A story about the high unemployment rate and how unions and Democrats are failing to make it a bigger political issue mentions various plans to generate jobs in the recovering economy. One proposal offered by Robert Pollin, economics professor and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute, calls for creating 18 million new jobs by 2012 through public investment financed by $700 billion in bank loans and an equal amount of federal spending. The jobs would be in retrofitting homes for energy efficiency, conservation projects, creating public art and providing social and educational services. (In These Times, 6/28/10)