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Michelle Malkin Spain’s green jobs boondoggle

Just what we need more job losses. So what do you all think?

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If I had a billion dollars?

Goldwaters

Solar power cells have been improving. The last couple decades to the point where it’s approaching the utility prices of other power generation methods. Until then the competetition is going to be more cost effective.

Gabriel Calzada-Alvarez has appeared on Glenn Beck and been featured on other arch Conservative media so he makes money playing to the anti environment audience. Pages 22-24 on his study are supposed to outline predicted job losses and it's nearly indecipherable to the layman. So we're expected to take his word for everything.

The study seems to me to simply state in the most negative possible light what we already knew. Green jobs won't be as numerous as coal/oil/conventional power jobs but Obama never said they would. Plus...jobs in solar and wind aren't the only considerations the dept of energy has when it comes to our overall energy future

rebelbuc

So, since Calzada has appeared on Glenn Beck, we should ignore his research... in other words, kill the messenger! He is merely pointing out the fallacy in Obama's rhetoric that his green initiative will produce jobs. There is so much evidence out there that Spain is not a country that we should emulate in any way, especially with socialistic environmentalist plans gone awry!

My greater concern is that Obama's push for green will: (1) destroy industry by making energy prices skyrocket (remember, he said during the campaign that energy prices must necessarily skyrocket), and (2) make energy scarce and unavailable for those industries that somehow hang on despite high energy prices. Solar and wind are not only ridiculously expensive (although they have their place), they are also unreliable sources that can only provide a small portion of our power grid's needs. Texas experienced this overreliance on wind power a few months back and lost a portion of their grid. And we're not even close to the wind/solar-driven utopia that Obama dreams of. And Obama would have us bankrupt coal as he also stated during the campaign (presently about 50% of the US energy supply)? There are many pollutants from coal that are not acceptable - CO2 is not one of them. Maybe environmentalists and leftists should have not stood in the way of so many nuclear power plants some years back, but now it will take decades to catch up and create a nuclear-based grid such as exists in France. Now if Obama embraced a safe nuclear technology, I would agree with him at least on that point.

Even if I believed the IPCC's report I would at least recognize that we cannot afford to shut down our economy further. If the IPCC was correct in all their previous hyperbole we would already be flooding coastlines and farming in Greenland!

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"The Earth has a fever!"... I guess it does - political correctness and socialism are making the planet sick!

Goldwaters

You're overeacting in a needless way. Whenever anyone considers a source, bias is something to be aware of.
Obama never stated that green jobs would be more numerous than conventional power jobs. He merely states they would be new jobs. Job production does tend to be the only concern of anti environmentals
Spain is also not a reason to abandon the movement towards finding and refining less environmentaly impactfull forms of energy production. With all due respect I didn't ignore your scathing indictment of the green power movement, and I don't want you to mistake my lack of response for capitulation, but I can tell if you and I go down that road would it will be time consuming and probably get ugly.....

Edify_Always_In_All_Ways

The Michelle Malkin article links to another article on a conservative website, which links back to the Malkin article with no independent source available. I'd like to know how green job creation leads to job losses; maybe one of you arch-conservatives can explain it to a confused moderate?

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celticlord

You don't have to take his word for anything. All of the data points he cites are figures that would be publicly available. Do your own research. Let Google be your friend.

As for the pages you mention being indecipherable, I found them quite easy to understand. Essentially, the amount of money Spain spent subsidizing "green" jobs was pulled out of private sector use (as all government spending must be), and to such an extent that 2.2 non-green jobs were destroyed.

Spain's subsidies of "green" jobs thus were a net contributor to unemployment in that country.

This is the model Dear Leader proposes to use for reducing unemployment in the United States?

celticlord

Simple:

Start with $1000 in private capital. Assume that it can be utilized in the private sector to create 10 jobs, for a ratio of 1 job/$100.

Apply a 20% tax to that private capital. $1,000 x .2 == $200. Assume the government can use that tax revenue to subsidize 1 job.

Net effect is 1 job lost.

Original (non-tax) job creation scenario: $1,000 private capital * 1 job/$100 == 10 jobs.

Taxation job creation scenario: (($1,000 private capital - $200 tax) * 1 job/$100)) + ($200 tax * 1 job/$200) == $800 * 1 job/$100 + $200 * 1 job/$200 == 8 jobs + 1 job == 9 jobs.

Same $1000, but because the government uses the $200 tax revenue less efficiently than the private sector, fewer jobs are created, for a net loss of jobs.

In Spain's experience with subsidies of green jobs, the government spending has been dramatically more inefficient than the hypothetical posed here, with a correspondingly greater net job loss for the subsidy.

celticlord

That might be because it's hard to pay for the more expensive "green" technologies when all you have is an unemployment check.

The problem is not that the green jobs aren't "more numerous", but that, if Spain's experience is any guide, shifting employment towards green jobs creates fewer green jobs than conventional jobs lost.

So out of 1,000 people, the 300 people who get the green jobs are sitting pretty, the remaining 700 are pretty much screwed.

Wonderful compassionate man your Dear Leader. Saves the environment by putting people out of work.

Goldwaters

I found it now!...I was looking for that info on pages 12-14, don't ask. However, even seeing the summary of job production still doesn't help me have confidence in a professional green power nay sayer.

Check this out! I'm in the middle of it.

Debunking The Spanish Study on The Dire Result of Green Jobs Creation | The Green Economy Post: Green Careers, Green Jobs, Sustainable Jobs

Scarecrow Akhbar

Oh, so long as The Messiah can create 4 NEW jobs for every 9 jobs LOST, he's keeping his promise and continuing to lead the parade into the promised land?

That's okay with you?

Yeah.

Fancy that.

Maybe if the filthy hippy environmentalist whackos had ever had a job they might understand their importance to people.

What the US needs right now is energy, from what ever sources are most convenient (that means oil, coal, nuclear primarily) and independence, which means drill here dig here, and do it now.

What the US can't afford is nonsensical irrelevant socialist-driven environmental issues that serve no purpose but to impede domestic and industrial growth in the United States.

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Treat your Congressman like your underwear. Change often.