Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
This story is from the “you can’t make this stuff up” file. Some of our British cousins have figured out a way to solve it all. They have set up the One Million Jobs Caravan, as part of a “Campaign Against Climate Change” … I’m not sure how they plan to stop the climate from changing, but apparently it takes a million people to do it. To fight against CO2 emissions, the backers plan to get into fossil-fueled vehicles and drive, the lot of them, from city to city all around England and Scotland. And then back again.
Now, the numbers out of Spain have shown that for every green job created, two regular jobs were destroyed. And the “green jobs” campaign in the US has been a resounding failure. So I was quite curious as to just how these green jobs were going to be created. I also wondered about the involvement of the trade unions called the CWU, the UCU, and the like.
I found out the campaign backers were proposing to create the jobs the old-fashioned way …
… I cannot improve on their own words …
… the mind boggles … the solution to the UK economic crisis, and the way to end the persistent nuisance of the climate inconsiderately changing all the time, is to add a million “secure, flexible, permanent” union workers building wind farms to the UK government’s permanent welfare rolls.
These folks would be funny if they weren’t so dangerous.
Meanwhile, here in California we just found out that we’re unexpectedly $16,000,000,000 dollars in the hole in this year’s budget, from things like paying union teachers and state bureaucrats and functionaries princely salaries while they are working and then paying them very large pensions for the rest of their lives. Oh, and did I mention business-unfriendly? Eighth year in a row, California was voted worst state to do business in by a poll of CEOs …
However, I hear that there is budgetary hope regarding the California Department of Transportation, which maintains the roads. It seems that they’ve invented a machine that can idly lean on a shovel, promising big savings in labor costs, which is good news … bad news is, I hear the machines have already formed the MWU, the Machine Workers Union, and they’ve stopped leaning on their shovels and joined the One Million Jobs Caravan …
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
May 14, 2012 at 6:42 pm
Dr. John M. Ware says:
May 14, 2012 at 6:09 pm
A million workers at–let’s say–$40,000 or equivalent each: that’s $40,000,000,000 (forty billion dollars) in salary alone. How many people live in the UK? Divide that $40B by the number of families that get the bill; add in the health care and other benefits and perquisites of all these million jobs; and let us know in a few years how long the UK can remain solvent.
In rough numbers, there’s about thirty million employed adults in the UK. About a third, or ten million, are already employed by the government.
SO … assuming that the jobs will cost $40,000 per year, and knowing that there are about twenty million private sector workers, that means each private sector worker will have to pay about $2,000 in taxes to support the permanent unionized government windmill builders.
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But all of that money circulates in the economy generating more economic activity and growth which results in more tax revenue to hire more workers thus generating a renewable virtuous cycle.
I could explain more but I have a window someone just broke with a thrown rock to go fix. /sarc
p.s. How long until Krugman renounces his US citizenship and moves to the UK with this plan?
Bob says:
May 14, 2012 at 5:33 pm
I don’t know. I’ve been doing environmental management full time and part time in private industry for 30 years. If it weren’t for the government, I’d have had to find honest work.
1 million permanent government workers building high cost windmills and other high cost green delights. Absolutely wonderful. Why not 2 million? We’d stop the climate from changing twice as fast.
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Actually windmills create global warming… by slowing the wind and disrupting the flows…
Irony… that which was supposed to curb it creates it and makes it worse…
Ah yes, the broken window philosophy once again ?
Reminded me of this, not new item, in the US ..
It is interesting to evaluate the California influence on entitlement and such in the US on the gov books to boot.
Some would be amazed. . . .
the final denoument of the cannibal feast begins when the doors are flung open and the public is invited for free lunch.
i can almost hear the muffle squeaks of ‘but i didn’t mean this!!!!’
“But all of that money circulates in the economy generating more economic activity and growth which results in more tax revenue to hire more workers thus generating a renewable virtuous cycle.”
the term for this is ‘velocity’ – it’s the monetarist’s latest product to rationalize inflation.
these things are taught in economics 101. that’s how people get the idea – from the university professors who teach it.
nobel prizes in economics are awarded for such ideas.
atilla has always needed a witchdoctor to provide the mumbo jumbo novocain that lets him exsanguinate his prey without much struggle.
The productive in society are being beaten to death bya million butterfly wings.
This idea could actually work. Seriously.
The million new workers just have to agree to accept deferred salaries until such time as the government has enough revenue to pay them back.
Snigger snigger
Everyone can afford One Dollar.
If they get a million people together and each one gives a dollar to one person then that person is a millionaire and no longer has to work, then the person that no longer has to work gives the million dollars to the next person, so far that’s two million dollars of commerce added to the economy, in just 100 days they could move $100,000,000.00 dollars through the economy and since they have all been millionaires none of them ever has to work again.
Since they never have to work again they could then pool their $100,000,000.00 dollars and invest it in a wind farm, this would allow them to double their investment in just 5 years, so in just 5 years (and 100 days) they would have increased the GDP by over $200,000,000.00. And if we adjust the number for inflation the actual increase would be about $159,232,235,382,826,991.02 (if the mint does not run out of paper). This would yield about $345,234,283,982,873.03 in tax revenue for the government.
