I’m trying something different this week on the blog, in part because I’m on vacation. Recently, I had the great pleasure of attending a retreat for journalists organized by the Murray Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis. The event was held on Cape Cod, at the lovely Wianno Club in Osterville, Mass., and while time was set aside for golf, tennis or sightseeing, we engaged in a lot of learning, discussion and debate with economists and political scientists from the Weidenbaum Center and elsewhere.
I spent time there with a bunch of smart, interesting and lively people, including two economists, Steven Fazzari, who teaches at Wash U., and Russ Roberts, who teaches at George Mason and hosts one of my favorite podcasts, EconTalk. Steve is a Keynesian and Russ is a libertarian, so I thought it would he interesting to talk to them about the Obama administration’s aggressive efforts to promote clean energy and create green jobs. We discussed the U.S. Department of Energy’s recent decision to make $8 billion in loans to Ford, Nissan and Tesla “for the development of innovative, advanced vehicle technologies that will create thousands of green jobs while helping reduce the nation’s dangerous dependence on foreign oil.”
Today’s blogpost explains why Steve Fazzari thinks this is a good idea. Tomorrow, we’ll hear from Russ, is pretty sure that it isn’t.
Cape Cod sky photographed by Russ Roberts
Ask Steve Fazzari what he thinks about the government loan program for electric and fuel-efficient cars, and he says:
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