By William Schoell, Main Street Insider

Economists and social scientists have all sorts of tools and measurements.  There’s GDP, poverty, unemployment, the consumer price index (CPI), among a few.  But for the longest time there has not been a measure that looks to quantifying economic security.

Economic security is made up of two main components: a consistent flow of income paired with a solid amount of liquefiable wealth and a psychological piece of mind about the future of one’s economic well being.  Until a few years ago economic security was just an abstract thought and no real measures of this concept.

I produced a few of these throughout the 2008 election cycle, and the spirit moved me once again here in the midst of campaign silly season to go through each Senate race and provide some background to get a lay of the land. It will be useful in projecting the Senate landscape for January 2011. Since it's a lot to chew on, I'll split the analysis up by party, and the Democratic-held seats are up first. Here goes:

Safe D: 5 (HI, MD, NY-A, NY-B, VT)
Likely D: 3 (CT, OR, WV)
D Favored: 0
Leans D: 4 (CA, NV, WA, WI)
Barely D: 5 (CO, IL, KY, MO, PA)
Barely R: 1 (NH)
Leans R: 2 (FL, OH)
R Favored: 3 (DE, IN, NC)
Likely R: 4 (AR, AZ, IA, LA)
Safe R: 10 (AL, AK, GA, ID, KS, ND, OK, SC, SD, UT)

Key: Safe D = 95%-100% chance of D victory; Likely D = 85%-95%; D Favored = 75%-85%; Leans D = 60%-75%; Barely D = 50%-60%; Barely R = 40%-50%; Leans R = 25%-40%; R Favored = 15%-25%; Likely R = 5%-15%; Safe R = 0%-5%.

“In 2009, federal R&D spending on energy totaled $1.7 billion or a little more than 1/100 of 1 percent of GDP... Alternatively, it is just 55% of the $3.1 billion that will be spent in 2011 providing a tax benefit for employee parking,” Dr. Michael Greenstone said during Tuesday’s Joint Economic Committee hearing on “Promoting a Green Economy”.    If the lack of research funding doesn’t get you mad, then at least the government dropping $3.1 billion on parking should turn heads.  But what does research and development (R&D) funding have to do with promoting a green economy?

By Jade Bowden, Main Street Insider

Imagine you’re purchasing a car. You have two options to choose from. Both cars look identical, but one costs 2% more. It seems obvious that you’d pick the car with the lower price, right? But what if I told you that the more expensive car got double the gas mileage? For a slightly higher upfront cost, you’d be able to double your money’s worth later on. Seems like a pretty obvious choice, right?

Unfortunately, the banks don’t see it that way. Well, at least they don’t when evaluating the costs of green housing innovations. In effect, spending an extra $5,000 upfront can make a home twice as energy efficient. Yet, banks fail to care consider that greater energy efficiency means lower utility costs down the line, and focus instead on that initial $5,000 as an extra, unnecessary expense.  Fortunately, the Senate may try to change that with Senator Whitehouse’s Energy Efficiency Housing Act of 2009 (EEHA).

By William Schoell, Main Street Insider

Can you imagine walking by a street vendor trying to sell you the idea of gravity, or the chemical compounds of the Australian funnel web spider’s venom?  You are probably thinking there is not much value in those ideas.  Ideas and research like are considered basic research; fundamental research to better understand fundamental principles.  One can see that basic research does not command much “stand alone” value or in other words, basic research cannot command a market price.  Yet, basic research drives innovation and in turn inventions and job growth.  By the way, that Australian funnel web spider’s venom will someday be used in pain medication.