Green Jobs Stupidity

[Danno 1,228]

Green Jobs Stupidity

The president’s smug assertion that the “science” of global warming is settled turns out to be anther example of liberal-progressives’ dogmatic closed-mindedness. His continuing devotion to “green” jobs can only be described as willful stupidity.

Tom Emerson forwarded the Wall Street Journal’s European editorial opinion, which recounts the readily available information regarding the wasteful and feckless efforts of the Spanish and German governments to create green jobs.

No matter how one fudges the numbers or rationalizes about environmental benefits, green jobs require enormous government subsidies. The extra money for those subsidies is forcibly taken via taxes from businesses that would have been able to to use the money for more productive purposes. Thereby is an economy diminished. Green jobs, for example, in production of ethanol have raised food prices for the world’s poor and used more petroleum energy in production of ethanol than would have been used without ethanol.

The Journal’s editorial commences:

As he did for health care, President Obama has turned to Europe for inspiration on the environment. Countries such as Spain and Germany are “making real investments in renewable energy” and are “surging ahead of us,” he has warned. In last week’s State of the Union speech, Mr. Obama proposed to reverse the trend: “The nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy,” he said. “America must be that nation."

To say, “The nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy,” is equivalent to saying that those who waste the most money will become the richest. To suggest that green jobs will increase the productivity of our economy is nonsense.

Productivity increases come from discovering more efficient ways to produce existing goods and services, or to create new goods and services that people find useful. Green jobs reverse the process by making production less efficient and more costly and by producing goods and services that few people, given free choice, will want.

The president’s views make sense only under the rubric of Keynesian macroeconomics. Keynes, during the 1930s Depression, proclaimed that the only way to revive a depressed economy was application of large amounts of government spending. What the money was spent for was immaterial. Digging holes one day, filling them then next day, then endlessly repeating the cycle, would work nicely, Keynes thought.

“Green"jobs conform to that senseless paradigm. Green jobs add little if anything to the goods and services that people outside the rarified enclaves of the Northeast and Beverly Hills will pay for if given the opportunity to choose. Moreover, the product of green jobs is worth less than the cost to produce it, hence the necessity for government subsidies to producers and to buyers.

Economics is the study of allocating most efficiently and productively the limited amounts of resources available at any one time to a political society. Green jobs, CO2 regulation, and the whole clap-trap of smarter-than-you collectivist control favored by liberal-progressives is assuredly not economics. It is a wasteful sacrifice on the altar of the secular religion of socialism.

http://www.thomasbrewton.com/index.php/web...jobs_stupidity/

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Green jobs are fuсking stupid.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Greens jobs makes things costly? Or, more trash makes things costly?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Greens jobs makes things costly? Or, more trash makes things costly?

Green jobs give otherwise unemployable fucktards hope.

[scandal 951]

Green jobs are fuсking stupid.

They're retarded. Rahm said so.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

They're retarded. Rahm said so.

Get off Rahm's case ya silly librul.

[Ban Hammer 14,300]

Green jobs give otherwise unemployable fucktards hope.

steven's not gonna be happy to read that.

[alienlovechild 75]

Obama's repeated insistence during the State of the Union speech that green jobs were the one the bright spots for an economic recovery was more wishfull thinking. The unemployment numbers and huge subsidies needed to create green jobs mean nothing to the One (soon to be the Zero) as he can always cite someplace where gold-plated green jobs emerged to cheers of environmentalists and small children everywhere.

[Peikko 1,575]

I guess it really depends on what is meant by green jobs and a green economy. One thing is for sure, creating enough cheap energy for the status quo to remain has not been resolved. Gas will dry up and unless an alternative has been developed, there will be mass suffering right here in the US (not to mention in those areas of the world that are already in abject poverty) so I really hope that in the US the idea to look to the future and solve our energy problems isn't dragged down into another of these patheticy pissy ideological 'liberals are wankers, GOP rules' debates. Real people suffer every time this happens.

