Its a lovely idea, but I think its impractical. Renewable/energy efficiency measures are taken by people because they have converted to the faith, not because of Goverment schemes. People remain remarkabley ignorant, spending their money on wide screen TV, though there are hardly ANY wide screen programmes available rather then insulate their houses cavity walls. What we need are products with a load of "bling" so they look effective, add to the appearance of a house and as a by product offer some energy/carbon saving facilities.
While the general population remains in this mode, Goverments have to tread softly or they will be out of power in a trice.
Frank

There'll always be an economy - it just means people doing work and being paid, in kind or cash, and buying things. By 'the economy' you mean something else. Nothing wrong with economic activity, even economic growth - it's what humans do, and without it we'd starve (and get bored). Without economic activity, growth even, that means nothing happens, certainly not changing 'the economy' or putting something else in its place.

Contrary to obsolete philosophies based on the then-revolutionary 60's 'Limits to Growth' study, it's now clear that Economic Growth is *not* synonymous with resource depletion, pollution and distasteful consumerism. That's what Transition Towns, energy demand reduction, Buckminster Fuller/Jan Kaplicky more-with-less etc, are about. God save us from the puritans!

Posted By: ali.gillthe economy hasn't got us in this mess - the policy makers have under pressure from global business

And why is that? Because after millennia of accumulating, accelerating, self sustaining, self replicating trauma, the human race is in a trance. Don't blame 'them' - they're us! The cosmos, life, the planet, the zeitgeist, whatever, is shaking us - 'wake up!'

I agree, 20,000 pounds would pay for a good old knees up aye!!!!!

On the micro level its all doom and gloom for the time being until economies rebalance themselves from the debt inflated bubble.

On the macro level it is mission accomplished, Pound destroyed, say hello to the Euro wether you like it or not.

Asked today if they want the euro and the UK will say no, in 2 years time they will be begging to join.

Nothing can "save" the economy at the moment, it needs to be allowed to re-adjust, meaning houses prices and debt fuelled asset bubbles being allowed to deflate back to sustainable levels. It will be painful but thats the reality after the debt binge for the last 15 years.

Brown et all trying to "save" the economy by throwing billions of pounds of tax payers money at the banks and debtors will just prolonge the agony.

Technology and sustainable technology will be part of the new growth once the rot and toxicity has been allowed to flush out of the system but this will be a long process, nothing is going to happen tomorrow, more like in 10 years time.

The bubble was caused by the lax monetary policy of the central banks and their masters in government. You give a banker unlimited liquidity and tell him in, not so many words, that he'll get a bail out if he cocks up, why should we be suprised at how things turned out? This is human nature.

The problem is fiat money. This couldn't have happened if the world was on a gold standard because you can't expand the supply of gold quickly enough, i.e. countries and government have to live within their means. That means no structural trade or fiscal deficts can persist in the long term. Under a fiat system, Britain and America have used money borrowed against rising assets prices (which were only rising due to the increased money that was being created) to go on a consumption binge while out sourcing the productive sector of the economy to the Far East. It was just a giant ponzi scheme and it is ironic that Brown, a Labour PM, has presided over the worst of it in the Treasury all the time declaring he had ended boom and bust. What a jerk. He is just making things worse now.

We are in this mess because of an orgy of spending and borrowing. How can anyone think a further dose of the same can make things right? The right thing to do would be to rein in the central bankers, turn off the printing presses, cut government spending, cut taxes, reduce regulation, allow the bankrupt businesses and indivduals go the wall, i.e. work off the excess and then start over allowing the productive people in the economy to start some new businesses making real things and performing useful services (i.e. not shuffling pixcels in banks and government offices). Most people in this country think the government can solve everything but it is the Government that is causing the problems! The bloated state sector is an unproductive dead weight on the economy which is killing us all slowly.

The government has no money. The money it spends is just what it expropriates off the people either through taxes or the inflation it creates. Note that it is spending like there is no tomorrow right now, more than it can ever hope to recoup in taxes, i.e. it is embarked on a policy to debase the currency. Sterling is in the process of collapsing but all fiat currencies will also be debased eventually. This will show up in domestic inflation down the road. The savers and those on fixed incomes are those that will ultimately pay for the excesses of the Blair/Brown years. Great job fellas...

I would recommend Fred Harrison's book "Ricardo's Law; House Prices and the Great Tax Clawback Scam" to anyone who wants to understand why the welfare state, and the taxation that funds it, is actually a cover up devised by the landed classes to syphon off money from the poor into the pockets of the land owners. People like Brown are well meaning but they follow policies guaranteed to impoverish their own constituency, i.e. the working classes, and they don't even realise they're doing it.

Back to the point of the thread... we don't need any government schemes to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency. If we simply made polluters pay for the use of the atmosphere through a carbon tax, people would simply produce less pollution (i.e. invest in energy efficiency measures) and find other, non-polluting ways of generating energy (invest in renewables). Sometime the answer is so simple that people think it can't be the answer, but that doesn't mean it isn't...

You need to read the book... but, briefly, all the benefits of public investment feed through into land prices (think of the price of real estate in London where there are a lot of amenities, which attract businesses, which create employment opportunities etc etc, compared to the Highlands of Scotland). Hence, the major beneficiaries of public investment are land owners (that includes home owners).

The landless, such as the lady in your example, don't benefit in this way, but everybody pays through the tax system. Your non-working, single Mum is priced out of the job market by that tax system. Employers in her area simply can't offer her a job where they can pay her a wage sufficient to make it worth her while coming off benefit and where they can still make a profit (I'm assuming she is a low valued added worker because of lack of opportunity for training etc). Everybody pays but the land owners, passive rent seekers if you like, are the main beneficiaries.

The welfare state was a well meaning response to a market that seemed not to deliver to those on the margins of society. However, it treats the symptoms not the cause. If State investments were funded from a tax on the rents on land, this would re-establish the link between those who pay and those who benefit. My getting rid of other taxes, like the income tax, NI, corporation tax and VAT, the productivity of the economy would be enhanced bringing those on the margin into the economy and vastly reducing the requirement for welfare. House prices would also be a lot lower meaning you could work for a lot less at the bottom end of the scale and still make ends meet.

That's it, yes. I really think it is the key to a fairer society while also getting the State off people's backs.