Alternative Energy in Maine
futureofcapitalism.com

The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting has a wonderful dispatch on how the Maine State Housing Authority spent $1.1 million from the federal Department of Health and Human Services to pay to install alternative energy systems in the homes of low-income Maine residents:

in all but one of the five alternative systems installed, the energy use — primarily electricity — went up, or down too little, to justify the cost of the new energy systems....

To help poor families save on electricity and heating oil, MSHA contracted with a vendor to install solar panels to heat hot water at 10 homes from Belgrade to Rockland.

Each installation cost $7,500.

Read More...

Maine Revolving Door
futureofcapitalism.com

The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting has an article about how six or seven (depending on how one counts) officials from the administration of the former governor of Maine, Democrat John Baldacci, have gotten relatively high-paying jobs at the University of Maine. Some of them bypassed the usual search processes and some of them lacked the degrees that are supposed to be required for the jobs. "Excluding benefits, the annual payroll for the seven positions is $898,000," the article says. Yet another reason that it's so important to keep that government-subsidized student loan rate nice and low.

Read More...

Maine Revolving Door
futureofcapitalism.com

The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting has an article about how six or seven (depending on how one counts) officials from the administration of the former governor of Maine, Democrat John Baldacci, have gotten relatively high-paying jobs at the University of Maine. Some of them bypassed the usual search processes and some of them lacked the degrees that are supposed to be required for the jobs. "Excluding benefits, the annual payroll for the seven positions is $898,000," the article says. Yet another reason that it's so important to keep that government-subsidized student loan rate nice and low.

Read More...

Alternative Energy in Maine
futureofcapitalism.com

The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting has a wonderful dispatch on how the Maine State Housing Authority spent $1.1 million from the federal Department of Health and Human Services to pay to install alternative energy systems in the homes of low-income Maine residents:

in all but one of the five alternative systems installed, the energy use — primarily electricity — went up, or down too little, to justify the cost of the new energy systems....

To help poor families save on electricity and heating oil, MSHA contracted with a vendor to install solar panels to heat hot water at 10 homes from Belgrade to Rockland.

Each installation cost $7,500.

Read More...