The myth (and phony math) of 'green' jobs -- by Duggan Flanakin of CFACT

Governments are killing real jobs and conning us about ‘millions of good green jobs’

 
“Fool me once,” Stephen King wrote, “shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.” His adage certainly applies to the myth (and fake math) of green jobs.
 
During the 2020 election campaign, Joe Biden asserted that more than 3 million Americans are already “employed in the clean energy economy.” He then boasted that, “if executed strategically, our response to climate change can create more than 10 million well-paying jobs in the United States that will grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class … and not just in cities along the coasts.”
 
That would make Joe twice as boastful as his former boss, who promised the 2009 $787 billion stimulus package would create “over five million” green jobs. Four years later, the Brookings Institution reported that, “of the nearly 2.7 million ‘green jobs’ [the Obama-Biden Administration] identifies, most were bus drivers, sewage workers and other types of work that don’t fit the ‘green jobs of the future’” description.
 
Energy analyst David Blackmon later reported that Obama’s own Department of Labor acknowledged the initial failure to launch. DOL’s September 2011 report, “Recovery Act: Slow pace placing workers into jobs jeopardizes employment goals of the Green Jobs Program,” noted that only a third of the allocated funding had been spent; a fifth of the “degrees” and “certifications” went to people with a single day of training; and half of the “graduates” had five or fewer days of training. Just 2% of program participants held their jobs for at least six months.
 
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted oil industry lobbyists as holding “green” jobs! The septic tank and portable toilet servicing industry had 33 times more “green” jobs than solar electric utilities. The BLS had to admit in a June 2012 report, “Green Technologies and Practices – August 2011,” that they could identify only 854,700 “green” jobs, including janitors and cleaners.
 
What a sham! Shame on them for trying to con us.
 
David Kreutzer pointed out in a Heritage Foundation report that steel workers had the most “green” industrial jobs. Why? Most U.S. steel is recycled scrap, and some steel gets used in making wind turbines. The next largest groups were bus drivers, waste collectors and used-merchandise store employees – followed finally by engineering and architectural services. The much hated nuclear industry accounted for over 80% of the 44,000 “green” electric utility jobs. There were five times as many “green” jobs in social advocacy (environmentalist group lobbyists) as in renewable electric power.
 
Ah, but that was then – and this is now, you say. Right.  
 
In January, the Associated Press reported on “Biden’s fuzzy math” regarding his claim of creating 1 million new auto industry jobs – even if he actually replaces the 650,000-government vehicle fleet with electric cars and installs 500,000 new EV charging stations – all at taxpayer expense. Theoretically, a huge government buying program will lower EV costs, and the myriad of charging stations will lessen fears of being stuck in a hurricane evacuation in a vehicle you cannot quickly gas up. Theoretically.
 
But hold on! Every electric vehicle job will likely come at the expense of a gasoline-engine vehicle job, and every EV charging station will diminish jobs in pipeline, refining, gasoline retail, gasoline delivery, and other sectors. The AP story adds that industry analysts and the United Auto Workers union agree that EV manufacturing will likely mean fewer automotive jobs. One reason is that EVs have far fewer parts and are simpler to build, thus require fewer workers, and often just need a new $6,000 battery module. Another is that battery manufacturing is easily automated. But that is hardly the whole story.
 
Back in 2019, while losing over a fifth of its U.S. market share of sales over a 3-year period, General Motors admitted it already employed more non-union auto workers in China than union workers in the USA. The harsh reality is that there are 10 times more electric vehicle battery manufacturing facilities in Asia than in all of North America. Maybe Jinping Joe Biden is talking about the number of Chinese “green” jobs. Especially child and near-slave labor in China’s mines and processing plants.
 
Other fact checkers have also found Biden Administration green jobs claims are “mostly false.”
 
Electric vehicles are just part of the Green New Biden Deal. Surrendering our economy to the Paris climate accords and its draconian environmental restraints is another. Abandoning oil, gas and coal – and very likely nuclear energy – and all the jobs those industries create is a third. Mr. Biden is merely following Germany and other European Union countries down the primrose path to economic suicide.
 
