“Optimistically treating European Commission partially funded data, we find that for every renewable energy job that the State manages to finance, Spain’s experience cited by President Obama as a model reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created.”
“Each “green” megawatt installed destroys 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy: 8.99 by photovoltaics, 4.27 by wind energy, 5.05 by mini- hydro. 11. These costs do not appear to be unique to Spain’s approach but instead are largely inherent in schemes to promote renewable energy sources.”
1. Solar Storm
2. Time marches On: Legacies
1. SOLAR STORM
A vitally important piece of legislation comes to the floor of the House ofRepresentatives today. It is the Cap and Trade legislation that the administration believes will create new jobs, develop new industries and put the much-maligned US industrial engine back on track. Meanwhile the New York Times notes that high school graduates in Dayton, Ohio cannot find factory work as have their parents and grandparents. The graduating class this year will not be seeking jobs at General Motors, Chrysler or Delco. Dayton’s Wright Pat Air Force base is hiring 1,000 employees. Half of those require PhDs.
Two elements of the unraveling New Industrial State (see J K Galbraith) are becoming clear.
First, the competitiveness of US industry is bottoming. As GM goes so goes the country has been a widely used saying in the Post War US. The US auto industry, as we have known it, is now gone despite the frantic attempts of both Bush and Obama Administrations to save it. America long ago became a service economy. Our best high school graduates have tended to gravitate to jobs in the factory (steel, auto, shipbuilding, etc.) or service industries. Part of this problem results from the high quality of life in North America that has been, more or less, a direct result of the decline of the US currency. The US has, for the last 60 years, been the owner of the world’s reserve currency. This currency privilege migrates every half century, or so, from one country to another, amongst those who establish ownership through proper governance, military strength / victories, industrial or commodity wealth and the ingenuity and innovativeness of their population. This mantel changes with regularity. In the twentieth and twenty first centuries Britain and the US have been guardians of this powerful reserve currency privilege.
It will persist here in the US, for a few decades, but US reserve currency power is being reined in; make no mistake about that. The BRIC block is the likely the next guardian of the privilege. Our ability to maintain the current quality of life through currency depreciation and its global inflation impact is now in doubt. July 13, 2008 was the high water mark. The high school seniors graduating this week in Dayton are well beginning to realize this. The solution is clear. The US must now re-industrialize. His will require most of the rest of the century if we begin now.
The second element of this plan is evident in Washington today. The administration seeks to pass Carbon Cap and Trade legislation that the CBO says will tax American families by $100 to $200 per year. We have always said that Washington understands the Cap side of the equation but not the Trade side. Washington understands taxes also.
… read pages 2,3 and 4 HERE.