Innovation, the cure to the recession?

Don Peck argues in "How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America" that the key to economic growth is innovation. "Some laid-off employees become entrepreneurs, working on ideas that have been ignored by corporate bureaucracies, while sclerotic firms in declining industries fail, making way for nimbler enterprises." This is certainly not a new idea and seems intuitively correct, so one has to wonder how the Obama administration would respond to such an assertion. Many opponents to the bailouts of the auto industry cited such arguments. Get rid of the old and make room for the new, they said, but the Obama industry seems torn between saving the old while hoping to find room for the new.

The Obama administration, like many democratic administrations before it, has been heavily involved in attempting to regulate/spur the economy, but the actions the administration both appear to agree and disagree with the idea of innovation spurring the economy. Why then would the administration both advocate for new technologies, green energies, etc. while fighting tooth and nail to keep the struggling auto industry afloat? How can innovation happen without making room for such new technologies?

In order for this economy to recover, new jobs must be created, in order for new jobs to be created, new business, ventures, enterprises must be created. The best source of these new jobs: new technologies and green initiatives. Several news articles touted how impressed Obama was of Japan's technological advances at a recent trip to the country and he stated later how behind the United States was. I agree, Mr. President, we are behind, so out with the old, and in with the new.