[FortLaudy 10]

I guess it really depends on what is meant by green jobs and a green economy. One thing is for sure, creating enough cheap energy for the status quo to remain has not been resolved. Gas will dry up and unless an alternative has been developed, there will be mass suffering right here in the US (not to mention in those areas of the world that are already in abject poverty) so I really hope that in the US the idea to look to the future and solve our energy problems isn't dragged down into another of these patheticy pissy ideological 'liberals are wankers, GOP rules' debates. Real people suffer every time this happens.

Let common sense prevail instead of arguing about who's right and who is wrong people. I'm not a complete follower of this "Green" movement and buying anything that says "Green friendly" on it, it's pretty obvious some people are just out to make a pretty penny from the movement. To me it's about common sense, just like it made sense for a guy to sit down one day with a piece of paper and a pencil and start designing the automobile from scratch I think there are just as intelligent people who can use their brains and talent to come up with ways we can use the same technology, only improved, powering it with renewable energy sources instead of the non-renewable. I'm for sustainable living, I don't side with any political party, I just make sure I practice what I preach and believe in, it starts with ordinary people living more simply so others can simply live.

[Niels Bohr 72]

It's also obvious there's some people who are just making a pretty penny from stopping this movement.

Green is about manufactering stuff that producess less hazardous byproducts as a result of making the product. So, it goes both ways. More toxic waste would equal more costly to dispose, and also detrimental to the environment. Green jobs just reduces those byproducts.

Many people are not aware of the toxic metals in electronic components. Now, they have the RoHS electronic components that carry less metals. I could go on and on. The problem is people who make decision as "people who support this movement are making a pretty penny" has low ambitions to learn.

Let common sense prevail instead of arguing about who's right and who is wrong people. I'm not a complete follower of this "Green" movement and buying anything that says "Green friendly" on it, it's pretty obvious some people are just out to make a pretty penny from the movement. To me it's about common sense, just like it made sense for a guy to sit down one day with a piece of paper and a pencil and start designing the automobile from scratch I think there are just as intelligent people who can use their brains and talent to come up with ways we can use the same technology, only improved, powering it with renewable energy sources instead of the non-renewable. I'm for sustainable living, I don't side with any political party, I just make sure I practice what I preach and believe in, it starts with ordinary people living more simply so others can simply live.

[Ali G. 37]

Green jobs give otherwise unemployable fucktards hope.

I have to ask you this question relating to jobs.. Why do you think that Indians are able to migrate here, land jobs, start legitimate businesses and build wealth, yet so many in ghettos are not able to change squat? Evidently, some cannot even put trash into a rubbish bin.

Edited February 4, 2010 by Booyah

[Ali G. 37]

It's also obvious there's some people who are just making a pretty penny from stopping this movement.

Green is about manufactering stuff that producess less hazardous byproducts as a result of making the product. So, it goes both ways. More toxic waste would equal more costly to dispose, and also detrimental to the environment. Green jobs just reduces those byproducts.

Many people are not aware of the toxic metals in electronic components. Now, they have the RoHS electronic components that carry less metals. I could go on and on. The problem is people who make decision as "people who support this movement are making a pretty penny" has low ambitions to learn.

Mark will like this. In essence, the greenest production is to manufacture questionable products in someone else's backyard.

[The_Dude 1,142]

I have to ask you this question relating to jobs.. Why do you think that Indians are able to migrate here, land jobs, start legitimate businesses and build wealth, yet so many in ghettos are not able to change squat? Evidently, some cannot even put trash into a rubbish bin.

Seriously BY? A thread about green jobs you feel the need to stray off on a tangent to talk about your racial theories?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Oil industry subsidies for dummies

Figuring out exactly, or even roughly, how much oil companies receive in subsidy turns out to be a complicated challenge.

Greenpeace believes Europeans spend about $10 billion or so (USD equivalent) annually to subsidize fossil fuels. By contrast, it thinks the American oil and gas industry might receive anywhere between $15 billion and $35 billion a year in subsidies from taxpayers.