According to Deutsche Bank, climate policy regulation of Germany’s automotive sector is triggering “the biggest structural break in the industry in decades.” A bank report explains that strict carbon dioxide limits for new passenger cars in the EU for 2021 and 2030 are forcing manufacturers to prematurely switch to higher cost electric vehicles. The resultant price increases, the bank predicts, will have a very negative effect on future employment in the Germany auto industry.
 
One reason is that the EU’s CO2 limits for passenger cars and subsidies for electric vehicles are “extremely inefficient [expensive] and hardly effective instruments” to achieve emission reduction in the transport sector. While government incentives and mandates may push people toward buying government-favored vehicles, radical climate and energy policies decrease investment in energy-intensive sectors such as metals and chemicals. This will further increase the cost of new German cars.
 
Despite the push for green energy and electric vehicles, the German Trade Union Association reports that the number of “green” jobs in the German renewables sector had fallen from 300,000 in 2011 to just 150,000 in 2018. Many of these lost jobs were due to the collapse of Germany’s solar power industry, as companies were forced out of business by Chinese manufacturers that undercut German prices – and had much easier access to raw materials.
 
The track record for American renewable industry jobs vis-à-vis Chinese competition has mimicked the German experience. A primary reason is China’s near-monopoly on rare-earth metals essential for the Green revolution. Despite these realities, Biden “climate envoy” John Kerry recently said displaced American oil and gas workers can simply and easily go to work making solar panels.
 
Energy economist Tilak Doshi agrees the West’s fascination with renewables-only de-carbonization, and ultimately de-industrialization, is a recipe for economic suicide. He notes that Germany’s “green” world involves behemoth wind turbines with blades made of petroleum-based, fiberglass-reinforced resins; motors built with iron and rare earths extracted, processed and smelted using fossil fuels; concrete that also requires fossil fuels; and factories run on coal and natural gas. Solar panels have the same pedigree.
 
The turbines and panels are installed in forests, grasslands, farmlands and coastal areas, where they destroy scenic vistas and wildlife habitats. Turbine blades kill endangered birds and bats.
 
The result of this save-the-planet zeal? Germany has a burgeoning 17% poverty rate, thanks largely to its shutdown of reliable nuclear and fossil fuel power plants and the resultant skyrocketing electricity prices for homes, factories, businesses and hospitals over the past 15 years.
 
Back in the USA, California operates the world’s fifth largest economy by importing most of its crude oil from overseas (despite massive in-state reserves) and a third of its electricity from other states (also for political expediency). As a result, Californians now pay 60% more than the national average for residential, commercial and industrial electricity, while enduring frequent rolling blackouts due to pricey weather-dependent energy and pathetic forest management. People and industries are fleeing the state.
 
And Team Biden-Harris (Harris-Biden?) wants to turn the rest of the United States into California!
 
Duggan Flanakin is director of policy research at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)
 

Germans Face Skyrocketing Electricity Bills

Let us recall that Obama has promised us skyrocketing electricity bills.  He wants to do to us what is already happening to the German people.  Electricity costs are even worse in Denmark.

The German government is aiming to have 80% of German energy produced by renewable sources by 2050.  It has also decided to close down all nuclear power plants by 2022.  Older fossil fuel plants are being shut down already.  Solar, wind, and biomass energy now are a quarter of the country's electricity supply.  The levy subsidizing the green energy electricity sources instituted with the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), has caused electricity costs to skyrocket.  Electricity now costs about 85% more than in 2000, when EEG was passed.  The EEG is to be increased by 47% next year to a toll of 5.3 cents per kilowatt hour.  Already, electricity is less expensive in many European and Asian countries by 30%.  It is 50% less expensive in the U.S. and Russia.  This will cost Germany jobs.

