America's R.V. Manufacturing Capital Hit Hard

Experts and Workers Agree: Bailout Failed

Small entrepreneurs like Bill Keith are giddy over the possibility. A few years back he invented a solar-powered attic fan that uses the sun to cool the home. The growth of his small SunRise Solar Co. has been staggering thanks to states that offer tax incentives to homeowners who use "green energy."

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"In areas where a utility company might give a rebate towards the instillation of a fan like this, we can barely keep the stuff in stock," he says. "So if that were a federal thing as well? We would just take off like gangbusters."

While workers retrain, readjust and reprint another batch of resumes waiting for all these plans to materialize, there is one thing both Nobel winners and RV workers agree on: the current bail-out strategy is doing nothing to create new jobs.

"I have every reason for confidence in the American people and our institutions but people can't do it on their own," says Stiglitz. "They need help. So while we've been giving help to bailing our failed institutions, the big banks, we've not been giving help to ordinary Americans to help them make the transition. Think about what $350 billion would have meant is we had used those to increase productivity of America's labor force, training, education."