No matter how many Republicans bang tables, there are clear indications of change in Washington and they were on full display in the Senate Banking Committee hearing Lionheart full movie yesterday

Chairman Sen. Dodd provided the first evidence by saying that the transportation, housing and energy departments should share information and coordinate efforts because they presently stovepipe efforts in what are really overlapping and interdependent areas.

Activists have long championed this wisdom but when was the last time you heard a Senate Committee Chairman say it?  We are closer to rational national planning than we have been in 50 years. The auto industry is no position to push people around.  Even Republicans say we need to get off foreign oil and Democrats have gotten over their fear of talking about climate change.

These are truly different times.

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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood provided the next evidence when he called for Congress to end the highway bias in transportation funding.  Applying for highway funds is very streamlined and efficient but when a city or state seeks public transportation funding they face a daunting bureaucratic process that can take months, years and even decades to complete.

For example, Minneapolis/St. Paul began building its very successful light rail system in the early ’70s.  A quick 32 years later, it was complete.

The last big piece of evidence was when Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper spoke persuasively about public transportation as an engine of economic development.  85% of our jobs and 90% of GNP is generated in urban areas that grow more congested and expensive each year.

He said that when you consider performance metrics and take into account externalities, such as congestion, fuel cost and environmental impact, the choice for public transportation is clear.

But transportation funding decisions often get made by representatives from low density areas whose citizens don’t see the benefits.  But taking people off the roads and improving the efficiency of society and lowering our environmental impact directly benefits everybody.

A Western politician championing the city over the country?  The changes are withering.

Perhaps most interesting,  Mayor Hickenlooper said that the process of building the train taught local cities and towns how to work together. The collaborative nature of fast track rails gave traditionally separate municipalities the skills to share resources. The same towns are now starting to share fire, police, sewage and water systems, resulting in tax savings of up to $250 millions a year in Denver alone.

This is clear evidence that America can rebuilt itself in new, cleaner ways that benefit all residents. It also suggests that the blustering denials of the oil, car and coal industry really are just self-interested whining.

And the fact that this is finally happening in our government means that real change is occurring.  None of us should be fooled by Senator McCain’s myopic focus on 2% of budget.

McKinsey Quarterly just published this interview in which Economist Nicholas Stern says that we should use the economic crisis to address climate change.

“We need to have a reflationary package, which lays the foundation for future growth. And if we look into the future, it’s actually quite exciting. Because what we see is the biggest technological opportunity that we’ve had for a very long time: as big as the railways, as big as electricity, as big as the motorcar, and, most recently, information technology. It’s the opportunity to go for low-carbon growth.”

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The blogosphere’s theme for the remainder of 2009 should be the Rahm Doctrine. Clearly we are in the middle of a pretty major economic crisis. Hopefully it won’t last much longer than 2009.  I also think we are in the middle of a more subtle social crisis that will likely go on for much longer. Don’t believe me? Think about the climate, income inequality, healthcare, increasing global conflict, rising food prices.

With so much in the way of crisis going on right now, according to the Rahm Doctrine at least, there should be plenty of opportunities. Especially for entrepreneurs.We’ve already highlighted a few of these opportunities, and will continue to do so.  Other bloggers are doing the same (everyone from Gary Vaynerchuk to Paul Krugman)

President Obama in his weekly address this morning confirmed this belief. What we’re going to see in the coming months is a global willingness to try new ideas out, mostly because many of the old ideas are broken. And we’re already seeing signs of it.  Americas workforce is switching sectors. We are investing in our homes to increase their efficiency (and stave off loss in value). For a great article on what some of the coming changes could be, check out this months Atlantic.

And if you have your own ideas of opportunities within crisis please share them with us. One of our favorites is here.

Branding a city

Brian Lehrer had a fascinating piece today on how the public sector took on a private sector strategy to save New York during the 1970’s. The city invested in Branding. Faced with a failing economy, rising crimes rates and a bad reputation New York officials created the iconic campaign “I Love NY”.

My main takeaway from the piece was the comment Miriam Greenberg made about branding. She said that branding is a combination of both marketing and material, that you need more than just a great message. I completely agree.

There’s a lot of discussion about what companies and governments should invest in during these times. There’s healthcare, or education, or infrastructure. If anyone said branding, I bet the suggestion was widely dismissed.  But if you take Ms. Greenberg’s use of the term, its really not such a bad idea.  Branding helps people identify with products and if anything needs support of the people right now, its the economy. Its our cities and local businesses.  Its going to be the new products.

So for every project that we are launching, stimulus or not, lets make sure we put a solid branding effort into it too.

A lesson for the public and private sector alike.

I was catching up on old episodes of marketplace and heard a piece on the cotton industry and the subsidies they receive in order to keep up with China.  That’s usually enough to send me foaming at the mouth. Subsidies hurt small businesses,  and distort our expectations.  However, the end of the interview brought some insight from Blanton Godfrey (College of Textiles at N.C. State) that gave me hope for the American entrepreneur.

Historically, the US textile industry has been subsidized through import caps.  This helps limit supply and artificially float the price so that American Producers and Chinese producers are roughly at the same price. In the short run this might seem like a good thing, but in the long run there are significant costs.

