January 16th, 2008 · 1 Comment

A: Seventy percent of our economy is based on consumer spending. … So when you have very prominent environmentalist saying that green consumerism is an oxymoron, I think that’s a slightly naïve point of view… To stop consumerism, you stop the economy. Then what are our jobs, how do we pay our mortgages? Involving our economy and our society is essential. We’re not going back in time. So we have to develop new industries. We have to move forward.

Q: Give me a better sense of what you mean. Are you talking re-tooling the economy?

A: Absolutely. We could transform our economy. My hope is that this is what we begin to understand in 2008. We begin to look at some of the initiatives that are underway. For example, in Pennsylvania – where, over last summer, contracts were finally agreed to between former steel workers and Gemasa (Spanish wind turbine builders) to open two wind turbine mills in Pennsylvania. So you have 20th century steel jobs that are gone, and they’re not coming back. And now, in 21st century, we’re creating jobs that are now about building new technology. Union jobs with benefits. Now would be the time to do this.

Q: But what about the auto industry? The Big Three? Are they jumping aboard and can they move quickly enough?

A: That’s one of the challenges – the Big Three. They’re managerially backwards, so it takes years to make a small decision. I can say this because I spent months working for Delphi Auto systems, which supplied auto parts to General Motors… I saw how long it takes to make the tiniest decision that will help the business. Managerially they’re not run efficiently. But there’s a number of people who are saying the auto industry is changing. I think 10 years from now, we’ll will definitely see the changes.

Q: What else? What other sectors can revamp, shift gears?

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