By John Mecklin – Startup companies developing new technologies need to be at the heart of plans for creating the “green” boom the U.S. needs to help transform it into a 21st-century economic superpower. But as practice has shown, successful government investment in innovation is rare and a much more complicated process than just throwing money to the VCs.
“… if you want to find best practices [in government support of entrepreneurship], you have to look outside the U.S.” For every Hewlett-Packard — nurtured with government contracts during World War II — there is a long and dark history of incompetence (and worse) surrounding government entrepreneurial-development programs.
Whenever the government passes money directly to business or the supporters of business, politics can and does intervene, and money meant to grow new industries gets passed out on the basis of legislative districts or campaign contributions rather than business potential, and the incentives turn. VCs and startups stop trying to create a great company and start focusing on prying ever more money from the government. Continue reading
By Erin McCune – For some truly compelling, thoughtful discussion of the credit crisis look back at the resources indexed 
