Google goes green

Google Invests in Green with Renewable Energy Initiative | Epicenter from Wired.com
By Bryan Gardiner EmailNovember 27, 2007 |

Having gained a certain degree of expertise in developing and designing its own energy efficient data centers, Google thinks it’s in a position to help spur on the adoption of even more renewable energy sources.

The Mountain View company announced on Tuesday a new research and development group whose mandate will be to continue to develop electricity from renewable energy sources much cheaper (and cleaner) than coal. The new initiative, dubbed Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal, will primarily target energy sources like advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies and enhanced geothermal, according to Google co-founder Larry Page, and the company plans to shell out tens of millions of dollars in 2008 on R&D and related investments.

Google also said it anticipates investing hundreds of millions of dollars in other renewable energy projects which the company also hopes will generate positive returns.

LA Times: How low will home prices go?

Homeowners’ big question: How low will prices go? – Los Angeles Times
By Peter Y. Hong, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 27, 2007

For most of this decade, skyrocketing home values were a frequent topic whenever people gathered along soccer sidelines or at backyard barbecues. But the conversation has taken an about-face, noted Jeff Vendley, a Ventura mortgage broker who is trying to sell two Oxnard town houses he bought in 2004 and 2005.

Now, he said, people are wondering, “How low we can go?”

No one knows how severe the slump will be, but economists and real estate experts interviewed by The Times, and who were willing to make predictions, said prices could fall 15% to 25% before turning back up.

Most said values would continue falling through at least next year, and some thought the market wouldn’t reverse course until 2010.

That could translate to big declines for home buyers who bought at the peak of the market, which various measures place in late 2006 or early 2007.

Jittery consumers seem likely to trigger a recession

Just remember all you jittery consumers out there, if we dip into a recession, it will be you who pulled the trigger. The economy is depending on you. And you are about to let us down. What are you thinking? One HDTV is enough? What about the basement and the kid’s rooms? Surely you have a few more thousand to go before all your cards are maxed out. Buck up. Nothing like a little debt to build character.

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Jittery consumers seem likely to trigger a recession – Nov. 25, 2007
Don’t look now: Here comes the recession
By Colin Barr, senior writer

NEW YORK (Fortune) — The cash registers were ringing on Black Friday, but make no mistake: American consumers are jittery, and seem all but certain to push the U.S. economy into recession.

After years of living happily beyond their means, Americans are finally facing financial reality. A persistent rise in energy prices will mean bigger heating bills this winter and heftier tabs at the gas pump. Job growth is slowing and wage gains have been anemic. House prices are sliding, diminishing the value of the asset that’s the biggest factor in Americans’ personal wealth. Even the stock market, which has been resilient for so long in the face of eroding consumer sentiment, has begun pulling back amid signs of deep distress in the financial sector….

With consumer spending accounting for about three-quarters of U.S. economic activity, some economists say it is inevitable that the economy will stop growing at some point in the coming year, for the first time since the mild recession of 2001. “Right now, the question is how bad it’s going to get,” said David Rosenberg, chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch. “The question is one of magnitude.”