No Snow Job on Green Jobs

its natural for the unemployment statistics to increase because there are lots of companies closing and more employees are being laid off.

Great points by Morriss although I would disagree with his comments about a prize to reward innovation. Don, I believe I picked up this point from you in which you said that the profits would be a far greater reward than any prize money could offer.

LOL, this is the guy Glenn Beck ousted back in July right?

In my view, the only leg that people advocating government intervention in energy have to stand on is the textbook idea of 'market failure' and 'external costs' not taken into account by a purely free market.

Even assuming this necessitates government intervention (which it may not), the same textbooks which talk about externalities also say that the only solution necessary for externalities is nothing more than one simple tax (eg, a carbon tax, in this case) to reduce production to the 'correct' level.

Nowhere in the textbooks does it say that there should be a huge energy departments full of bureaucrats wasting billions of dollars of public money trying to 'pick winners' and failing miserably, while subsidising the very companies it should be taxing. The 'correct' government intervention according to textbook theory would be a carbon tax, followed by abolition of all other now-redundant interventions in the energy market.

Ironic, then, that Jones' arguments for government interference in energy are also arguments for reducing government interference in energy.

I'm suspicious of claims of green jobs. If there really are going to be so many green jobs, won't the payment of wages for these green jobs cause green power to be expensive? Labor is expensive, especially in the U.S. (I guess we might avoid the expense problem by having the labor done in cheaper overseas labor markets, but isn't the point to create American jobs?)

Remarkable. Van Jones “shares Mr. Morriss’ preference for market-based solutions”?

What evidence is there to support this claim? I’ve not read anything in Mr. Jones’ history to suggest he’s ever engaged in anything but state-sponsored enterprises, or community-based initiatives, shunning the private sector.

To the contrary (and as is revealed by the rest of Van Jones’ insipid, anti-economic remarks), Mr Jones has a well established history of attacking private enterprise, not supporting it.

Van Jones also asserts “We need deft government action to address these challenges and create the conditions for a multibillion-dollar clean-tech energy boom.”

Like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's deft action created a massive housing boom? Or Social Security created a galactic, well-run and fully-funded entitlement to ensure the financial futures of every American? That kind of deft action?

Given Mr. Jones' flagrant ignorance of economics (and his own past, apparently), I'm quite sure he understands neither unproven AGW theory and it's gargantuan shortcomings, nor the economic implications of his policy proposals to "solve" this non-problem.

California global warming law may lead to job losses, report says. Oops.

Van Jones’ argument consists of a series of assertions he conspicuously fails to support:

1) He asserts that at present there are many “staggering market failures” in “today’s distorted and dysfunctional energy markets.”

What “market failures”? There are plenty of market distortions -- caused by government intervention. But what are these private market failures? And if the market is so "dysfunctional", who is being denied gasoline for their cars or electricity for their homes?

Sure, I’d love for gas to be $1 a gallon and for none of the revenue to flow to murderous Islamic regimes -- but it isn’t the private sector that is limiting domestic oil production and driving up the price. It’s the environmentalists -- in other words, it’s Jones and his crowd.

Coal and coal-mining, oil prospecting, oil drilling, oil-refining, oil pipelines, supertankers, gasoline, kerosene, natural gas, steam engines, internal combustion engines, turbine powered electricity generators, alternating current electricity, the dynamo, the induction motor, power grids -- all of this crucial energy technology was developed by the private market. Government’s responsibility in this process was to protect private property rights, which in most cases it did. The rest was done by private minds and hands (often in the face of government interference and obstruction).

But the leftist mind still clings to the myth that nothing happens unless government uses force to make it happen.

2) Jones claims that, “Governments spend billions of dollars subsidising Big Oil companies and other polluters.” If so, they should stop. One subsidy does not justify other subsidies.

3) Jones claims that “dirty energy offloads pain and costs on to innocent third parties, now and into the future.”? What pain? What costs? Who are these “innocent third parties“?

