Guess which industry is fueling the biggest jump in U.S. wages since 2007?

Hotair ^ | 10/11/2012 | Erika Johnsen

[SeekAndFind]

If you guessed "renewable energy," you'd be wrong ... so wrong. Sure, the green-energy industry may have created some 28,000-odd jobs (a very far cry from the 5 million we were promised, cough cough), but it's important to remember that even those few "successfully" created green jobs are not necessarily productive jobs.

The green-energy industry is only as big as it is because it's on the receiving end of a whole heap of different types of subsidies, from tax credits to loan guarantees to direct payments, and subsidies are always and necessarily designed to distort free-market signals. All the money poured into the green industry by the federal government comes at the opportunity cost of that money being spent more effectively and profitably elsewhere --- let's say, perhaps if the government would just stop overstepping its Constitutional boundaries and quit trying to pick economic winners and losers with our money, and we all maybe just had lower taxes in general and could spend that money ourselves? (I know, I know ... keep dreaming, Erika.)

However, if you guessed "oil/gas/mining domestic energy production," you'd be right --- so right. Via CNN Money:

Big pay hikes in the energy industry have helped fuel the biggest jump in U.S. wages in more than five years, according to an industry report released Wednesday.

PayScale, which analyzes data from more than 10 million U.S. workers, reported that workers in the mining, oil and gas exploration industry have seen their pay increase by an average of 4.9% over the past 12 months and that has helped to push the average U.S. worker’s paycheck 3% higher over the same period. …

After a brief slowdown in oil and gas exploration early in the recession, there has been a boom in the field. Drilling companies are flocking to places like North Dakota and the Northeast and prices at the pump have skyrocketed, nearly tripling since 2008.

With oil prices rising and the potential of natural gas expanding, the energy sector is going gangbusters — and this is just with the limited access we’re allowed under President Obama and his Interior Department’s meager permitting. Fewer restrictions on American businesses’ opportunities for oil and gas exploration would lead to productive, private-sector job creation, economic growth, and boatloads of federal and state revenue that could help all of our debt problems — but noooooo, we have to keep dumping our money into the bottomless green-energy pit, because that’s the direction that President Obama has magnanimously decided the country needs to take. How very generous of him.

[MNJohnnie]

Imagine where we would be if we had not wasted the last 4 years handing out “green energy” money to Obama campaign donors.

[Red Badger]

If Obozo gets back in for four more years of his stupidity, he’ll make sure that don’t happen again.............

[bronxville]

I saw the headline and immediately thought government but can now see my error. Romney mentioned oil as booming but only on private land...he wants to change it to all land.

[fella]

Abundant, reliable and inexpensive energy is the bedrock foundation of a growing modern economy.

[Hokestuk]

My comment at the hotair article:

YES! Energy is key… to high income jobs, to low gas prices & low business production costs, and bountiful jobs & products for all! Let’s start talking more about how O oddly has it out for U.S. energy, because of climate change, which people either don’t believe or don’t think is a threat at all.

And about coal, a great wake up call article is this, and with O it could happen here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/9590135/Millions-of-British-households-face-blackout-warns-Ofgem.html, it says:

Millions of households are at risk of power black-outs by 2015 because coal stations are being replaced with wind farms, the energy watchdog [Ofgem] said.

The regulator’s new analysis reveals the risk of power-cuts is almost 50 per cent in 2015.. It predicts Britain will face power shortages because old coal and oil plants are being forced to shut down under the European Union’s environmental regulations.

O wants to do the same thing to the U.S. by greenifying our grid. It would be an unmitigated disaster! But in fact the disaster is already occurring, as Obama has succeeded in preventing any new coal plants from being built, and soon the existing plants will be closing down en masse, leaving us vulnerable to an energy disaster. Spread the word of this danger before the election.

[FreedomPoster]

>>Abundant, reliable and inexpensive energy is the bedrock foundation of a growing modern economy.

Worth saying again, bump for that.

[TomGuy]

the green-energy industry may have created some 28,000-odd jobs (a very far cry from the 5 million we were promised, cough cough)

Maybe not, under the new definitions.

Mowing the lawn could now be considered a 'green' job and it takes energy, so you have a 'green-energy' job.

[TurboZamboni]

And tt cost almost $728,000 per job in subsidies at that rate of job creation.

[Dusty Road]

Here in the Permian Basin we’re booming, theres no housing available, anybody thats got an acre or more has several travel trailers sitting on it. News West did a story about people living out of storage units until they could find a place. In our little town rent has doubled and so have the housing prices. A friend of mine put in a 40 unit trailer park on some old property he had in Sand Springs and he filled it in 6 months. People are buying up older homes and fixing them up like crazy, it warms the heart.

I’m in the oil business and we’re drilling as fast as we can nth of town on 8 sections we own. The big ranch south of town (32 sections) already has 72 wells on it and we plan on drilling about 40 more before we’re done there. North of town theres close to 70 rig’s drilling for the Wolfberry and hitting some good wells. Our last one we completed about 6 months ago came in at over 400 barrels a day and is still flowing over 200 barrels a day now. Most of our others come in about 80 to 90 barrels a day but this one surprised us.

[Dusty Road]

Here in the Permian Basin we’re booming, theres no housing available, anybody thats got an acre or more has several travel trailers sitting on it. News West 9 did a story about people living out of storage units until they could find a place. In our little town rent has doubled and so have the housing prices. A friend of mine put in a 40 unit trailer park on some old property he had in Sand Springs and he filled it in 6 months. People are buying up older homes and fixing them up like crazy, it warms the heart.

I’m in the oil business and we’re drilling as fast as we can nth of town on 8 sections we own. The big ranch south of town (32 sections) already has 72 wells on it and we plan on drilling about 40 more before we’re done there. North of town theres close to 70 rig’s drilling for the Wolfberry and hitting some good wells. Our last one we completed about 6 months ago came in at over 400 barrels a day and is still flowing over 200 barrels a day now. Most of our others come in about 80 to 90 barrels a day but this one surprised us.