The subsidy next year for renewable energy to be paid by German consumers is about 20 billion Euros.  The Technical University of Berlin just issued a study that predicts that the subsidies crushing German consumers will be more than 300 billion Euros by 2030, which is unsustainable.  Already, as many as 800,000 German households are unable to pay their electric bills.  In 2009, German households spent an average of 2,500 Euros a year for energy.  At the 2009 average monthly exchange rate to dollars, this was the equivalent of $3,474 a year.  German households are now paying about 41% of their total bills for heating and hot water costs.  After the electricity rate increases already scheduled for next year, further increases from 30 to 50% are expected over the next ten years.

Costs are not the only major problem.  A very cold period in February 2011, was more than the electric grid could handle.  A number of heavy industry plants in the Hamburg area were forced to shut-down.  There is reason for concern that further shut-downs will be needed this winter and next winter.

The story for investors has been bleak.  Wind and solar power system manufacturers are among the worst -performing stocks in the last few years.  Vestas, the Danish wind turbine manufacturer, had a fantastic 20 times increase in stock value from 2003 to 2008.  The value of the stock has now returned to the 2003 value.  In 2012, Vestas is losing money and has had to reduce its workforce around the world by 3,735.  Vestas America has cut jobs this year, hurting Obama's claim of creating many green jobs.

Solar panel makers have had a similarly hard time.  SunTech of China is the largest photovoltaic panel manufacturer.  Its private equity investors, including Goldman Sachs, made 10 times their original investment.  When SunTech shares were initially launched on the stock market, they went from $20 to $79 in late 2007.  The stock has crashed since to $0.92!  Similarly, First Solar was at $308 in April 2008 and now is about $23.  Falling prices due to a surplus of manufacturing capacity and sinking government subsidies have caused the solar industry to become unprofitable.

Yet, Obama still thinks he is going to create millions of green jobs in America.  If he uses subsidies to do so, they will have to be huge.  Huge subsidies will kill other jobs in greater numbers than those created in the green industries.  The green industries have very brown thumbs.

Oppose the Senate Renewable Electricity Standard

The Senate is considering the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) which will mandate an increase in wind and solar power to 15% of all electric power by 2021.  This is similar to the requirement of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill that passed the House in June 2009, which was called the American Clean Energy Leadership Act (ACELA).  Utilities will be forced to make huge investments in these uneconomic means of producing electricity and users will have to pay higher rates for their electricity.  This is a regressive tax with no rational benefits.

The fools backing this bill say it will provide "clean electricity", but laws already require scrubbers to clean the real pollutants from power plants.  As we all know here, CO2 is not a pollutant.  It is great plant food.  It is not causing global warming, let alone catastrophic global warming.  Finally, forcing utilities to invest in expensive alternative energy projects simply takes money from more productive efforts and transfers it to nonsense.  The net effect is a slowdown in growth of the economy and a failure to produce as many jobs as a free economy would.

Of course, this is so foolish, it is hard to believe that many of its backers do not realize this.  It is also a great way to get the alternative energy or renewable energy companies to give a politician some very large campaign contributions.  We know of many cases in which Senators knowingly do the wrong thing to gain money.  Our money.  Our response:  Throw the bums out who back this in November, whether they are running for re-election in 2010, 2012, or 2014.  Remember them as either fools or evil people, neither of whom belong in OUR Senate.

Democrats Bludgeon Jobs in the Gulf and the Oil & Gas Industries

Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, says the government mandate against deep water wells in the Gulf of Mexico will cost 175,000 jobs each year until 2035.  The American Petroleum Institute represents 400 oil and gas companies.  The industry provides 9.2 million jobs and produces 7.5% of the U.S. GDP.  In June 2010, the number of Americans employed was down to a mere 140.0 million, so 9.2 million oil and gas provided jobs is 6.6% of the workforce.  Since these workers produce 7.5% of the GDP, they are clearly more productive than the average worker.  Other consequences of the Democrat vendetta against deep water oil and gas production are:

