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THE TRUTH BEHIND GREEN JOBS
If green jobs were cost effective, industries and companies would have adopted them absent government prodding. They haven’t because green technologies are usually more expensive than existing technologies, or they are untested, experimental, or unreliable, and thus they are by and large rejected by consumers in the marketplace, say H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow, and James Franko, a legislative assistant with the National Center for Policy Analysis.
For instance, Spain was lauded by President Obama as a model for a new economy driven by green jobs. Yet Spain’s example isn’t one to be emulated if one is trying to boost employment, say Burnett and Franko:
- A 2009 study from Madrid’s King Juan Carlos University found that for every green job the government “creates,” 2.2 jobs are lost in competing industries or as factories lay off workers to cover the higher energy costs of the green technology.
- In addition, only 10 percent of those green jobs were permanent with the average green job adding nearly $750,000 in costs to consumers’ bills.
Germany and Denmark have had similar green job experiences. Both countries are far ahead of the United States in forcing consumers to choose expensive green energy, says Burnett and Franko:
- In Germany, green job mandates increase the average consumer’s electricity prices by 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour to for an average subsidy per green job created in the solar power industry of more than $240,000.
- In Denmark, About 28,400 people were employed in the Danish wind industry, but only about 1 in 10 were new jobs – the remaining 90 percent were simply positions shifted from one industry to another.
In the United States the story is the same. In a Washington Post column, Sunil Sharan, director of the Smart Grid Initiative, pointed argued that green job initiatives will actually increase unemployment:
- Sharan estimated that President Obama’s goal of increasing America’s energy efficiency by installing 20 million smart meters in the next five years would create about 1,600 jobs.
- Unfortunately, Sharan estimated that 28,000 jobs would be lost just among meter readers.
Source: H. Sterling Burnett and James Franko, “The truth behind green jobs,” Daily Caller, May 3, 2010.
For text:
http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/03/the-truth-behind-green-jobs/
Obama’s incompetent for the job. The only real change he ever meant was that, he’d keep changing his promises. The greenie thing about job creation is partly based on government jobs like hoover dam, interstate highway system. These jobs did lead to further american based productivity. The green jobs differ in that they are just different ways to produce something. Providing electricity and water effeciently to many states in the west was real change. Building interstate highways made transporting goods such as foods and commodities from state to state a cost effective solution to interstate commerce.
Most of these green jobs are no more than paying 3 times the current value of a different colored hat that still provides shade and looks stylish. This mindset stems from the fact that most of the Obama cronies have never run a business. I think there were about 5 times the private sector experienced employees in the Reagan administration vs Obama’s theoretically minded dweebs.
Just a bunch of smug know it alls that really only know theory, not results!
Obama and his life time, public sector / academia cronies are petulant little infants when it comes to understanding finance, job creation and simple project management.
There is a vast, vast difference between a literal education and a practical education. The former is and self serving based on interpretation, theory and is very often riddled with rank bias. The later is based purely on experience and that is why the majority of the working (productive) populace is promoted, advanced and compensated on experience first and foremost.
Ophir said,There is a vast, vast difference between a literal education and a practical education.
You said a mouth full there Ophir. Most of us who have gone the route of the school of hard knocks know all the Collage education in the world isn’t going to save your ass in the foxhole, when it comes to raising crops or hunting a meal for your family.
I pity these Harvard types when the double dip comes. I have no fear of a depression, hell I’ve lived in 29 Palms for a Quarter of a Century.
Being a right good shot is far better than being a Ph.D. Sheep skin tastes like mutton, and lord do I hate mutton.