Several outlets have now picked up on Spanish economic professor
Dr. Gabriel Calzada’s study of the economic impacts of Spain’s
“green jobs” schemes touted by President Obama as our model to
follow.
Yesterday Fox News Channel (America’s Newsroom, Special Report),
Fox Business and Michelle Malkin joined the Economist, Wall
Street Journal, Bloomberg and numerous EU outlets to note the
analysis showing that Spain’s artificially created, propped up
and now bubble-bursting, therefore jobs-hemorrhaging renewables
industry kills more than twice as many jobs elsewhere in the
economy that didn’t require full-time state support.
So the White House was asked about it and, in response, spokesman
Robert Gibbs merely afforded more fodder to certain radio hosts
who have found much joy in his deep thinking (enjoy the punch
line):
Q Back on the President’s speech today, a Spanish professor,
Gabriel [Calzada] Álvarez, says after conducting a study, that
in his country, creating green jobs has actually cost more jobs
than it has led to: 2.2 jobs lost, he says, for every job
created. And he has issued a report that specifically warns the
President not to try and follow Spain’s example.
MR. GIBBS: It seems weird that we’re importing wind turbine
parts from Spain in order to build — to meet renewable energy
demand here if that were even remotely the case.
Q Is that a suggestion that his study is simply flat wrong?
MR. GIBBS: I haven’t read the study, but I think, yes.
Q Well, then. (Laughter.)
That of course is equal parts non sequitor and
nonsensical as shown by the study’s authors, who sent me their
piquant response:
If in order to sell turbine parts to another country you have
to create a bubble in a whole sector and put massive subsidizes
that account for $771,000 per green job, you might wonder
whether selling those turbine parts is a good idea at all,
since those resources could have been used to create other more
valuable goods or parts that would better satisfy consumer
wants as well as create twice as many jobs in the rest of the
economy (in the sector from where those resources have been
taken away).
The White House spokesman should read academic studies before
ruling out its conclusions with no knowledge of them; this is
especially true when his government is considering spending
billions of US taxpayer dollars on uncertain experiments
supported by subsidies that in Spain, after more than 10 years
following this path, have produced highly disappointing
results, even from a gross job creation perspective.
Or (Calzada accepts this translation):
What “seems weird” is that the U.S. would need subsidies and
mandates to artificially create “demand for renewables” if the
study weren’t true?
Given that knowledge tends to trump ignorance, I suggest that
this one goes to the Europeans. The issue now is whether the
White House can continue to simply profess lack of inquiry
into or curiosity about the costs which their utopianism
inflicts on the economy.