• A reduction of GDP by more than $20 billion per year.
• A cumulative GDP reduction of $500 billion by 2035.
• U.S. oil production reduced by 27%.
• Oil imports up by 19%.
• The cost to import oil to replace lost production through the end of 2011 will be $10 billion.
• The oil and gas industry is half of all Gulf of Mexico economic activity or $234 billion.  Companies hurt by the oil moratorium may be bankrupted or fail, causing jobs in the Gulf states to die.  Some companies will move away to other areas of the world.
• The Gulf of Mexico produces 30% of our domestic oil production and 12% of natural gas production.
• An oil rig platform provides up to 1,400 jobs with wages totaling $10 million per month.
• The 33 oil rig platforms pay out $300 million per month in pay.
• A 6-month moratorium on deep water drilling will cost 50,000 jobs and about $2 billion in lost wages related to the oil drilling platforms themselves.

But, you are not to worry.  If your job is lost, the Democrats are happy to make you a ward of the state.  They will extend your unemployment benefits and transfer wealth from private sector workers to you.  Of course, eventually, they tell you, you will have a green job in alternative energy.

Worry, if you are one of those just over half the population who pay income taxes, while struggling to retain your job in this largely government-induced recession.  Then even as your energy costs are driven higher by the Democrat unreasoning hatred for fossil energy, you will get to take on higher taxes, watch your assets further depreciate, worry about retaining your job in the ever more burdened private sector, and wonder how bad the future will be with fewer and fewer productive workers and more and more moochers.

Oh, on those green jobs, you will be better off investing in the Brooklyn Bridge.  It at least exists.  It even has a reason to exist.

Life goes on, but sometimes our government ensures it is a whole lot rougher than it needs to be!

How did Obama's Green Jobs Model Work for Spain?

Obama believes a "green economy" should be a principal goal of his economic and environmental policy.  He claims he will produce high quality jobs to put Americans back to work with his plans to subsidize alternative energy generation, while driving the coal industry into bankruptcy.  He also claims that this is a substantial path toward energy independence.  Eight times he has said that the model for his alternative energy economy is Spain.  So, let us see what the Spanish have concluded from their experiment in a green economy based on subsidized alternative energy such as solar and wind power.

The Socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has been behind the Spanish "green economy."  From 2004 to 2010, the subsidies for alternative power were increased by a multiple of 5.  In 2009, the subsidies were doubled compared to 2008.  These 2009 subsidies were about equal to the entire government budget for all research, development, and technological innovation for Spain.  Electricity from solar plants is 12 times more expensive than that from fossil fuel combustion.  The cost of electricity generated in Spain from traditional fossil fuel plants has been dropping, but the cost of the alternative fuels has been going up so fast that consumer bills have gone up, rather than down.  You see, most of the subsidy costs are charged to the consumer.  The government says that the alternative energy industry will receive 126 billion euros in the next 25 years.

The Spanish newspaper La Gaceta on 21 May 2010 reported on the developing consensus that Spain's alternative energy, "green economy" has failed miserably.  Gabriel Calzada and other authors from the Juan de Mariana Institute produced a study that the Spanish 'green economy" had failed.  The Socialist government bitterly denounced the study.  The Spanish Embassy in the U.S. got the Democrat Congress to denounce the Calzada study in an act of Congress!

But now, the Minister of Industry, Miguel Sebastian, is worrying about the huge debt which is the result of the so-called investment in "clean energy."  Some in the Spanish cabinet believe the debt is worsening and delaying the recession for Spain.  An internal document of the Spanish cabinet has been leaked and its conclusions are even more pessimistic than the demonized Calzada study's.  The government now admits that every 'green job" created cost Spain more than 2.2 traditional jobs, in agreement with the Calzada report.  This is not good in a country with 20%, and still rising, unemployment.  The internal cabinet report backs every claim made in the Calzada study about the failure of the "green economy" experiment.