Why such a large margin of error? The exact number is slippery and hard to quantify, given the myriad of programs that can be broadly characterized as subsidies when it comes to fossil fuels. For instance, the U.S. government has generally propped the industry up with:

• Construction bonds at low interest rates or tax-free
  
• Research-and-development programs at low or no cost
  
• Assuming the legal risks of exploration and development in a company's stead
  
• Below-cost loans with lenient repayment conditions
  
• Income tax breaks, especially featuring obscure provisions in tax laws designed to receive little congressional oversight when they expire
  
• Sales tax breaks - taxes on petroleum products are lower than average sales tax rates for other goods
  
• Giving money to international financial institutions (the U.S. has given tens of billions of dollars to the World Bank and U.S. Export-Import Bank to encourage oil production internationally, according to Friends of the Earth)
  
• The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve
  
• Construction and protection of the nation's highway system
  
• Allowing the industry to pollute - what would oil cost if the industry had to pay to protect its shipments, and clean up its spills? If the environmental impact of burning petroleum were considered a cost? Or if it were held responsible for the particulate matter in people's lungs, in liability similar to that being asserted in the tobacco industry?
  
• Relaxing the amount of royalties to be paid (more below)
  

While it's easy to get bent out of shape that the petroleum industry "probably has larger tax incentives relative to its size than any other industry in the country", according to Donald Lubick, the U.S. Department of Treasury's former Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, remember that subsidies are important across all sectors of the energy industry. Even yours (I'll bet you work in cleantech/greentech!)

For instance, nuclear power wouldn't be viable without subsidies - most governments pay between 60 and 90 percent of the cost of construction of new plants. Solar wouldn't be what it's become without significant German, Californian, U.S. federal and other incentives. Ethanol and biodiesel in the U.S. enjoy large subsidies (details, if interested, here), but let's resist getting into the rat-hole of agricultural industry subsidies.

Subsidies, per se, aren't a bad thing.

How does the oil industry defend its substantial incentives?

Energy security - The fossil fuel industry has, rightfully, long pointed to the strategic nature of a company's oil and gas supply. Theirs is an industry that can't afford to go away, they argue.

Environmental compliance - Far from being big beneficiaries, some oil companies claim they are net victims. They point to gasoline taxes and environmental regulations, such as fuel-efficiency standards for new vehicles.

Bolsters domestic production - Supporters of drilling incentives say they make sense for a country that wants to reduce its dependence on foreign oil and whose biggest untapped reserves are in water just offshore, albeit thousands of feet deep.

Defense requirements - Some have suggested that the demands of defending Middle Eastern oil fields added (pre-Iraq war that is) between $10 billion and $20 billion a year in subsidies to the true cost of oil.

Which begs the question - even if America greatly reduced its imports of oil, would it necessarily reduce its military activity in the Gulf region?

It's not really that much money - A few years ago, Ronald Sutherland, an energy economist affiliated with the Cato Institute, a think-tank in Washington, used statistics from the Department of Energy to argue that oil actually gets rather little at the end of the day. All told, after subtracting this and allowing for that, he suggested oil receives less than a billion dollars in subsidies, in all.

Critics of oil subsidies in America, however, maintain that:

Subsidies don't increase domestic production - A few weeks ago, a U.S. Interior Department report obtained by the New York Times suggested that the billions of dollars American oil companies stand to benefit from as incentives for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (royalties they wouldn't otherwise have to pay the government) wouldn't add appreciably to any increase in production. Says an analyst who worked on the report, "if they took that money, they could buy a whole lot more oil with it on the open market."

The U.S. gives far too much away - Industry analysts who compare oil policies around the world say the United States is much more generous to oil companies than most other countries, demanding a smaller share of revenues than others that let private companies drill on public lands and in public waters.

In the U.S., the government's take - royalties as well as corporate taxes - works out to be about 40 percent of revenue from oil and gas produced on federal property, according to Van Meurs Associates, an industry consulting firm that compares the taxes of all oil-producing countries. By contrast, according to Van Meurs, the worldwide average government take is about 60 to 65 percent.

link

Edited February 4, 2010 by Galt's gallstones