succeeed in a global market.

9) Once the NCs are profitable, they should be returned to the private sector. They should be restored to the stockholders at this time--the nationalization of the companies is an abrogation of their rights--it is, however a constitutionally legal one coming at a time of great crisis. This does not mean, however that the stockhodlers should receive any loss greater, or more permanent, than is required in order to serve national interests. THe goal of stimulating the U.S. economy and preserving jobs achieved, the industries should be returned to their erstwhile owners to elect a new board of directors and drive onto a new course, the road paved by the economic improvements over the duration of the nationalization period.

10) This plan will allow us to save the auto industry while saving and creating jobs, all while investing in a green future and reducing the national debt and trade deficit. It will also promote the kind of intellectual property advantage the United States has had in previous eras and help to provide for a long term healthy and competitive private market. It will advance numerous goals of the United States and should be implement post-haste.

This idea I had once.

http://cooperationstudy.wikidot.com

First Month at UNDP

[Reposted from Leitner Interns Blog]

This summer, I'm in New York, working with an intergovernmental organization, the United Nations. As with everything at the UN, there are a lot of acronyms to describe exactly where I'm working: I'm at the UNDP (UN Development Programme), in the BDP (Bureau of Development Policy), in the PG (Poverty Group), and working primarily on Legal Empowerment issues (sometimes shortened to LE).

It's a very exciting time for Legal Empowerment at the UNDP--the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor just launched its final report today. The Commission was independent, but hosted by the UNDP--it was co-chaired by Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the economist Hernando de Soto. At the core of the report are four pillars: Property Rights, Labor Rights, Business Rights, and Access to Justice and Rule of Law. The main idea behind Legal Empowerment is that given the right opportunities--whether by formalizing land ownership, providing accessible dispute resolution, or ensuring effective legal systems--the marginalized and vulnerable groups of the world (an estimated 4 billion people that are excluded from the rule of law) can pull themselves out of poverty. Basically, Legal Empowerment says the world's poor don't need aid, they need opportunity in the form of legal, political, and ownership systems that work for them and put them on equal footing with the elite. After years of meetings and many revisions, the report is out, and the Commission has made its recommendations. Now is a crucial time as policy makers and country offices at UNDP determine how to proceed, utilizing Legal Empowerment's concepts and methodologies to promote development in line with the UNDP's Strategic Plan.

I feel that I am very much on the cutting edge of this new terrain in development--so far I've been in contact with country offices across Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, helping to coordinate their country-level efforts with the BDP, UNDP's policy center. One of my biggest tasks so far has been to develop a database of Legal Empowerment projects going on around the world, both in progress and in the pipeline. This serves dual purposes: it helps to raise partner and donor awareness, which can lead to direct project support, and it also provides a model for other country offices who are looking for programming best-practices in specific areas.
I attended the launch this afternoon, and it was an amazing event. Dignitaries and press were there from all over the world. I got to hear Madeleine Albright and Hernando de Soto speak about legal empowerment, along with Naresh Singh, the Executive Director of the Commission, Kemal Dervis of the UNDP, and Mike Bishop, a writer for The Economist, acting as moderator for the expert panel. I got to meet and speak briefly with both Dr. de Soto and Secretary Albright(here's a picture of me with her: I'm the one with the goofy smile). I was very happy for the opportunity to see and hear great minds elaborate on Legal Empowerment of the Poor around the world, and was more than impressed with what they had to say.

So far it's been a great summer, and I'm less than a month in.

"The Trinity of Hell": Probably the Worst Thing I've Seen All Day

This video, at youtube.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejTmistHFw0

It was posted by ATLAH Worldwide Ministries' "Pastor", James David Manning.
Were it parody, it might be hilarious. Sadly, it's real, and seriously shocking.


My thoughts:

Why does this idiot say "thus sayeth the lord" after every assertion? It's obvious that these are his individual political views--trying to pass them off as the direct word of God is not only egotistical, but probably blasphemous to boot.

How does Oprah's having been supported by white women mean she owes allegiance to one specific white woman, Hillary? What's the point of emphasizing this, when he later goes on a tirade about how Obama is selling out blacks? Manning wants it both ways, and is playing the "race card" both shamelessly and incoherently. And why does he keep referrng to Oprah as "struggling"? Even if she was at one point, she's vastly more successful than some two-bit preacher like Manning ever will be. Focusing on her hard times is just a way to make himself feel better about his own meager accomplishments.

WTF does he mean by calling everyone a closet homosexual? WTF is a longlegged pimp?

Why keep referencing the Trinity United Church of Christ, obviously a christian house of worship, but keep calling Obama "Hussein", implicitly emphasizing the worn-out, discredited, and irrelevant "Obama is a Muslim" argument?

Does Manning really believe Wright would be VP and Oprah Secretary of State? That's just stupid.

There's so much more wrong with this video, but I'm getting sick just writing about it. Where does this stuff even come from?

What an asshole.

We Need Solar Now

I just watched Colbert Report, and his guest was James Kunstler. I consider myself an environmentalist, and knew about peak oil but I hadn't heard it discussed in quite such stark terms before (at least not on TV). Mr. Kunstler stated that peak oil has come and gone--that we produced less oil last year than we did two years ago, and that the decline is going to continue. In short, he scared the crap out of me, so I did some research. I don't know if he is quite right about peak oil having passed--there is some data, at least, which seems to show that the world oil supply is still stable (See inset). Nonetheless, it is clear that we have a finite supply of oil, and we will likely soon reach declining production.

Mr. Kunstler also stated that all alternatives combined (solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear, etc.) are insufficient to meet current energy demands. What he didn't say, but which is even scarier, is that energy demand is definitely growing. This is especially true in rapidly developing and large economies such as China and India, but also to a lesser extent throughout the world. Again, though, I am not sure Mr. Kunstler has his facts straight. I remembered reading recently that more solar energy hits the Earth's surface every hour than the entire population uses in a year. This has been often repeated--a couple sources are here and here. While repetition is not proof of veracity, I'll assume for now it's true.

Well, what about solar then? Say that the United States wanted to generate enough energy through solar capture to power the entire planet--how much land mass would have to be covered?

I did some calculations.* The Earth's surface is about 510,065,600 sq. km. The United States covers about 9,826,630 sq. km., or a little less than 2% of the Earth's surface. So, if it takes just an hour for enough energy to reach the Earth's surface to power the planet, it should take about 50 hours for enough to reach just the US. Now, solar panels aren't all that efficient. Modern photo-voltaic cells range from 14%-19% efficient, according to wikipedia. Using an average of that, 16.5%, or about 1/6, it turns out that if the entire surface of the US were covered in photovoltaic cells, it would take about 50 * 6 = 300 hours to gather enough energy to power the planet for a year. There are 8,760 hours in a year, so it stands to reason that only 300/8,760 = 3.4% of the United States would have to be covered in photovoltaic cells to produce enough energy for the whole planet, year round.

Of course, photovoltaic cells aren't cheap(although nanosolar powersheets may change that), and it takes a couple years for them to produce enough energy to offset their production costs. However, there are methods like thermal solar that have higher efficiencies (up to 30%) and are less expensive than photovoltaics. Still, even with the hurdles that exist, why aren't we doing more?

* I started off with the assumption that sunlight reaches the US on average with the same intensity as it does everywhere else, which of course isn't true--but it's good enough for a rough estimate. I'm also assuming that the 1 hour assertion holds true any time of day, which is only true if you're using the whole earth, but not just one country where there is sometimes night. Nonetheless, the math holds since we're still talking about the proportion of solar energy the US receives.