This would allow the government to give a guaranteed annual income to every citizen of $197,568.07 and No One would have to do any work ever again.
I do try….. thanks!
The gene pool really does need some serious culling. (That’s a joke not a death threat by the way)
Does ” We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us” ring any bells ???
The USA already tried this, its called TSA.
It is a brilliant idea! They could paint all the wind generators green! At only one million pounds per square foot it would barely increase the cost of wind energy ……
Willis Eschenbach says:
May 14, 2012 at 6:42 pm
“All of this, of course, has ignored one question—who will pay for the windmills and the insulation for the homes? Oh, right, I remember now, the taxpayer. Call that another $500 per taxpayer, we’re up to $3,500 per taxpayer, $7,000 per working couple …”
I would say your calculations are a very serious underestimate. Nowadays even in the private sector in the US the overhead factor is probably 140-150% of wages. For the public sector in the UK it would probably be more like 200%. With European standards of vacation and holidays they’re paid for 15-20% of the year for not showing up.
Constructing wind turbines is a high skill, high hazard occupation which would require long and expensive training and, given how reticent most folks are about working hundreds of feet in the air, likely extremely high dropout rates. If they do succeed in dragooning enough stiffs into attempting it, workman’s comp rates will go up faster than Ivy League tuitions. $40K is unlikely to be sufficient enticement for most folks to be wrenching on turbine nacelles 300 feet up either.
From what I’ve seen of the average UK housing there is probably lead paint all over which means the whole process of renovation will have to be done under HazMat conditions, which means more difficult and expensive training, although the delays involved will at least allow the make work jobs to last longer.
Based on data from the stimulapalooza and alt energy subsidies it takes government spending on the order $250K-$500K or more for each new job created and that’s before you take on the continuing costs. Of course, since no one will ever be unemployed again there should be some savings on unemployment insurance, but I suspect increased liability claims and the cost of vesting another million government pensions will suck that up before anyone has a chance to notice.
David Cameron is a wimp and to follow the Green Crass Code is all the proof we debt burdened Brits need. Electricity prices have shot up and until we start using our massive shale gas/coal deposits instead of paying through the nose for overseas energy [and useless on/off wind/solar power fiascos] we will struggle to rise out of our recession struck environment. Thanks David C for helping previous Labour mismanagement bring this country to its knees.
In the UK around 45% of the workforce is directly or indirectly employed by the government and they account for over 50% of the GDP.
We need more government funded ‘green’ jobs like a hole in the head!
Remind me again – what happens after a period of idiotic borrowing, currency collapses, and inflation?
Dr J Ware – who says the UK is solvent? By any measure the UK is already in deep doo-doo. Like the US, the Brit government is printing money to pay the bills. 2 probables – inflation and/or another asset crash – are already in the pipeline – you don’t need a computer model to see this one coming. look for the inevitable slow down in the money supply and then put your head between your knees and kiss your ass-ets good bye. But what the hell – yes – spent more money on stupid schemes, at least the insulation will keep you warm when you can no longer afford that French electricity, because you know, you stopped building coal fired plants, because Hansen said they were bad and he’s, like, this big scientist and Nuclear is sooo uncool except when the French do it, they make everything thats bad-for-you look cool.
There’s only one thing that can improve on this wonderful idea: at the end of each workday (noon, let’s say) each worker gets a soothing massage and footwash from an evil taxpaying entrepreneur conscripted for the task at gunpoint. Aux barricades!
The link supplied quit working for me tonight — I went back to download that incredible article and no pdf!
So I found this link to a similar version:
http://www.capacity.org.uk/downloads/1MillionClimateJobs_2010.PDF
It could even be the same one.
That article has been rewritten for Zaire and other countries so that it looks like it was a unique plan for each country.
Beyond economics, beyond parody, beyond rational debate… compensation as “value for value received” is not a capitalist (sic) but a root Darwinian concept, whereby comparative advantage acts as a survival mechanism.
Beyond a certain point, these lampreys will destroy their host, that is, civil society. And what will Cock Robin do then, poor thing?
ken Methven says:
May 14, 2012 at 5:17 pm
Thats right…the government gets to say how much money it prints so we just print some more, right? /sarc
That’s not /sarc – that’s exactly what’s being proposed.
That’s sad. but true.
One sided maths.
Each of the million will pay 30% tax, thats 12 billion off the 40 billion. then they will pay 10% nhs contribution thats another 4 billion back. thus the net cost is reduced to 24 billion. now all the stuf they fixed needs to be supplied, the suppliers need more workers to make it. They pay tax and the corporation pays tax. So what is the break even ooint.
It is not so simple.
Plus who said the government prints the money. If it did the problem would be much less. But private corporations do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Willis said:
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Meanwhile, here in California we just found out that we’re unexpectedly $16,000,000,000 dollars in the hole in this year’s budget ….Eighth year in a row, California was voted worst state to do business in by a poll of CEOs …
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… yeah. Proposition 13 really killed California. From flourishing, industrially self-sufficient to bankrupt.