It's a recession! You have to spend to help us get our economy back on track! No wait, you're supposed to save, because you have too much debt and all that spending is what got us into this mess in the first place. But if you save, you and everyone else will help drive the economy even farther down and you might lose your job. Makes perfect sense.

This great article in the NY Times by David Leonhardt last week pointed out these mixed messages.

"John Maynard Keynes, the great 20th-century economist, would have appreciated the apparent absurdity in these mixed messages. He coined a phrase, "the paradox of thrift," to point out that what was rational for an individual during hard times - saving money - could be ruinous for an entire economy. Eventually, many of the savers may end up out of work because everyone else is saving, too."

He goes on to suggest that the solution is to spend now on things that save you money later. Sounds like energy efficiency to me and it works for consumers, businesses, and the federal government. I am turning into a broken record on this, but the new administration clearly understands the value of efficiency, having recently stepped up to the plate on appliance standards and pushed for the inclusion of efficiency funds in the Economic Recovery Bill.  Mr. Leonhardt agrees,

"The ideas here don't apply only to individuals, either. They apply to the stimulus package as well. The federal government is set to spend $800 billion to stimulate the economy. Much of that money will necessarily go to tax rebates, unemployment benefits and other programs without much long-term benefit. But $800 billion is a lot of money. And the best forms of stimulus are the ones that take effect quickly and bring a long-term payoff. That can mean tax credits for home weatherization or money to pay for the installation of computerized medical records - two programs that are still in the stimulus bill."

The article sets up the economic case for why we absolutely have to scale up the building retrofit industries. Combine this case with the energy and environmental benefits and its clear that this is a step ladder out of economic turmoil. We have around 110 million homes and 4.8 million commercial buildings. Inefficiency in these buildings is a drag on our economy. If we invest in making the existing building stock more efficient we make our money back in a few years (and profit after that), create jobs immediately, and stimulate our economy. And we won't run out of work, because even if we were ever successful in retrofitting all the buildings in the country, new technologies would be introduced into a burgeoning market to show us the way to the next level of efficiency.