Andy Morriss, a professor at the University of Illinois Law School, is having a debate about so-called green jobs at The Economist. For some strange reason, the British magazine picked the nutjob Van Jones as his opponent (you may remember that he was forced to resign from the Obama White House after he was exposed for thinking the U.S. government was complicit in the 9/11 terrorist attacks). Andy has a much stronger argument, but see for yourself. And if you agree that government should not be engaged in corrupt, special interest pandering that destroys more jobs than it creates, then cast a vote for Andy’s side of the debate. Here’s an excerpt from his opening statement:
…virtually none of the analyses supporting green jobs programmes make calculations of net jobs. Shifting power generation from coal to solar undoubtedly boosts employment in solar energy but it also reduces employment in coal industries. Since solar power is more costly than coal power, the increase in energy prices wipes out jobs in other industries. If their employment effects are a reason to support these programmes, we need to know that the expenditures will actually create more new jobs than they destroy. …We know how to improve energy efficiency, develop new technologies and create new jobs: unleash entrepreneurs and take advantage of markets to solve what the Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek called “the knowledge problem”. Put simply, Hayek’s point, on this issue, is that we do not know enough to plan on the grand scale green jobs that proponents propose. http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/477
