Posted on 04/01/2009 7:16:46 AM PDT by yoe
One of the defining features of the Obama administration so far is its almost pathological inability to make hard choices--or even to acknowledge that hard choices need to be made. A prime example is the administration's insistence that making energy more expensive will somehow benefit our economy. This proposition is so foolish as to be almost self-refuting: in my view, anyone who doesn't understand that you can't create wealth by subsidizing the inefficient production of energy shouldn't be voting.
In particular, Barack Obama has trumpeted the creation of "green jobs" as somehow offsetting the obvious damage that will be done by his cap-and-trade system and other measures that will make conventional energy sources more expensive. He (has pointed specifically) to Spain as a country whose experience with "green jobs" we should emulate. So an empirical study of Spain's experience is timely. And, as it happens, one has just been done by Dr. Gabriel Calzada of Juan Carlos University in Madrid.
It is reported on (here) by the Institute for Energy Research. Some highlights:
* The U.S. can expect 2.2 jobs to be destroyed for every 1 renewable job financed by the government.
* Only 1 in 10 of the jobs actually created through green investment is permanent.
* Since 2000, Spain has spent €571,138 ($753,778) to create each "green job," including subsidies of more than €1 million ($1,319,783) per wind industry job. Those programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 113,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy.
* Each "green" megawatt installed destroyed 5.39 jobs in non-energy sectors of the Spanish economy.
* The total over-cost--the amount paid over the cost that would result from buying the electricity generated by the renewable power plants at market prices--between 2000 and 2008 amounts to 7,918.54 million Euros ($10 billion).
* The total subsidy spent and committed to these three renewable sources amounts to €28,671 million ($36 billion).
* Consumer energy costs in Spain would have to be increased 31 percent to repay the debt generated by the green jobs subsidies.
The general rule is, whenever anyone says the word "green," grab your wallet and run for the hills.
So, what's going on here? Is the Obama administration really too dumb to figure out that subsidizing "green jobs" is a losing proposition? I don't think so. I think this is just one more aspect of the massive power grab that is coming out of Obama's Washington. I think the Democrats want to assert their control over all sectors of the economy: they want to decide what companies will succeed and what companies will fail; how much employees of publicly traded companies will be paid; what jobs will exist and what jobs will become obsolete.
When we are all dependent on the federal government, the only way anyone can count on staying in business or having his job preserved will be by donating money to the Democratic Party--the ultimate protection racket, one of which the Mafia can only dream, and one which is already well underway. When it is complete, the Democrats' majority status will be assured for the indefinite future. That is, I think, what the Dems have in mind, and it explains a great deal about Obamanomics.
One notes that the Chevy Volt was canceled on Monday...
The “Green” in “Green Jobs” just represents all the extra taxpayer money required to create those jobs. Obama’s stimulus package has to be the absolute least effective and most expensive way to create jobs. Instead of using the private sector and just giving them insentives without strings to create jobs in the market place. That kind of job creation would have been cost effective and actually create permanent substainable and profitable jobs. Obama’s jobs are temporary and extremely expensive.
Is it too late for a revolution?
We are now in a stream of liberal hoaxes -— all designed for ONE PURPOSE. To suck money out of corporations and individuals to feed liberalism and socialism. It is amazing still, how many in the public are STILL DUPED by these scams.
We are long familiar with the hoaxes — and their perpetrators.
The Chinese, India, Russia, and Brazil (BRIC countries) will be laughing all the way to the bank as they lock up the world’s remaining fossil fuels supplies and thumb their noses at CO2 emission caps as USA and the West bankrupt our economies in a useless fight against a problem that does not exist.
Simple economics, raw materials+labor=unit cost. Our labor thanks to the unions is sky high, now we want to price the energy needed to make things sky high as well. We will be paying 2-3-4 times the prices for energy as the coal smog spewing Chinese. Their labor costs are already way lower so how will we compete?
I really think our enemies are using the envirowackos to destroy our country, Who needs a military when you can recruit subversives like WWF, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Dems, etc to ruin our economy through legislation, regulation, and the courts?
Was anyone aware of widespread unemployment in wind energy, fiber optic installation, etc prior to “stimulus”?
Point is, jobs in these sectors require skill and training, not something an unemployed automaker or investment banker can just pick up and start doing next week.
Dumb.
The envirowackos are the enemy. Of course the majority brain-washed masses probably just don't know better, but the leaders of the envirowacko movement want to destroy capitolism and most wouldn't mind eliminating most of the homo sapiens from the face of the earth.
Will “green jobs” add to the GNP? Or are these more government employees which detracts from the GNP?
That's the evil motive of leftist leaders. The evil motive of leftist voters is to knock the Joneses next door down a peg or two, take some of their stuff, break up their marriage, get their kids on drugs, anything to bring them down.
The most effective counter strike to reduce the Demoncat power base is to shame and make fun of Demoncat neighbors when they show their envy. We are at a disadvantage because of the MSM's constant efforts to inflame envy. Eventually, the current envy fest will peak.
Of course, these "leaders" are exempt from 'elimination'. How special.
Who says the Volt was cancelled? I did a search on AP and didn’t come up with that.
Not that it matters much — at 40k it’s priced at least 10k too high to be popular.
Any wonder why this country cannot stay ahead of the curve. The price of innovation is too high for a nation hell bent on consumption and easy money. Im surprised we managed to move away from the steam engine, but that was a different day and age.
All of us assumed a bright side to the Obummer admin would be more funding and projects.
But no, everything is going towards unproven pork projects in smaller towns(where fuel savings are not as beneficial). The ones I recognized are RAT districts for sure and I was too sickened to dig deeper. I keep wishing to wake up from this nightmare.
Correct - I work in the oil and gas industry, and similar to the green energy industry, it is simply not employment intensive. The energy business is capital intensive, not labor intensive. All our labor intensive industries have been shipped to China, India, Philipines, wherever - outsourced.
There was a day when these systems where not so proven and to this day they are far more expensive than the non-efficent alternative. Proven technology shouldn't need much funding where technology in it's infancy needs all it can get.
That is EXACTLY the problem.
What people don’t say about the “green” agenda and while talking about how jobs are created in some windmill manufacturer is that for every job created many more or lost.
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