Whats not to love about Obama's green jobs initiative ?

dogtowner

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How's that working out for Spain ? Not so good.

Anyone who understands basic economics already knows that President Obama's $2.3 billion green-jobs initiative was snake oil. Now, thanks to Kenneth P. Green, we have statistics as well as theory to prove it.

In a new article, "The Myth of Green Energy Jobs: The European Experience," the environmental scientist and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute writes, "Green programs in Spain destroyed 2.2 jobs for every green job created, while the capital needed for one green job in Italy could create almost five jobs in the general economy."

Ironically, Obama boasts his initiative "will help close the clean-energy gap between America and other nations." But Green says, "(C)ountries are cutting these programs because they realize they aren't sustainable and they are obscenely expensive."

Obama claims that if we "invest" more, "the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs -- but only if we accelerate that transition."

What could make more sense? A little push from the smart politicians and -- voila! -- we can have an abundance of new good-paying jobs and a cleaner, sustainable environment. It's the ultimate twofer.

Except it's an illusion, as economic logic demonstrates.
"It is well understood, among economists, that governments do not 'create' jobs," Green writes. "The willingness of entrepreneurs to invest their capital, paired with consumer demand for goods and services, does that.
All the government can do is subsidize some industries while jacking up costs for others. In the green case, it is destroying jobs in the conventional energy sector -- and most likely in other industrial sectors -- through taxes and subsidies to new green companies that will use taxpayer dollars to undercut the competition. The subsidized jobs 'created' are, by definition, less efficient uses of capital than market-created jobs."


Green is using good, solid economic thinking. Many years ago, Henry Hazlitt wrote in his bestseller, "Economics in One Lesson," "The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."
In judging any government initiative, such as Obama's green-jobs plan, you can't look just at the credit side of ledger because the government is unable to give without first taking away.

Worse than that: Inevitably, more is taken away -- destroyed -- than is given because the government substitutes force and taxation for consent and free exchange. Instead of a process driven by consumer preferences, we get one imposed by politicians' grand social designs. It's what F.A. Hayek called "the fatal conceit."

So we shouldn't be surprised that green-jobs programs make energy more expensive. "(F)orcing green energy on the market (is) much, much more expensive," Green said. "Using Spain as a model, when you do the math, you realize that creating 3 million new green jobs could cost $2.25 trillion."


Government needs to realize that you can't predetermine what will be hot. Putting a man on the moon had nothing to do with putting a man on the moon, everyone knew there was no point in going there but it would make people think and that's what makes innovation. And so it did. But a great point is made that robbing Peter to pay Paul is counter productive. Spend nothing but stop penalizing innovation by taxing it to hell and see what happens.
 
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Whats not to like is that even though Pres O likes green industry he still managed to create the initiative primarily so that "he" would have control over redistributing money. And not even so much so that it could be given to the poor but so that those who control the redistribution get to control it.

The green initiative is about who gets the money from whom and the deals they work out. Its about rewarding some at the expense of others. Its about government picking winners and losers. And the "he" above includes all of the wheelers and dealers regardless of party though certainly as power shifts from one party to another the deals also shift to a degree too.

This is mostly a regular joe/citizen vs. politician/fat cat struggle rather than a left vs right struggle.
 
The net impact of green jobs in Germany was also negative for the economy. Green jobs is the 21st century equivalent of Roosevelt's make work projects of the 1930s - and with an equivalent result.
 
Green jobs is the 21st century equivalent of Roosevelt's make work projects of the 1930s - and with an equivalent result.

The result of Roosevelt's make work projects of the 1930s: Working class not starving and families not disrupted by the males leaving to live as hobos in search of work. CCC...young males employed (the wages paid went to their families; they worked for food, clothing, and cigarettes), and removed from the temptation of resorting to crime to survive. CCC, WPA, CVA, etc. is what allowed the working class to survive despite the temptation of crime and communism.
Without those make-work projects, the depression may have had a very different and negative effect upon out country.
If the CCC were resurrected today, the idle and troublesome youth of this country would likewise benefit from the discipline (CCC was run by the Army), and hard work in an environment free of drugs and gang shootings.
The CCC, et. AL, was the original "work-fare", in the place of welfare.
 
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The result of Roosevelt's make work projects of the 1930s: Working class not starving and families not disrupted by the males leaving to live as hobos in search of work. CCC...young males employed (the wages paid went to their families; they worked for food, clothing, and cigarettes), and removed from the temptation of resorting to crime to survive. CCC, WPA, CVA, etc. is what allowed the working class to survive despite the temptation of crime and communism.
Without those make-work projects, the depression may have had a very different and negative effect upon out country.
If the CCC were resurrected today, the idle and troublesome youth of this country would likewise benefit from the discipline (CCC was run by the Army), and hard work in an environment free of drugs and gang shootings.
The CCC, et. AL, was the original "work-fare", in the place of welfare.

Ha Ha Ha!!! Thanks for the regurgitation of the standard "high school textbook" lib mythology about the Great Depression. In fact, the Depression, caused by liberal easy money policies which distorted financial markets (hmmmmmm ...... does that remind us of anything started by Bill Clinton? :D) was prolonged by FDR's interventionist policies.

Another clue for a lib ignoramus:

This is a quote from FDR's secretary of the treasury, Henry Morgenthau, in 1939:

No, gentlemen, we have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong, as far as I am concerned, somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises…
But why not let’s come to grips? And as I say, all I am interested in is to really see this country prosperous and this form of Government continue, because after eight years if we can’t make a success somebody else is going to claim the right to make it and he’s got the right to make the trial. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started.
 
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