It's the Green Economy, Stupid.
6/20/11 | | 4 comments
President Clinton is right on the mark in his latest Newsweek piece. When it comes to job creation, he understands why the green economy is so important to the planet and the people.
"President Obama came in with a really good energy policy, including an idea to provide both a tax credit for new green jobs and for startup companies, to allow the conversion of the tax credit into its cash equivalent for every employee hired."
If you want to become the leader in a certain sector of the economy you have to nurture that sector domestically. Economist Ha-Joon Chang in his book Bad Samaritans made a similar point when he talked about policies that built up South Korea's economy. Essentially, they protected and nurtured certain industries until they were strong enough to compete in the global marketplace on their own. Clinton highlights how incentives helped the US gain up to twenty percent of the global market for manufacturing the batteries that power electric and hybrid vehicles.
Continuing on with the theme of a green economy Clinton then says:
"When I was president, the economy benefited because information technology penetrated every aspect of American life. More than one quarter of our job growth and one third of our income growth came from that. Now the obvious candidate for that role today is changing the way we produce and use energy."
We need Congress to see that this is the path to prosperity.
I wish our Indian government
I wish our Indian government learns from this. Its so surprising that hybrid cars in India are worth double the price of the normal car, in case the car is imported into the country. So instead of giving an incentive the government is actually levying tax on it, just because its a hybrid. So for example the price of Honda Civic Hybrid is around Rs.21,50,000 where as Honda Civic is Rs.11,00,000 (just half of its hybrid avatar). Its really surprising and stupid policy.
Moreover instead of Tata Nano being the people's car it should be Reva. But again there is big cost difference.