While there is general gloom right now about the American economy, Business Week says that economists and business leaders believe that innovation - new products, new services, new ways of doing business - can point to a return to prosperity. The article reviews the field of innovation economics in which economists are studying how companies can get better returns from spending on research and development and higher education.
Web Pick posted by CQ Staff
Wind power is booming, with capacity last year growing by 45 percent and wind power companies being bought and sold. The Atlantic displays an interesting map showing where the wind and the windmills are, but worries that the current optimism in the wind market may turn sour. It cites two problems: the poor capacity of transmission lines to carry the electricity from the sparsely inhabited, windy areas where it's generated to the big cities that need it, and the variability in supply caused by changes in the weather.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
The last time Indianapolis surveyed abandoned properties under its jurisdiction, the number came to 7,913. That was in 2003, before recent job losses, bankruptcies and foreclosures worsened the city's abandoned-housing problem. To speed up the process of turning abandoned houses back into residences, the city's land bank has launched an online listing of abandoned homes.
With gas prices soaring and the economy looking shaky, that BluRay player or 37-inch flat screen TV are looking somewhat less appealing. The Baltimore Sun reprints a Wall Street Journal article saying that, in the face of economic concerns, consumers are shifting their spending from the more expensive and slaking their techno-lust with items below $200, such as cheaper digital cameras or MP3 players.
