The problem with talking about jobs-per-kilowatt hour.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The details of President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus plan for early next year are not yet drafted, but one thing is clear: Obama wants a lot of the stimulus focused on creating "green jobs."

A supposed benefit of technology like wind power and solar power is that it creates more jobs per kilowatt hour than investments in other industries. So if you want to tackle the environment and unemployment, why not plow money into whichever green technology creates the most jobs per kilowatt hour?

A recent report from the Center for American Progress, the liberal Washington think tank with many of its scholars now helping develop policy for the Obama administration, cites this as one of the most compelling reasons for a "Green Recovery." CAP claims that its $100 billion plan would "create nearly four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry and 300,000 more jobs than a similar amount of spending directed toward household consumption."

The American Wind Energy Association claims it is wind power that creates the most jobs per kilowatt hour. One oft-cited statistic is that there are 27% more jobs per kilowatt-hour from wind than from coal, and 66% more from wind than from natural gas.

Is that true? And does that make it good policy?

"I'm not sure how clearly it's been empirically demonstrated," says Kenneth Green, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "To the extent it's true, it illustrates these technologies aren't that efficient."

Green says this focus looks an awful lot like the "broken window fallacy." The fallacy is this: A kid throws a rock through a shopkeeper's window and therefore has helped the economy by creating work for window makers. If he breaks windows every night, he might even create a job for a janitor to clean up the shards.

The Chinese government is stirring trade tensions with Washington with a plan to require foreign computer security technology to be submitted for government approval, in a move that might require suppliers to disclose business secrets.

Rules due to take effect May 1 require official certification of technology widely used to keep e-mail and company data networks secure. Beijing has yet to say how many secrets companies must disclose about such sensitive matters as how data-encryption systems work. But Washington complains the requirement might hinder imports in a market dominated by U.S. companies, and is pressing Beijing to scrap it.

"There are still opportunities to defuse this, but it is getting down to the wire," said Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China Ltd., a Beijing technology consulting firm. "It affects trade. It's potentially really wide-scale."

Beijing tried earlier to force foreign companies to reveal how encryption systems work and has promoted its own standards for mobile phones and wireless encryption.

Those attempts and the new demand reflect Beijing's unease about letting the public keep secrets, and the government's efforts to use its regulatory system to help fledgling Chinese high-tech companies compete with global high-tech rivals. Yin Changlai, the head of a Chinese business group sanctioned by the government, has acknowledged that the rules are meant to help develop China's infant computer security industry by shielding companies from foreign rivals that he said control 70 percent of the market.

The computer security rules cover 13 types of hardware and software, including database and network security systems, secure routers, data backup and recovery systems and anti-spam and anti-hacking software. Such technology is enmeshed in products sold by Microsoft Corp. (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), Cisco Systems Inc. (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ) and other industry giants.

Giving regulators the power to reject foreign technologies could help to promote sales of Chinese alternatives. But that might disrupt foreign manufacturing, research or data processing in China if companies have to switch technologies or move operations to other countries to avoid the controls. Requiring disclosure of technical details also might help Beijing read encrypted e-mail or create competing products.

Fighting the financial crisis has put the U.S. on the hook for some $5 trillion a report says. So far.

For all the fury over Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion emergency economic relief fund, it seems downright puny when compared to the running total of the government's response to the credit crisis.

According to CreditSights, a research firm in New York and London, the U.S. government has put itself on the hook for some $5 trillion, so far, in an attempt to arrest a collapse of the financial system.

The estimate includes many of the various solutions cooked up by Paulson and his counterparts Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve and Sheila Bair at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., as the credit crisis continues to plague banks and the broader markets.

The Fed has taken on much of that total, including lending a cumulative $1 trillion in overnight or short-term loans since March to primary dealers through its emergency discount window and making a cumulative $1.8 trillion available through its term auction facility, a series of short-term transactions it began making available twice a month in January. It should be noted that a portion of the funds lent in these programs has been repaid and that the totals represent what has been made available.