Obama, just last week, recommended that Zapatero change his strategy because it was hurting the Spanish economy and threatening the stability of the entire European Union, which is likely, with help from the U.S., to be asked to bail Spain out of its financial crisis.  One has to conclude that Obama knows the "green economy" model does not work.  Yet, this is the essential model of the newest attempt to create such an economy in the U.S., the Kerry - Lieberman version of carbon cap and tax which was just introduced earlier this week.  Obama is all for that.  This means he is knowingly putting his and the Democrats quest for power over the economy ahead of American prosperity.  He is knowingly seeking to create "green jobs" at a cost of more than 2.2 traditional jobs, he is knowingly seeking to add hugely to the national debt, and he is knowingly acting to greatly increase the cost of energy use in the U.S.

Is this guy Satan or what?

Robert Bryce -- Five Myths About Green Energy

Robert Bryce has long been an expert on energy issues.  He is a Senior Fellow of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.  He wrote Gusher of Lies:  The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence' and the very recently published Power Hungry:  The Myths of 'Green' Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.  He published an article called Five Myths About Green Energy in the Sunday, 25 April 2010 Washington Post.  His main points are:

1.  Solar and wind power are inefficient in using land.  An aging natural gas well producing 60,000 cubic feet of gas a day generates 20 times more power per square meter than a wind turbine.  A nuclear power plant produces about 8 times as much power per square meter as does a solar photovoltaic installation.  Wind power also does not do much to reduce CO2 emissions.  The wind generators are frequently unable to produce power, so gas and coal-fired power plants have to be available to supply energy when the wind will not.  Denmark more than doubled its wind generation from 1999 to 2007.  Carbon dioxide emissions were about the same in 2007 as in 1990, but this was more because of near-zero population growth and extremely high energy taxes.  Projections of CO2 emissions to 2017 do not show any reduction in CO2 emissions.

2.  The rare earth elements of the lanthanide series, including lanthanum, neodymium, and dysprosium, are used in high-capacity batteries and hybrid-electric cars, wind turbines, and oil refinery catalysts.  China controls more than 95% of the global market in these elements, which it is now reducing exports of in favor of its own domestic manufacturers.  In comparison to China dominance of this market, there are about 20 countries that produce at least 1 million barrels of crude oil a day.  The argument that we should avoid dependence on the 20 countries producing oil and convert that into more dependence on China is not sound.

3.  Creating green energy jobs will be much more difficult than our naive politicians suggest.  Making wind turbines in the U.S. is a difficult proposition, since labor costs are high and Chinese neodymium is a critical ingredient in the strong magnets used to convert the mechanical energy into electricity.  The Chinese have the advantage in labor costs and the supply of neodymium.  The Chinese have also increased their market share in the world solar panel business from 7% in 2005 to 25% in 2009.  Growth Energy, a lobby group, says that increasing the ethanol in gasoline will create 136,000 jobs, but the Environmental Working Group says no more than 27,000 will be created at a cost to taxpayers of as much as $446,000.  That sum must be extracted from the private sector where it would produce about 9 jobs instead of 1 job.  So, yes, the government can create green jobs, but the cost in non-green jobs is commonly very high.

4.  Will electric cars reduce the demand for oil?  Electric car development has been going on for 100 years, with while "failure tailgates failure."  The New York Times said the electric car was cleaner and quieter and more economical in 1911.  Unfortunately, it never became dependable.  "Gasoline contains about 80 times as much energy, by weight, as the best lithium-ion battery."  The electric motor is more efficient than the gasoline combustion engine, but batteries take hours to recharge and are finicky and short-lived.  About 40% of Americans do not have access to an electric outlet to recharge their car at home.  There are still huge problems to overcome to make electric cars practical.

5.  It is said the U.S. lags other countries in becoming energy-efficient.  However, the average per capita energy consumption of the U.S. fell by 2.5% from 1980 to 2006.  This reduction was greater than that of any other developed country except Switzerland and Denmark.  The U.S. has also been among the best in reducing the amount of energy used and the CO2 emitted per $1 of GDP.  The U.S. is going green simply by "allowing enigineers and entrepreneurs to do what they do best: make products that are faster, cheaper and more efficient than the ones they made the year before."

