It’s great that ThePolitico’s Darren Samualsohn is asking questions about Obama’s green jobs agenda, but, he forgot to ask a few others, such as “how many jobs did the green agenda cost?” We learned from Spain that for ever one created, two private sector jobs are lost. Also, how much do the ones actually created cost? And, for those jobs, how much revenue do they create? Anyhow Green jobs success eludes President Obama
President Barack Obama heads to an energy plant in North Carolina on Monday to talk once again about the job-creating power of a green economy.
The catch? Nearly three years into Obama’s presidency, the White House can’t point to much solid evidence that significant numbers of Americans are scoring the green jobs the president has been touting.
If the economy was roaring along and unemployment was down below 6%, pushing for more “green” jobs wouldn’t be so problematic. People and companies would have the choice to move some positions towards said “green.” With unemployment about 9.1%, and having been above 9% for years, funding “green” job training programs with federal money for jobs that barely, if at all, exist, is foolish.
Monthly Labor Department employment reports say nothing about the new clean energy workforce, while an effort to document how many Americans actually make a living in the “green collar” field may not be done by November 2012.
Obama can make the report his epitaph as he contemplates his own coming unemployment in 2013.
Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers suggests 225,000 clean energy jobs were either created or preserved through the third quarter of 2010 thanks to more than $80 billion in the economic stimulus package. But those are estimates at best.
That’s $355,555 spent per job, most of which will never create a profit, and probably killed 450,000 real jobs in the private sector.
White House officials say asking about the connection between the 9.1 percent unemployment rate and the administration’s concerted green jobs campaign is the wrong question.
A better benchmark, they say, is the exponential growth in clean technology industries, from the new car battery manufacturers that have sprung up across the Midwest to renewable energy plants, including the world’s largest solar facility that’s slated to break ground Friday in the California desert.
In other words, don’t question why there is so little progress, but, look, a shiny squirrel battery for cars that all the unemployed can’t afford (nor can most people who are working.) And that solar plant? They said “screw the turtles, we’ll just move them.”
The White House figures 825,000 Americans should be building electric car batteries, retrofitting homes or doing other green collar work by the end of 2012. But that too is an extrapolation.
He had promised 5 million green jobs by the end of 2012. But, hey, getting paid $350K a year out of The People’s money to install window sealing is good work if you can get it.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
Gee, Teach, wasn’t there a couple of “green jobs” created when Moo-chelle put in the White House Vegetable Garden.
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I can see where you became confused: people turned green eating the veggies grown in that toxic soul, while watching Michelle scarf down a chili cheeseburger :D
Hyuck Hyuck Maggie. Good one Maggie. Do “thumbs” count?
That’s $355,555 spent per job That seems to be par for the course for stimulus funded jobs. All over-funded. Someone is getting their pocket’s lined. Heavily.
Difference between a conservative and a liberal? We look at how many people are employed and able to live free of government control…. err. I mean assistance. The liberals just look at how much government money is spent. The more money spent means something good had to happen. Thus, more money equals more good.
As Rushbo states, the libs don’t look at the results, they look at their intent.
I’m wondering when the “green” jobs will be created to clean up those new hazardous battery-construction-facility waste sites?
I’m wondering when those “green” jobs will be created to dispose of all these massive batteries?
ahem
I’m also wondering how all the electricity is going to be “created” to power these damn plug-in cars.
As I recall the great liberal State of California, which is replete with tree huggers, spent quite a few summers with rolling black-outs to counter their electricity-shortages. Wonder what plans they have to solve the exacerbated problem when all these nuts buy electric cars.
Years ago I lived next to a person who, shall we say, was very “environmentally conscious.”
We were talking about electric cars with her friends and I said, “where are you going to get the electricity for the cars?”
She replied, “you just plug them in!”
I told her I was thinking on a larger scale. Where was the electricity that she gets from the plug going to come from?
“It comes out of the wall and you just plug the car in!” she replied.
I tried another tact. “Electricity comes from somewhere. It has to be generated. Whether that is a nuclear plant, or a plant up in T-ville (name of a town) the electricity has to be made somewhere to be sent to your home so you can plug in the car. Given that most power plants are running at capacity now, and the need for electricity is expected to grow 300% by 2050, where are you going to get the electricity for your electric car to plug into?”
“From the wall!” she said, clearly exasperated. She really was upset that I couldn’t understand the simple idea of plugging a car into a wall.
“If the demands on power plants are greater than the plants can produce, what happens then?” I asked. “Where are people going to get power to charge their electric cars if the power companies can’t make enough power?”
“From the wall!” she said. Her friends looked at me like I was some sort of a simpleton.
I walked away and she got into her smoke belching, poorly tuned, bald tired, ’67 land yacht and headed with her friends to the grocery store about 3 blocks away. I know this because I saw her in the store with her friends. I had ridden my bike up there to get a few items.
She later moved away after completing her degree and when she left she was excited because she had accepted a position as a science teacher in a middle school.
You know, I was thinking about this. I think they have solved this problem. Think, why are they bothering creating so many battery powered cars without creating the electricity to power them……
…. they are going to use THE CARS as the battery storage facilities for when they have brownouts.
“Just buy a Chevy Volt for $40,000,.. oh, no, now they are only $1,005 cheaper, and when we have to implement a rolling brownout, you can simply use your convenient mobile power storage device. Just use the reverse charge plug, installed for only $2000, to power your house for the brief 3 hours that the meager and minor brownout occurs.”