Posted on 08/05/2009 6:15:52 PM PDT by neverdem
Nothing is perhaps more pathetic than the exertions of economic developers and politicians grasping at straws, particularly during hard times. Over the past decade, we have turned from one panacea to another, from the onset of the information age to the creative class to the boom in biotech, nanotech and now the "green economy."
This latest economic fad is supported by an enormous industry comprising nonprofits, investment banks, venture capitalists and their cheerleaders in the media. Their song: that "green" jobs will rescue our still weak economy while saving the planet. Ironically, what they all fail to recognize is that the thing that would spur green jobs most is economic growth.
All told, green jobs constitute barely 700,000 positions across the country--less than 0.5% of total employment. That's about how many jobs the economy lost in January this year. Indeed a recent study by Sam Sherraden at the center-left New America Foundation finds that, for the most part, green jobs constitute a negligible factor in employment--and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Policymakers, he warns, should avoid "overpromising about the jobs and investment we can expect from government spending to support the green economy."
This is true even in California, where green-job hype has become something of a fetish among self-styled "progressives." One recent study found that the state was creating some 10,000 green jobs annually before recession. To put this into context, the total state economy has lost over 700,000 jobs over the past year (more than 200,000 in Los Angeles County alone). Any net growth in green jobs has barely made a dent in any economic category; only education and health services have shown job gains over this period.
More worrisome, in terms of national competitiveness, the green sector seems to be going in the...
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
My work desk has Packer crap on it. Does that count as a green job?
Algore, my girl Jenny, and The Joker would never lie to me. Green Jobs are the way of the future. Jenny was going to go anywhere and do any one to bring them to MI to blow us all.
But we saw how they will create these “green jobs” by what Zero did today - he took some of your and my money to Indiana and gave them grants to pay for green jobs! Woohoo.
Then what happens when those grants run out?
Those jobs go away because they will not be private sector, REAL jobs but make work jobs paid for by taxpayers!
I don’t even think there will be that 700,000 in REAL jobs created - I think there will many millions more REAL jobs that will disappear when Crap and Crap takes hold!
I’ve read estimates that in Spain, where similar ‘green stimulus’ was applied, they lost 2.2 jobs for every 1 gained. The economic situation in the Spanish experiment was far better than ours is currently as well.
The unemployed and the soon to be unemployed are beginning to realize what they have elected. Obama is at his Waterloo. It only took 6 months.
Okay, where’s the captain obvious pic?
What the hell is a Green Job?
I have been hearing about them for the longest time.
My prediction: “green jobs” will be the next bubble to pop. This decade, it was subprime mortgages. The last decade, it was internet companies.
There are also consumers who traded in their 1980s clunkers (with nothing owed) for new Lexuses with an 50K or more auto loan, while unemployment/underemployment is growing.
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