I have long argued that wind and solar energy create land-use problems.  I have also argued that our oil dependence is not so bad as it has been made out to be because there are many suppliers around the world, though one of my recent sources for that understanding was Robert Bryce's book Gusher of Lies.  I graduated from high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma at a time when Tulsa was still a major player in the oil industry, though it was losing out to Houston.  I worked three summers for oil industry companies to earn money for college and I have ever since been interested in information on the industry.

I have generally argued that heavy government subsidies for the production of solar power, wind generation, ethanol, and electric cars were misguided interferences with the private sector, which can and will produce such innovations when the technology really exists to make them happen economically.  Until that happens, these many huge government subsidies are simply a waste of the taxpayer's money which would otherwise be put to better use.  As much as the government and academia wish to think they know more than the private sector does, they prove almost always to be wrong or, at least, premature.  Very often, technology cannot be rushed.  When the science is known, it still very often takes a long time for the sum of the technology based on that science needed to put the science to work in practical ways, a long time to develop.  That process is commonly much more complex than government sound-bite politicians and disconnected bureaucrats or academic ivory tower types can understand.

Obama's Green Jobs in Solar Power

The prices of solar panels are falling quickly, which is good for making the presently very highly expensive solar power less expensive.  However, even with the price drops, it is still very expensive compared to the electricity costs of coal-fired power plants.  U.S. manufacturers of solar panels such as SunPower and First Solar are losing market share to Chinese solar panel makers.  The Chinese panels are not as efficient, but they cost much less.  The main Chinese companies are Suntech Power, Trina Solar, and Yingli Solar.

SunPower's market share has fallen from 22% last year to 17% this year.  Suntech was the biggest winner, increasing its market share from 5% to 12%.  It appears that the only green jobs in solar power Obama is going to produce are manufacturing jobs in China, unless the solar power facilities in the U.S. need lots of maintenance work.  But if they do, that will only make the cost of the generated electricity very expensive and solar power will remain unable to compete with fossil fuel generated electric power.

"All war is based on deception." —Sun Tzu

Obama clearly believes in a corollary to this.  For Obama, "All politics is based on deception."

It has to be.  Obama is a radical socialist.  The American People are not radical socialists.  Examining his major program elements we find that he has applied this principle of politics as deception to each of the following:

• No one making less than $250,000 a year will see their taxes go up, yet he is trying to tax many health insurance programs for people making much less than that.  He is going to tax individuals for not buying the health insurance that he wants them to buy.  He is going to tax small businesses whose owners make less than $250,000 a year for not offering approved health insurance to all employees.  There was serious talk of added taxes on soda and sugary fruit drinks, which are known to be drunk only by those making more than $250,000.  The taxes on medical clinics, medical devices, and drug companies he is adding are apparently only going to be passed on only to the wealthy.  He is eager to collect huge payments for the right to use fossil fuel energy and has exempted many very large companies from having to pay these payments in the very near future, so the large payments will fall directly on small businesses initially, but all businesses in time.  These costs will be passed on as increased costs for goods and services to everyone, in a deceptive form of taxing us all.  His advocacy for card check for the labor unions can also be viewed as a huge tax on everyone who buys goods and services, whose costs will increase, or who has ownership in the companies to be taken over.  With all the government debt, any future inflation that may result is a deceptive tax on all of us.  Meanwhile, this debt is causing the value of the dollar to drop, so everyone who buys foreign-made goods is going to be paying more for them.  Another form of tax, a very deceptive one.

