This post first appeared on Minyanville.

It’s starting to make economic sense to go green.

Last summer, with gas prices topping $4 per gallon and commodities of all kinds becoming more expensive, renewable energy advocates thought their day in sun — so to speak — had finally arrived.

Investors flocked to industry leaders like First Solar (FSLR) and SunPower (SPWRA), whose stocks leapt to new highs. On July 8, 2008, renowned investor T. Boone Pickens announced an ambitious plan to wean America off its dependence on foreign oil. Later that week, crude touched an all-time high of $147.02 per barrel.

Since then, oil — along the rest of the commodity complex — has plunged, dashing hopes that renewable energy would soon be as cheap, if not cheaper, than traditional, dirty fossil fuels. But now, with the economy in free fall and Washington scrambling to boost productivity, renewable energy has been taken off life support.

Part of the recently passed $797 billion economic stimulus package gives incentives to homeowners to adopt energy-saving appliances, solar panels and other eco-friendly add-ons. Increased tax credits for qualifying expenditures can reduce tax bills by thousands of dollars a year. The catch (and there’s always a catch when the government is involved): Benefits only arrive if you shell out big bucks for pricey green gear.

Tax credits are applicable on new expenditures, and since solar-panel systems run in the tens of thousands of dollars, the 30% tax credit isn’t exactly like socking money away in the bank. Still, green construction firms and solar panel installation outfits like Akeena Solar (AKNS) are eager snatch up new business.

Before the credit crunch and the ensuing financial meltdown, Akeena had actually partnered with Comerica Bank (CMA) to offer low interest loans for buyers of new solar-energy systems, a portion of which could be backed by the value of the home. Since monthly loan payments were easier to stomach than plunking down cash to buy a new system, these new lending programs could have made solar available to the masses.

But now that home values have plummeted and lenders are reticent to part with their precious dollars, such borrowing programs are nearly impossible to find. Still, for those homeowners intrepid enough to take the plunge, tax credits offer an attractive reason to get off the green fence.

While solar power isn’t as economically efficient as traditional electricity sources, the more money that’s pumped into new technologies — even if it’s through a combination of private and public investment — the sooner we’re likely to reach the parity solar advocates have been promising for decades.

And the sooner that happens, the better.

The former Goldman Sachs employees — err, the federal government — have decided to bail out Fannie and Freddie and the race to call another bottom in equities, not to mention housing, is on.

Reality, however, is not a friend of these hopeful bulls.

Let’s take a quick scan of the economic landscape and see what issues the latest bailout has solved.

• - The unemployment rate seems to only be going up, and unless the new federal agency charged with keeping tabs on the two mortgage giants is hiring en masse, there won’t be much of a change here.
• - The dollar could see its recent rally erased after our trading partners and investors around the world come to terms with the $200 billion the Treasury department just dumped into the blender to cut 50 bps off mortgage rates. And, take note, those are prime, Agency rates, and that’s it.
• - The unfortunate reality is that most Americans are still in debt and cannot afford a down payment on a house, a requirement that’s yet to be removed.
• - Gas prices have fallen, but not by as much as crude prices. Hurricane season is alive and well, threatening most of the gulf oil rigs. Oil companies are already under pressure from tumultuous markets for their black gold and are not likely inclined to lower prices further.

As painful as it is to admit, Fannie and Freddie probably needed to be bailed out to keep the entire financial market from collapsing but it doesn’t mean we are at “the bottom.”

It takes awhile for a fundamental shift in lending to play its way out and that is what we are in the middle of. The middle class is being squeezed more than ever and consumer credit quality on the whole is not going to start improving tomorrow.

More important than any of these points is we do not know what our friends at the government are going to do with Fannie and Fredie and how long it is going to take them to do it. In fact, trusting the very folks who ran these companies into the ground — albeit under different leadership — to turn them around is hardly a comforting proposition.

In the end, we need to remember that you need a good credit score and a down payment to buy a house in the real world. So no matter what a television analyst on TV who makes $500,000 a year tells you, this credit crisis is far from over.