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Green jobs a path to a strong middle class (Utterances of Crown Prince Biden-Keep Barf Bag Close By)
Miami Herald ^ | March 7, 2009 | JOE BIDEN

Posted on 03/07/2009 5:24:33 AM PST by IbJensen

Below are excerpts from Vice President Joe Biden's report last week on the White House's Task Force on the Middle Class.

The Task Force on the Middle Class has a simple mandate: to find, highlight and implement solutions to the economic challenges facing the American middle class.

Green jobs have the potential to be quality, family-sustaining jobs that also help to improve our environment. They are largely domestic jobs that can't be offshored. They tend to pay more than other jobs, even controlling for worker characteristics. Moreover, green jobs are an outgrowth of a larger movement to reform the way we create and use energy in both this country and the rest of the world. They represent a growth sector, and one that offers the dual promise of providing good jobs while meeting the environmental challenge to reduce our dependence on finite fossil fuels that generate harmful carbon emissions.

What is a green job?

We define green jobs quite broadly as employment that is associated with some aspect of environmental improvement. A scientist working on advanced renewable energy alternatives to CO2-producing fossil fuels is engaged in a green job, but so is a laborer weatherizing a home or a lineman -- or linewoman -- building out the smart electric grid.

Green jobs are good jobs. They pay more, by 10 to 20 percent than other jobs, and are more likely to be union jobs than other jobs. Green jobs are more likely to be held by men, but less likely to be held by minorities or urban residents, and addressing this will be a significant challenge.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes various significant investments in green technology and jobs. These include:

• More than $11 billion for investments in a new smart grid, which will create thousands of miles of new or modernized high-tech transmission lines, while training and employing highly-skilled and well-paid lineworkers.

• $500 million for research and job training projects that prepare workers for careers in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

• $6 billion for a loan guarantee program that will enable green industries to continue their rapid growth.

• $5 billion to the Weatherization Assistance Program that could save homeowners $350 per year on their utility bills.

There are a set of initiatives that are strongly associated with building a green jobs movement.

They are: a public mandate to achieve an energy conservation goal; elected officials invested in meeting the goal; private employers interested in creating green jobs to meet the new labor demands for environmentally sound output; financing sources who want to invest in the new initiatives, often involving federal loan guarantees; and extensive labor force intermediaries, including community colleges, union apprenticeship programs, and public/private training programs to serve as a linkage between employers and workers.

Improve environment

The most general trait of green jobs is that they must be jobs that somehow contribute to the improvement of environmental quality.

Green jobs involve some task associated with improving the environment, including reducing carbon emissions and creating and/or using energy more efficiently; they should be good jobs that provide a sustainable family wage, health and retirement benefits, and decent working conditions; and they should be available to diverse workers from across the spectrum of race, gender and ethnicity.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: agenda; bho44; bhoenvironment; biden; simplemindedness; vpbiden
What is a green job?

Making toilet paper out of animal waste.

1 posted on 03/07/2009 5:24:34 AM PST by IbJensen
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To: IbJensen
Green jobs have the potential to be quality, family-sustaining jobs that also help to improve our environment. They are largely domestic jobs that can't be offshored. They tend to pay more than other jobs, even controlling for worker characteristics.

This is written at the "B" student college freshman term paper level. I wish I was stupid enough to believe this, especially the part about "They tend to pay more than other jobs", I really do.

2 posted on 03/07/2009 5:27:29 AM PST by Hardastarboard (The Fairness Doctrine isn't about "Fairness" - it's about Doctrine.)
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To: Hardastarboard

It’s a 3-letter word, J-O-B-S, jobs.


3 posted on 03/07/2009 5:29:34 AM PST by darkangel82 (I don't have a superiority complex, I'm just better than you.)
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To: darkangel82

LOL!


4 posted on 03/07/2009 5:33:04 AM PST by Hardastarboard (The Fairness Doctrine isn't about "Fairness" - it's about Doctrine.)
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To: IbJensen
It sure took the writer a lot of words to say that these jobs are unionized, government subsidized, tax loop hole supported water melon politics disguised as pork. What Joe never hinted at is they drain resources from more productive parts of the economy.
5 posted on 03/07/2009 5:35:16 AM PST by Red Dog #1
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To: Hardastarboard
I wish I was stupid enough to believe this, especially the part about "They tend to pay more than other jobs"..

Let me help. Insofar as the jobs exist because of government subsidies, and the government may influence which consituencies can be preferentially hired, they will tend to pay more than other jobs that are in competitive industries.

The people who say things like this also say things like, "Historically, the US was at its most prosperous when it was more heavily unionized" as a justification for Card Check.

6 posted on 03/07/2009 5:53:56 AM PST by Pearls Before Swine (Is /sarc really necessary?)
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To: IbJensen

So-called “green jobs” only exist with government support and funding. They will never create or support a strong middle class unless our middle class is transformed from citizens into workers under communism or socialism.

Democrats found government does not need to own the means of production to control it. Just add more and more rules and regulations, along with chosen tax breaks and increased taxes until capitalism strangles itself.


7 posted on 03/07/2009 6:22:30 AM PST by Morgan in Denver (Barack Hussein Obama: More corrupt than Clinton, more inept than Carter.)
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To: Red Dog #1

Right on. Your comment fully explains why the economy is in trouble today. Investors hate indecision and uncertainty. That’s what we have so it’s no surprise.


8 posted on 03/07/2009 6:25:01 AM PST by Morgan in Denver (Barack Hussein Obama: More corrupt than Clinton, more inept than Carter.)
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To: IbJensen

9 posted on 03/07/2009 7:19:47 AM PST by Sender (It's never too late to be who you could have been.)
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To: IbJensen
Green jobs have the potential to be quality, family-sustaining jobs that also help to improve our environment.

Note how these are just JOBS and not CAREERS.

They are tasks to keep the minions at bay.

CAREERS happen with a free capitalist society.

JOBS are given at great cost in a communist society.

These jobs will tear down what works (our current energy supply, distribution, and consumption system) and will build an unreliable system that forces demand side management. Hence the "smart grid" which will shut your lights off without your permission.

10 posted on 03/07/2009 7:46:08 AM PST by SteamShovel (Global Warming, the New Patriotism)
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To: IbJensen

Before the election when Biden spoke truth!

http://www.thedailychange.com/before-the-election-when-biden-spoke-truth/


11 posted on 03/08/2009 11:00:49 PM PDT by TheDailyChange (Politics,Conservatism,Liberalism)
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