A Possible Solution to the Mortgage Crisis

Came across this one on Mankiw's blog as well (... someone has been stealing my WSJ's each morning before I can pick them up outside). Martin Feldstein, a professor at Harvard and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors for Reagan, had an opinion article in the WSJ yesterday that outlined a possible solution to the mortgage crisis. Criteria for the plan is: don't shift burden to taxpayers, don't force banks to eat all the losses, and create an incentive for homeowners to stay in their homes.

The idea is that the US government would provide loans to homeowners up to 20% of their mortgage amount, with a 15 year pay-back period and adjustable interest rate based on the two-year treasury note. The whole thing would be funded by selling more two-year treasury notes. This would obviously not stop anyone from walking away from their home if they have negative equity, but it might prompt those that are worried about that scenario happening to them in the future to stick around in their homes - and would allow them to avoid foreclosure.

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Biofuels May Hinder Anitglobal-Warming Efforts

Read an interesting article a couple weeks back in the WSJ on how biofuels may actually increase carbon emissions in the medium to long-term. Apprently the shifts in land-use necessary to support the production of bio-materials like soybeans, corn, or palm could in fact release more carbon emissions. The time it takes to get carbon-neutral on some of these projects is pretty crazy - 319 years for soybean biodiesel from Brazil (assuming you're clearing rainforest), 93 years for corn ethanol from the U.S. (assuming you're clearing grasslands), 86 years for palm biodiesel from Indonesia (assuming you're clearing rainforest). I suppose biofuels really aren't meant to reduce carbon emissions, but just crazy that they potentially exacerbate the problem so much.

Nine Prescriptions for Building the Duke Entrepreneurial Community

I think Duke can have one of the strongest entrepreneurial communities in the world. Are we there yet? Well, not yet. But there's a tremendous amount of momentum that I saw build in just the past two years while I was getting my MBA at Duke. While leading Duke's 10th annual business plan competition, the Duke Start-Up Challenge (DSC) , last year, I witnessed a near doubling of participation on campus in just a single year. The interest on the ground was clearly there and building rapidly. But now that I'm an alum, I'm looking back and wondering ... how do we rev-up the Duke entrepreneurial community even more? I read a great article by Daniel Isenberg, a professor of management at Babson, called " How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution " in the June edition of the Harvard Business Review. Isenberg outlines nine prescriptions for governments that want to create entrepreneurship ecosystems in their countries. Although he was focused on governments an...

Wi-Fi for the Third World

Read an article in Forbes about a venture called WiLDNet that is providing low-cost, long-distance wireless internet access to the Third World. The initiative is being run by the Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions ( TIER ) group at UC Berkeley headed by Eric Brewer (founder of Inktomi). It can transmit up to 60 miles using just 8 watts of electricity (a solar panel can run it) at cable modem speeds and costs only $400. One hospital is using it to deliver telemedicine in India. Very cool use of technology.

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