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"Photovoltaic solar panels actually start paying for themselves right after installation," says Buzard. He estimates 10 solar panels in 235-watt sizes cost about $14,000 installed; add in a 30 percent federal credit, register for renewable energy credits and you pay for the system in less than 10 years.

For years, statistics have depicted growing income disparity in the United States, and it has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. In 2008, the last year for which data are available, for example, the top 0.1 percent of earners took in more than 10 percent of the personal income in the United States, including capital gains, and the top 1 percent took in more than 20 percent.

Since 2010, insurance companies had been turned essentially into public utilities with the feds setting strict minimum benefits requirements. The health reform bill also limited the administrative costs of insurers, which has ended up basically guaranteeing their profits. With competition all but outlawed, the increasingly consolidated insurance industry has had very little incentive to pay for new treatment regimens outside those specified by government standard-setting agencies. Federal government health agencies have been reluctant to authorize newer treatments because they often lead to higher insurance premiums that then must be subsidized by higher taxes. The seen aspect of health care reform is that it has had some success in providing more Americans with access to vintage 2010 medical therapies. The unseen aspect is that more people are suffering from and dying of diseases that might well have been cured had the Obama version of health care reform never been enacted. As a result of health care reform, Americans forfeited 2020 medicine in favor of more equal access to 2010 treatments.

essays in this book reflect pioneering efforts to study the global movement of ideas and institutions. They deal with topics of significant contemporary importance: initiatives to address the AIDS epidemic in East Africa; to protect the peoples and ecosystems of the Amazon; to advance the "truth and reconciliation" process in South Africa and in other areas of great conflict; to promote "civil society" in Eastern Europe and Central Asia; to advocate for environmental protection in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Japan; and to spread Rotary Clubs and encourage "social entrepreneurship" throughout the world. These essays highlight a wide range of research, paying close attention to the realities of particular situations and to current thinking about general processes.

Bloomberg's office says the new initiatives include plans to build solar power plants on capped landfills and launch a loan program to help property owners pay for green energy efficiency upgrades.

In his talk on Deep Optimism, Ridley presented a coherent, integrated, and astoundingly thorough case for progress in all degrees. For one easy-to-visual metric, Ridley showed how it takes less time each year to work for a constant benefit, say on hour of artificial light at night. It 1800 it took six hours of typical labor to purchase an hour's worth of candles, so few working people did. In 1880 it took fifteen minutes of work to purchase an hour's worth of kerosene for a lamp. In 1950 it took eight seconds of work to pay for an hour's electricity for a light bulb. In 1997, it took only half a second -- a blink -- of work to light a compact fluorescent bulb for an hour.