• Obama said we needed health care insurance reform to lower the costs of health care and to insure everyone.  The reality turns out to be that everyone, except the very sick currently without health insurance, will see their health care costs go up.  Those who are healthy and can well satisfy their needs with a high deductible plan will see their costs skyrocket as they are forced to buy government approved plans which mandate very low deductibles and low co-pays.  Pressure is being put on the young and the healthy to buy insurance with high premiums so the insurers can cover the costs of the unhealthy, who will jump onto plans only when they need treatments.  The new Obama taxes on health insurers, medical laboratories, and medical devices will make health care more expensive.  The huge increase in paperwork for the benefit of the many government bureaucrats who will be looking over doctor's shoulders will also drive up costs.  The government requirements that more and more procedures and specialist's costs be covered in plans, the path most state interference on approving insurance has followed, will drive up costs.  Doctors, beaten down, will leave their practices.  The demand for health care will go up at first and the number of doctors will drop.  Either supply and demand will be honored with prices going up or health care quality must go down even more than it would otherwise under ObamaCare.  As the costs for health insurance go up, more and more healthy people will go without insurance, even at the cost of paying the uninsured tax.  Thus the number of people uninsured will go up rapidly.  The end result of the political deception will be higher costs and fewer covered, not to mention a great decrease in health care quality.

• Obama says we must stop poisoning the planet by producing CO2 by using fossil fuels, stop global warming, achieve energy independence, and create green jobs so the economy will go.  All deception once again. CO2 is nothing but beneficial to plants, which are beneficial to humans.  Global warming or cooling is very predominantly due to natural forces over which we have no control.  Some global warming is actually beneficial to humans, plants, and animals, but we seem to be in a cooling cycle now whether we wish to be or not.  The path to energy independence is blocked by reality and will not be achieved.  But, what we can and should do is develop and encourage a great multiplicity of energy sources all over the world.  By doing this, our increased future options will provide more access to energy at lower prices than if we take Obama's restrictive approach with a huge taxpayer funded gamble on solar and wind power, his policy of allowing virtually no exploration and drilling for oil and gas in the U.S., his attempt to put coal out of business, and his failure to remove roadblocks to nuclear power.  The claim that he will create more jobs in green energy than will be lost due to restricting coal, oil, and gasoline use fails entirely to understand basic economics.  First, the solar and wind power industries are heavily dependent upon subsidies and mandates for staying in business and even so, many are failing.  Those subsidies are based directly upon taxes, which cause businesses to have higher operational costs and hire fewer people, while consumers have less to spend on non-energy purchases.  The mandates do the same by forcing higher energy costs on everyone.  Meanwhile, the jobs of those in the coal industry, the oil industry, the mining equipment, the railroads that transport coal, shipping companies that carry coal overseas, oil drillers, oil and gas pipelines, and many another industry will lose jobs as fossil fuel use is discouraged by Obama.  Wind and solar will not replace these lost jobs.  No way!

• Obama claims to favor the working man.  Yet he is mandating that companies must use union labor for many government contracts, thereby forcing the working man to pay higher taxes or higher prices to cover the higher costs of government.   Obama wants to bring on union card check, which will deprive the working man of a secret ballot to determine whether his work relationship will be between him and his employer or between him and a socialist labor union.  The working man in the private sector has figured out that being in a union means bowing to socialist labor bosses; paying union dues, a good part of which will go to socialist politicians; losing his self-respect by doing his job well; and harming his company, which will hurt his future.  This is why the working man is not joining the desperate unions anymore in the private sector under secret balloting elections.  This is why the labor unions want to end the secret ballot and put their goons to more effectively intimidating workers into checking cards.  But, Obama would try to deceive us with an act claiming to be about employee freedom.  Ha!!!

• Obama says he wants to make education reforms.  What he wants is more power for the federal government over education and students.  The only really useful reform would be to break the power of the socialist teachers unions in government-run schools and privatize education.  Obama has signed on for some minor improvements, but he has also failed to fundamentally sign on to what is most essentially needed.  He is also bent upon using the schools to further indoctrinate children in socialism and service to the government and those who are downtrodden or victims.  He is using the schools to channel children into his favored charities and into the Democrat Party.

• Obama took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution.  Yet, he gave a radio interview a few years back in Chicago in which he acknowledged that the Constitution did not allow the kind of income redistribution he wanted.  Despite this, he is happy to ignore the highly limited power restrictions of the Constitution and madly redistribute income and wealth.

• Again, despite his oath to honor the Constitution, Obama is doing everything he can to subject Americans to the rulings of various bodies of foreign countries who have no regard for the basic rights of the individual, let alone all of the individual rights our Constitution recognizes and makes it its purpose to protect.