Although textile production in the US has long been shrinking, it’s also been getting more specialized. Instead of socks and underwear, our producers now make specialized fabrics that are used in fire retardant tents for the US Airforce. Read the rest of this entry »

When I read the news on Thursday and Friday, I was wondering if the new Economic Recovery Advisory Panel is too little too late.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like.

To start, I’m a big fan of the entire concept of outside advisory panels. Their interests are likely to be different and more general than your own. They’ll help you vet any idea that you would like to test, and prevent the momentum of any idea promote too much group think. In essence its supposed to be what of Board of Directors is supposed to be.

Aside from keeping you sane and honest, outside panels will help you push the edges of what you were considering before, hence why they are useful at new product introduction. They’ll be able to inject new ideas, or help you evolve an “ok” idea into a useful one.

In addition, I’m impressed by the composition. Jeffrey Immlet (GE’s CEO), Paul Voehlker (former head of the Fed) even Martin Feldstien (who in 2008 supported Senator McCain’s tax plan). It’s a group of people who will bring more than one perspective to the table. They come from labor, industry and government.  I think this will help the President better understand the risks any economic intervention might bring, as well as any hidden benefits. They also carry enough credibility to help garner the support of some of the more skeptical voices.

The Boxer full movie However, where was this team while the stimulus  bill was being formulated and debated? Did they have any input? Are they supporting this major stimulus effort? Why wasn’t the panel formed any earlier? We may never really know, as the stimulus bill will probably get pushed through before this new team has any chance to say anything. What’s the point of an outside advisory panel if they don’t get to advise you on your most important actions? It makes me wonder if this announcement is just posturing.
Planet Money had a hard time finding an economist who could really stand by the current stimulus bill. Yes, most economists all know we need a big injection. But if anything, they are claiming what is on table is too small and too scattered.

There is a new tool for alleviating global poverty - capitalism.  Individuals such as Kickstart’s founder Martin Fisher focus on affordable technologies that address the economic conditions of the recipients.  Mosquito nets, oral re-hydration therapy and vaccines are excellent interventions for stemming specific ailments but they are less affective at addressing the underlying causes of poverty.

The idea is to move away from large charitable efforts and towards small scale products designed to meet local needs and provide people with the resources they need to make money.

Kickstart’s website says it clearly enough, “Poverty is caused by a lack of money.”

Laureen Wilcox, of WorldArk, lays out three rules for this emerging movement of design for development. A product should:

1. Increase income - most poor people are entrepreneurs by necessity and a tool that increase their income is a path to local investment in everything from education to sanitation.
2. Be affordable - the tools must be within the reach of the end user, yet should not be free.  The programme avoids having to decide who receives one and the pride of ownership provides the user with added incentive to achieve.
3. Be scalable - Individuals should be able to acquire the technology cheaply yet its capabilities should grow with their success. The goal is to not just improve people’s condition but to provide a path for a new and sustainable life.

Helping people build their own success on their own terms may prove to one of the most life changing methodologies.  Efforts like Kickstart and MIT’s DLab should be supported but they need to work in tandem with traditional advocacy efforts.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to recognize environmental leaders in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, “U.S. Virgin Islands and tribal nations within the region’s jurisdiction.”  I am not making this up. EPA Region 1 somehow covers these dis-contiguous areas but the award is real.  You only get a plaque but it will be presented during this years Earth Day celebration.  There is no cash but the publicizing the achievements will spread the awareness of the new knowledge.

If you know of a company or individual in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico or the tribal nations who should be recognized, submit their name to the EPA.

For instance, we submitted ioby.org for their efforts to support independent, locally-based community efforts that will change the environment. The site connects people to the projects that are happening right next door. People can take part in real projects that will positively affect their own neighborhoods.  Neighborhoods will also be connected to other neighborhoods to pools resources and best pratices. ioby uses the power of social networks to connect people to each so they can make change together.

The Baseline Scenario had a somewhat snarky post this morning about the Annual World Economic Forum at Davos. Unfortunately, the sarcasm isn’t far from the truth. Davos is a joke. Current models for global coordination just aren’t effective. As Simon puts it, the important people are “stuck at home, doing real work.”

The last thing I remember hearing about Davos was something about various celebrities asking for pledges to combat AIDS and poverty. The UN can’t do much besides pass a series of resolutions that are usually ignored. And the WTO managed to let the Doha rounds collapse.

That isn’t to say that we should do away with all global agencies. Read the rest of this entry »

That our greatest challenges are our best opportunities for a sustainable future, if we all work together.

There are enough blogs today commenting on the beginning of a new era and the renewal of the American spirit. It’s enough to say that I by and large agree with them.

However, for Salvage this is a particularly poignant time.  Salvage is about harnessing the power of the diverse units that make up a community under a common purpose- a unity of purpose, as some have put it. We have been circling around this topic for sometime with our network of partners as a way to innovate and grow despite limited resources. Our network must now turn this conversation into a mandate and combine our collective efforts.

Salvage Research will be continuing to produce content, broad and deep, that covers how communities are able to come together and create new social capital. The next four years are sure to produce many chances for us to test and prove our hypothesis. We hope you all join us.