Energy revolution keeps carbon on top

A remarkable thing happened in Silicon Valley during the past decade. Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs set their sights on clean energy as the Next Big Thing. They audaciously hoped to reinvent energy by harnessing the incredible innovation that had transformed information technology and biotechnology. Some of the best venture capitalists in the business, including my friends Bill Joy and Vinod Khosla, detached from their computing roots and focused on energy startups. The result was a stag

Nov. 3, 2011

Others pay price for Corzine’s risky revenge

In the end, Jon Corzine was little more than an unsupervised rogue trader. His disproportionately reckless $6.3 billion bet on the credit quality of a few European nations bankrupted MF Global Holdings Ltd. over the course of three dramatic days after the short-term credit markets quickly lost confidence in him and his firm. His gamble will cost MF’s shareholders and creditors billions of dollars and, virtually overnight, put the careers of MF’s almost 3,000 employees in jeopardy. MF Global now

Nov. 2, 2011

The Obama miracle, a White House free of scandal

President Barack Obama goes into the 2012 with a weak economy that may doom his reelection. But he has one asset that hasn’t received much attention: He’s honest. The sight of Texas Governor Rick Perry tumbling out of the clown car recently as a “birther” (or at least a birther-enabler) is a sign of weakness, not just for the Perry campaign but for the whole Republican effort to tarnish the president’s character. Although it’s possible that the Solyndra LLC story will become a classic feeding fr

Nov. 2, 2011

Targeting immigrants is a losing strategy

Republican presidential candidates are foolishly jockeying to see who can be the harshest on undocumented immigrants.Michelle Bachmann has called for sealing the U.S.-Mexico border with a double wall. Not to be outdone, Herman Cain has called for an electrified fence backed by military personnel armed with live rounds (though he later said the electrified fence was a joke). And Rick Perry wants more drones in the sky.These positions reveal a cruel disregard for basic human rights and invite a ca

Nov. 1, 2011

The rich got richer ― and so did most Americans

In the political and economic climate created by consistently high unemployment and shaken by the Occupy Wall Street movement, last week’s Congressional Budget Office report on trends in U.S. household income had the effect of pouring kerosene on a bonfire. The report’s most striking finding, that “for the 1 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007,” led to apocalyptic predictions not just from those at Z

Nov. 1, 2011

Fenced-in thinking

A record number of immigrants were deported in fiscal 2011. You’d think that would be greeted as good news by Republicans, who have repeatedly demanded that the Obama administration crack down on illegal immigration. But it won’t be. The latest numbers, released last week, are unlikely to sway the current field of Republican presidential hopefuls, who steadfastly refuse to discuss fixing the broken immigration system, arguing that only stricter enforcement, tougher penalties and a 100 percent se

Nov. 1, 2011

Islamist victory in Tunisia is a win for democracy

It’s official: The Islamists have won the Arab Spring. And the result was as inevitable as it is promising. Last week’s elections in Tunisia gave more than 41 percent of the vote ― a solid plurality ― to the Islamic democrats of the Ennahdha party. The only secularist group that actively campaigned against the Islamists in the race for seats in the constituent assembly, the Progressive Democratic Party, got an embarrassing 17 seats in the 217-member assembly. On the surface, the Islamists’ succe

Nov. 1, 2011

Credit-default swap risk bomb is wired to explode

The European sovereign debt crisis stands as the latest in a long line of similar crises. Argentina in 2001. Russia in 1998. Mexico in 1994. The list goes back into history. Debt crises are about as natural as earthquakes, but this time there is something different -- and possibly more dangerous. The European nations are linked in a network of debts, as Bill Marsh recently illustrated in the New York Times with a beautiful piece of graphic art. Greece and Italy are prominent; Ireland, Portugal a

Oct. 31, 2011

A French Manifesto to Unite Occupy Wall Street

You’ve got to love the French. The best-selling book on Amazon.com’s French site is “Indignez-vous!,” an exceedingly slim, elegant rumination on the state of the world by Stephane Hessel, a 94-year-old former United Nations diplomat, concentration-camp survivor and hero of the French Resistance. The 32-page book, with about 4 million copies in print in 30 languages -- including a just-published English version titled “Time for Outrage” -- is clearly meant to serve as a timely blueprint for non-v

Oct. 31, 2011

Obama’s housing rescue plan

The Obama administration has stepped up efforts to help homeowners refinance their mortgages, potentially bringing relief to millions of those who owe more than their homes are worth. It’s an overdue step that should boost consumer spending, even if it may not avert a huge number of foreclosures. The latter problem requires more aggressive and effective loan modifications, which banks and investors have been reluctant to do ― to their own detriment.The collapse of the housing market has left an

Oct. 31, 2011

‘Single ladies’ not giving up on marriage

Alongside The Atlantic magazine’s November cover story, “All the Single Ladies,” runs a photograph of its 39-year-old author. In a fawn-colored silk dress and up-do, Kate Bolick contemplatively sips champagne as a bridal bouquet flies over her head.Like many of her never-married peers, she’s scrupulously ignoring the traditional toss. Indeed, as the age of first marriage climbs higher, more single wedding-goers are evading the bouquet, having years ago disproved the catch confirms the next bride

Oct. 31, 2011

Yes to the smart-grid bill for accountability

Considering how Illinois lawmakers tend to vote first and ask questions later, it’s good to see the so-called smart-grid bill getting put through the wringer.This legislation would clear the way for Commonwealth Edison and Ameren to make high-tech upgrades in the electricity network that will more than pay for themselves in coming years. It would streamline an inefficient regulatory process and encourage investment in an aging infrastructure that is acutely vulnerable to outages ― as many Illino

Oct. 30, 2011