Does the teenage kid who sells used records count as someone who has a green job? What about an oil lobbyist, or someone who works at an antique shop? Those all count as “Green Jobs” according to the Obama Administration’s top statistician at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The “Green Jobs” initiative cost $38.6 billion or $5 million per job and now through the Oversight Committee’s work we are learning more about how the Obama administration gambled away tax payer dollars to support their ideological interests. Take a look at the Oversight Committee’s excerpt video below:
Of course, those of us who have been paying attention know that the Green Jobs movement has been a scamall along. One need only read Morriss, Bogart, Dorchak and Meiners’ Green Job Myths to know that promoting specialized jobs the market was not demanding, rather than focusing on productivity, would create low-paying jobs in less desirable conditions.
How did we get here? In part we can attribute the Green Jobs Debacle to the Obama Adminstration’s trust of special interest groups who promoted the idea of green jobs by embedding within their analysis dubious assumptions and techniques. In short, the vaunted “science-driven” forces of the Left weredriven more by ideology than by empiricism. As Morriss et.al. predicted, there were 7 myths associated with green jobs, myths that flew in the face of science and logic:
- Myth 1: Everyone understands what a “green job” is.
Fact 1: No standard definition of a “green job” exists. - Myth 2: Creating green jobs will boost productive employment.
Fact 2: Green jobs estimates in these oft-quoted studies include huge numbers of clerical, bureaucratic, and administrative positions that do not produce goods and services for consumption. - Myth 3: Green jobs forecasts are reliable.
Fact 3: The green jobs studies made estimates using poor economic models based on dubious assumptions. - Myth 4: Green jobs promote employment growth.
Fact 4: By promoting more jobs instead of more productivity, the green jobs described in the literature actually encourage low-paying jobs in less desirable conditions. Economic growth cannot be ordered by Congress or by the United Nations (UN). Government interference in the economy – such as restricting successful technologies in favor of speculative technologies favored by special interests – will generate stagnation. - Myth 5: The world economy can be remade by reducing trade and relying on local production and reduced consumption without dramatically decreasing our standard of living.
Fact 5: History shows that individual nations cannot produce everything its citizens need or desire. People and countries have talents that allow specialization in products and services that
make them ever more efficient, lower-cost producers, thereby enriching all people. - Myth 6: Government mandates are a substitute for free markets.
Fact 6: Companies react more swiftly and efficiently to the demands of their customers/markets, than to cumbersome government mandates. - Myth 7: Wishing for technological progress is sufficient.
Fact 7: Some technologies preferred by the green jobs studies are not capable of efficiently reaching the scale necessary to meet today’s demands.
Nearly every myth they highlighted has since been proven to be just that, a myth, founded on nothing but ideology. Solyndra and the dubious counting methods employed by the Obama Administration are just further proof of the Green Jobs Scam. Indeed, as Morris et.al., predicted “To attempt to transform modern society on the scale proposed by the green jobs literature is an effort of staggering complexity and scale. To do so based on the wishful thinking and bad economics embodied in the green jobs literature would be the height of irresponsibility.” In light of the dubious counting methods employed by BLS, it seems the Green Jobs Scam was indeed the height of irresponsibility.
Gregory S. McNeal is a professor who specializes in law and public policy. You can follow him on Twitter @GregoryMcNeal.
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