Stimulus for a green economy

The calls for a stimulus for green technologies are getting louder. Obama himself said we need to fund them to have a win win of jobs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. People are asking therefore why a bail out for a failed industry (US cars) and not for innovation. Joseph Stiglitz says in the NY Times:

“I’ve been a bit astonished that all the discussion around the private-sector stimulus has centered on infrastructure. Bailouts, too, are aimed at correcting mistakes of the past, so they are backward-looking. We would be much better off spending our money forward-looking. If we spend $700 billion on new technology and innovation, we’d have a stronger, new, real economy. Up to now, the discussion has focused on the sectors that have been mismanaged rather than the sectors that are creating our future.”