And what about the fact that this “dirty energy” is moving the entire world and powering an economic engine that feeds billions of people? There are billions more who‘d give up their first born child for access to this “dirty energy“ Why would they do so if it brings such pain and costs?

I’ll take the air quality of the any city in America over the air quality inside an African hut where food is being cooked over a dung-fueled fire.

4) Jones asserts on-going catastrophic global warming -- and the need for drastic government action to address it -- as if it were an established, universally-accepted fact. It certainly is not. One comment on an economics blog is not the place to address the entire global warming argument, but to pretend -- as Jones does -- that the matter is non-controversial is preposterous.

Here is something I‘d say IS non-controversial and beyond dispute. Geologically, we are in an interglacial period -- and just like the 15 other such periods that have occurred regularly between the ice ages of the past 1.6 million years, this interglacial period features rising temperatures (and each of the past 15 got considerably hotter than we are presently experiencing, so there is more warming to come) and rising sea levels. This is mother nature all on her own -- and unless she has changed her mind, this warming is going to continue no matter what we do. See the 5 part article at this link:

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/the_sky...

I’d love to hear this statist Jones explain how he plans to stop this warming.

5) Mixed with these scary claims, Jones offers us the same nonsense that Obama keeps spewing: namely, the claim that since we “need” green energy, it will “create jobs” -- so, on balance, we’ll be better off.

This is just the old broken window fallacy. Need is not the same thing as demand. Even if we need green energy, the mere fact of this need will not magically create the money required to pay for the production of green energy.

If we all go home tonight and burn all of our clothing on the front lawn, we will definitely be “in need” of additional clothing -- and fast. And over time, I think we would definitely see an increase in employment in the garment industry. But we wouldn’t all be richer -- we’d be poorer. And the extra employment in the garment industry would be offset by the decrease in employment that would occur in all those sectors of the economy where our spending would drop as we spent for entire new wardrobes.

6) And if that avalanche of unsupported claims leaves one unimpressed, Jones finishes up by telling us that since we are going to run out of fossil fuel eventually, we may as well let government start forcing us to use a different source of fuel today.

But why? Why should the form of energy production be selected by the government and forced on the rest of us?

We have already spent a half a trillion dollars and over one third of a century on a Federal Department of Energy -- that’s right, the Feds have been working on our “energy problems“ one third of a century. And yet, according to Jones, the energy sky is falling nonetheless and only more government can save us.

The more the left‘s policies fail, the more energetically they promote them.

The more the left‘s policies fail, the more energetically they promote them.

Bad results are never the fault of good intentions. Good intentions with bad results mean that the good intentions were not accompanied by sufficient force. With sufficient coercion good intentions can solve anything! Those stupid neighbors that didn't take our advice... We're in government now... We've got power now... We'll MAKE them take our advice! Yeah, we know best...
/sarcasm

Great post. I especially like your last line. The implied assumption seems to be that, at worst, government policy may not be strong enough to offset the toxic effects of the market. It's never considered that the policy itself hurt.

The market failed somehow. They just need more power and control to get it right.

Spot on Michael, good job as usual.

If I add just one expansion on the portion of your well done presentation it is where you addressed pain and costs.

I believe we can all agree that weighing satisfaction of our needs and wants against the possible pain and costs is something that extends back to Lucy and her clan.

"To get to the fig tree loaded with fruit I have to cross 500 yards of open grass land where lions and other predators are known to roam. Do I risk the pain and costs of being caught in the open by a hungry lion, or other predator, in order to get my fill of figs to eat, or do I go hungry while I look for something less plentiful but with less risk."

That choice or situation has been with humanity from day one.

In short the world seems to be divided between those of us who know that to have more and better we must risk more and be willing to maybe suffer some in the short term. The other side of that are those who aren't willing to risk, fear it, and reject short term suffering; but, are content to forcibly live off the wealth created by those who do risk, until that wealth is consumed, then they point the finger at the producer and claim he isn't keeping up his end of the social obligation.