Steven Thorpe

A few key sentences from this article -

• Governments and utilities worldwide are likely to spend $200 billion on so-called smart grid initiatives by 2015, a development that promises greater energy efficiency on a global scale, but that is only a small step towards what could be done to use energy more efficiently.
• Right now, only a fifth of the energy we actually burn or otherwise generate for electricity is actually used.
• A smarter grid is the basic building block for such initiatives as electric and hybrid cars, and utility executives like Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, consider increasing efficiency a source of energy in and of itself.
• Bringing a full smart grid online in the United States alone is a $1 to $2 trillion proposition over the next couple of decades, according to research by Jackson Associates, and it will save $48 billion for the 200 largest U.S. utilities.
• Take, for instance, the Bush tax cuts of the early 2000s. That legislation cost $2.48 trillion from 2001-2010—enough to have already modernized our electric grid by now, if we’d chosen to invest it that way.
• Closer to our own time, the government will spend more money bailing out banks, AIG, General Motors and Chrysler than the entire world will spend on smart grid technology that could lay the groundwork for future growth and help mitigate the effects of global warming.

Read the full article here – http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/daily-brief/2009/12/29/smart-grid-spending-on-the-rise-but-not-enough/

NEW YORK (AFP) – Wall Street prepares to close out 2009 on an upbeat note with the market holding hefty gains from a stunning comeback following a disastrous start to the year.

The stock market enters the final week of trading at its highs for the year on the heels of a stunning nine-month rally that lifted the main indexes from their lowest levels in over a decade.

The final four trading days of the year in the upcoming holiday-shortened week are expected to see light activity and a favorable mood, with the market enjoying a so-called Santa Claus rally.

In the holiday week ending Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.85 percent to 10,520.10, its best level in nearly 15 months.

The tech-rich Nasdaq composite meanwhile rallied 3.35 percent to 2285.69 and the broad Standard & Poor’s 500 index advanced 2.18 percent to 1,126.48.

Fred Dickson, market strategist at DA Davidson & Co., said the mood on Wall Street should remain positive through the coming week.

“Trading activity should pick up next week as investors make last minute portfolio changes like tax-loss sales and portfolio rebalancing,” he said.

“We still expect to see the minor Santa Claus rally continue through New Year’s Eve.”

Continue reading – http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091225/bs_afp/stocksusweekly_20091225174912

Atlanta – The oft-cited credo that more guns equal more crime is being tested by facts on the ground this year: Even as gun ownership has surged in the US in the past year, violent crime, including murder and robbery, has dropped steeply. Add to that the fact that many experts had predicted higher crime rates as the US grinds through a difficult recession, and the discrepancy has advocates on both sides of the Second Amendment debate rushing to their ramparts. After several years of crime rates holding relatively steady, the FBI is reporting that violent crimes – including gun crimes – dropped dramatically in the first six months of 2009, with murder down 10 percent across the US as a whole. Concurrently, the FBI reports that gun sales – especially of assault-style rifles and handguns, two main targets of gun-control groups – are up at least 12 percent nationally since the election of President Obama, a dramatic run on guns prompted in part by so-far-unwarranted fears that Democrats in Congress and the White House will curtail gun rights and carve apart the Second Amendment. Pro-gun groups jumped at the FBI report, saying it disproves a long-running theory posited by gun-control groups and many in the mainstream media that gun ownership spawns crime and violence. “Anti-gunners have lost another one of their baseless arguments,” Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, told the Examiner’s Dave Workman.

Continue reading – http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20091223/ts_csm/270518

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US consumer spending rose as Americans enjoyed their biggest income gain in six months in November, government data showed Wednesday in a sign the economy is gaining steam following recession.

The Commerce Department said personal consumption expenditures climbed 0.5 percent in the penultimate month of 2009 fueled by spending on goods as retailers slashed prices to woo shoppers amid the year-end shopping season.

The spending jump was slightly lower than the revised 0.6 percent rise in October and the 0.7 percent anticipated by most economists.

The government data also showed personal income grew 0.4 percent in November, the fastest growth since May, following upwardly revised growth of 0.3 percent the prior two months.

Wage income of Americans climbed 0.3 percent, the largest growth since April.

Continue reading – http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091223/bs_afp/useconomyconsumerincomespending_20091223161228

Washington (CNN) — Facing year-end holidays and running out of time to discuss health care reform, the Senate voted early Friday to end debate on funding for the Department of Defense.

The motion passed 63 to 33, gaining the necessary 60-vote majority to avoid a GOP filibuster. It also will set up a final vote on the $636 billion package on Saturday.

The House of Representatives passed the spending bill 395 to 34 on Wednesday. The measure includes money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but does not include the additional costs expected for the 30,000 U.S. troops the Obama administration announced it will send to Afghanistan next year. A separate request for those troops is expected to come up for a vote next spring.

The defense bill is the last spending measure of the year for both chambers of Congress.

Continue reading – http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/18/senate.defense/

The Obama Nobel Peace Prize is seen as inappropriate by many Arabs, who are angry about the surge of US troops into Afghanistan and a stagnant Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Beirut, Lebanon – In Arab eyes, President Barack Obama collected his Nobel Peace Prize Thursday in Oslo at an ill-timed moment.

Days before the president departed for the prize-giving ceremony, he announced that 30,000 more American troops would be dispatched to Afghanistan, a move seemingly at odds with his status as a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and one that angers Muslims throughout the world. In addition, the Israeli-Palestinian peace track is festering two months after Obama yielded to Israel’s refusal to implement a total settlement freeze in the occupied Palestinian territories, settling instead for a 10-month partial freeze

“He is a disappointment. He has done nothing,” says Khodr Hayek, a businessman in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of southern Beirut, an area of staunch support for the militant Shiite Hezbollah. “If he was serious, he should have done something by now. He said Israel shouldn’t build settlements, but the Israelis didn’t care. No one is listening to him.”

Continue reading – http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1210/p06s12-wome.html