The Fed also took on tens of billions in debt, including $29 billion in debt of Bear Stearns, and made $60 billion of credit available to American International Group (nyse: AIG - news - people ). It is committing $22.5 billion to set up a special purpose vehicle to manage some of AIG's residential mortgage-backed securities, and it is financing $30 billion of a second fund to hold $70 billion of multi-sector collaterized debt obligations on which AIG wrote credit default swaps.

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The Treasury, in addition to the $700 billion raised in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, agreed to guarantee money market funds against losses up to $50 billion, will inject $40 billion of capital into AIG and is backing the conservatorship of Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE - news - people ), to the tune of $200 billion.

The FDIC, meanwhile, is guaranteeing $1.5 trillion of senior unsecured bank debt.

Automakers to Washington: It's Crunch Time

Auto executives tell congressional leaders millions of jobs could be lost if the Detroit Three don't get billions of federal dollars

Richard Wagoner, chairman and CEO of General Motors (R), listens during a panel on Capitol Hill Sept. 12 Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

A day before General Motors (GM) was expected to report a nearly $4 billion loss for its latest quarter, top executives of GM, Ford (F), Chrysler, and the United Auto Workers union came to Washington to press their case for at least $25 billion in federal loans. Without the help, the car companies argued, they may not survive 2009.

General Motors has been trying to convince congressional leaders to include the auto companies in the parade of industries—including banking and insurance—being bailed out through the Treasury Dept.'s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Plan. Up to now, GM has been basing its argument for the cash in part on its acquiring the troubled Chrysler. But in the Washington meetings on Nov. 6, car-industry executives focused on simply getting the three companies through the next year with enough cash to stay in business.

To do that, industry sources say, the car companies want access to the Federal Reserve Board's discount lending window, as well as a second federal loan package of up to $25 billion. "The acquisition of Chrysler became a distraction to the pressing need to simply shore up the companies from reaching a potentially disastrous level early next year," said one high-ranking auto executive with knowledge of a meeting between auto executives and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Bad Quarter Expected

Detroit's new thrust is the clearest sign yet of just how desperate its situation has become. In October, GM's sales fell a staggering 45% from the same month a year earlier. Ford's sales were down 30%, and Chrysler's fell 36%. Overall, the industry suffered its worst sales month since 1983 (BusinessWeek.com, 11/3/08).

On Friday, Nov. 7, analysts expect GM and Ford to report dismal earnings for the third quarter. GM is burning through cash and has said it plans to announce more cost cuts. It warned on Wednesday that the industry's prospects are dwindling fast due to the "near-collapse" in demand for cars, which the industry blames in part on the continuing global credit crunch. Ford shares closed Thursday down 5.3%, to 1.98, on the New York Stock Exchange. GM fell 13.7%, to 4.80.

Detroit executives stress that they're pushing forward with the alternative-fuel technologies that the U.S. Energy Dept. already is planning to fund with a $25 billion loan. But they maintain that plunging sales have changed the game and made new federal investment necessary.

Concern About Government Liability

"We are absolutely committed to delivering safe, affordable, quality, fuel-efficient vehicles that Americans want and value," said Alan Mulally, Ford's CEO, in a prepared statement late Thursday. "Despite our progress, the economy and the credit crisis are significant challenges that are dramatically affecting consumer demand for automobiles. Speaker Pelosi and [Senate] Majority Leader [Harry] Reid are seeking ways to help the auto industry given these unprecedented economic challenges. We applaud their efforts and will work together with all of our nation's leaders to continue our transformation to greater fuel-efficiency and to help protect jobs."

Several members of Congress have expressed concern over having the federal government serve as an investment banker to help GM acquire Chrysler, thus triggering massive layoffs. That's why lobbying efforts are now focused on the argument of saving jobs, and potentially saving the government billions more down the road in the form of money it won't have to pay to bail out the auto companies' pension and health-care obligations.