The primary purpose of Obama's life has clearly been to become a master deceiver.  He is a magician-level politician.  Despite this, he has come off the blocks so fast in trying to achieve the more important goals of his socialist agenda that the American People are beginning to see through his magic and his deceptions.  Some see this very clearly now.  I hope enough will see before the 2010 elections that we will greatly reduce the power of the Democrats, his very socialist henchmen, in the Congress and at least stop most of his legislative program in its tracks.  He will still be able to do great harm through regulatory powers and in foreign policy and defense issues.  He will also be able to veto any strong efforts to repeal the great harm he and the Democrat Congress will do between now and 2010.

We must throw him out in 2012 and achieve Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.  I recognize that usually less government mischief is done when one house of Congress is controlled by each party, but in this case, we must actually roll back some very bad legislation, as opposed to the usual advantage of stasis.  We must turn back the clock on socialism.  To do that, the Republicans will have to control the presidency and both houses of Congress for at least 2 years.  They will also have to have a clear understanding of why the American People gave them such power and a goodly concern for the fact that we are watching over their shoulders a lot more carefully than we usually do.

2007 Energy Bill Sends Light Bulb Jobs to China

The GE Winchester, Virginia Bulb Plant makes incandescent light bulbs which the 2007 Energy Act outlaws in 2012 in some wattages and eliminates entirely in 2014. The plant with its 200 employees, along with other plants in Ohio and Kentucky with an additional 200 people, is being closed. GE is having compact fluorescent bulbs made in China to replace the regular incandescent bulbs they will no longer make. See a report by Timothy Carney in The Examiner.

The compact fluorescent bulbs have mercury gas in them, which is being dumped into regular landfills, though the bulbs commonly break and then the volatile liquid mercury escapes. These bulbs cost much more than incandescent bulbs upon sale as well. But, because they involve mercury and given environmental laws in the U.S., it is easier to make them in China. In fact, according to The Times of London, large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury which goes into the compact fluorescent bulbs. Of course, these Chinese workers are also paid less and labor regulations are less of a problem for GE.

Given the promises of the Obama gang that they are going to produce many "Green Jobs", GE is under pressure to provide some "Green Jobs" in the U.S., rather than in China. So, they are moving a Hybrid Electric Heat Pump operation from China to Kentucky, where they will be adding 400 jobs. The 400 jobs lost in Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky will be replaced with 400 jobs in Kentucky. No net gain as promised by Obama, but also no embarrassing net loss of jobs.

GE lobbied for the 2007 Energy Act, soon after it developed a high-efficiency incandescent bulb which was supposed to eventually be as energy-efficient as the compact fluorescent bulb. It was also safer, turned on instantly, and produced a more white light. Apparently, contrary to Carney's article, GE has abandoned developments on the high-efficiency incandescent bulb in favor of developing light-emitting diode (LED) and organic LED or OLED lighting technologies. GE has been relatively quiet about this, but a number of environmentalist blogs have been discussing this, beginning with one called Clean Break. The LED technologies are still more energy efficient, longer lasting, and more durable. But, it is not known when manufacturing of products to replace large numbers of today's incandescent bulbs will begin and whether this manufacturing will be located in the United States.

The Green Jobs Commissar

Van Jones is the Green Jobs Commissar in the Obama administration. He is an advocate of creating jobs for the poor by having them perform insulation improvements on homes and buildings. That is fine, at least before we find the government suggesting subsidies to have people make such insulation improvements. This guy has his roots deep in socialism, however, and has even described himself as a communist and a friend of anarchists. He worked for years to be a revolutionary and is a founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which was connected with the STORM collective (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement) with Marxist influences. Kathy Shaidle has written about this here.

That Obama sure can pick them, can't he? Over and over again we find the strongest evidence that Obama's worldview is completely socialist. He is a thoroughly committed enemy of the free market system and capitalism, though he is frequently a corporate socialist.