Green Jobs are Empty Promises

President Obama, Democrats, and other fools who need to be smacked upside their heads with an economics text promised that green jobs would reinvigorate the economy and replace lost factory jobs.

The jobs have yet to materialize:

At Joliet Junior College, $190,000 in shrink-wrapped wind-turbine equipment recently arrived to teach students the mechanics of servicing the devices—but there are still relatively few jobs for those who get trained. Down the street at Atlantic Plant Services Co., which helps manufacturers save money by insulating pipes and other equipment, managers think they could create hundreds of new jobs, but only if the government offers tax breaks for insulation installed by businesses as it does now for homeowners.

Joliet is discovering what cities across the U.S. have found: Declaring that a city is going to replace yesterday's lost jobs with new green ones is a lot easier than actually doing so.

AnnaLee Saxenian, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies regional technology clusters, says the nationwide push could produce plenty of service jobs and some manufacturing jobs, but it's unlikely to replace the millions lost in autos and steel and semiconductors to overseas producers. "People are jumping on a bandwagon," she says. "Washington needs something to sell. It can't be a panacea for everyone."

Indeed.

Anybody think Washington's going to get around to actually addressing the Democratic anti-prosperity policies dragging down the U.S. economy anytime soon? Wanna make bets?

posted by Gabriel Malor at 11:58 AM

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