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.
The Stupid, it burns…
Anthony;
I notice you didn’t get a spot in the Sceptics Hall of Shame. Forward a suitable portrait photo and demand a spot of hono(u)r!
Plus if the million come from the unemployed theres a further saving, about 25% or 10 billion. So not much left to cover. Surprised the capitalists have not checked the simple maths.
Plus note carefully
Socialism is the monopoly of labour. Capitalism is the monopoly of money, same beast different spots. I think the posters mean Free Markets not capitalism. Science demands accuracy, No?
instead of building climate jobs most jobs will be building snow clearing vehicles.( not buy fire but buy ice ) web site
I’d like to apologise to the rest of the world on behalf of every UK citizen with a functioning brain. Please believe me when I say we’re not all as stupid as these numpties.
1 million jobs in a year.
Let’s say average pay is $30,000, add on $20,000 for national insurance, extras, equipment etc etc, that’s $50,000 per job, so 1 million is a little matter of $50bn injection of cash.
If you are building infrastructure, you’re probably spending another $50,000 per job on raw materials, machinery etc etc, so that’s a cool $100bn a year in government funding.
Does this help us?
No it doesn’t, because we have these dotty laws which say that anyone in the EU can come and get those jobs. Anyone. So every time UK taxpayers fund a project, the wages go to Poles, Romanians and others. It’s not the UK’s job to create jobs for Eastern Europeans through the tax system. But the EU says that it is. Strike One for the EU……
If the private sector does it, the money comes from their balance sheet. There’s a lot of cash sloshing around there right now, so they could afford this kind of thing if they thought they could make money from it. They won’t spend it……
There IS a case here, though, to insulate houses really properly and to build new ones as energy neutral. Our housing stock is old, built when King Coal was cheap and we are burning far too much gas heating houses nowadays.
The problem with this country, though, is that people don’t use their brains when looking to sort these things out.
One thing’s for sure, Dr Eschenbach: YOU won’t be sitting on your arse for 5 years waiting for the economy to pick up. It oozes out of every pore of this article. These people may be misguided, but they are not DANGEROUS.
They want the prospect of work for themselves and their kids and if you say that’s dangerous, well, your reputation may be headed a little south……
No worries on funding this, fellas; they can just borrow it from the Greeks in their “new” Drachmas and from the Spanish in their soon to b resurrected Pesos! Then, in a few dozen years, pay it back with a pound of pork pie…
I tried, once, to explain to the spouse and kid that it was completely stupid to have a “Walk For (foo) Cancer”. They didn’t believe me… so I ended up walking a mile or two in a circle around a track at the local school. A couple of hundred folks were busy increasing their skin cancer risk and consuming large quantities of high sugar drinks while mindlessly walking in circles. Toward the end of the day an overly loud band began playing bad renditions of mediocre music.
It was all pronounced a great success.
Why folks could not just give the money and avoid all the mindless consumption and waste of thousands of man-hours and woman-hours and kid-hours of labor is beyond me.
I think it had something to do with everyone feeling “like they had done something” and being sore, tired, and for many sunburnt. Oh, and dirty and smelly too.
So why can’t we just have a grand national “Walk For Money Justice Fairness Sustainable Esteem Development Cure Money” and all take home $100,000 salary for it with full benefits and a pension? It only seems fair…
And we would all feel so good about ourselves and it would cure poverty and bring justice and everything…
/sarcoff>;
But I really do not ken the “symbolic” wasting of resources to “raise awareness” of things that could use the resources that are being wasted…
Then again, I’m trained in economics, owned my own business for over a decade, employed other folks, and do stock trading for my present lunch money. What do I know about how productivity works…
It works out that this is all really easy to figure out.
(1) A job is a green job if it pays money of that color.
(2) A job is sustainable if it doesn’t require a government subsidy to create.
(3) A business that creates the job is sustainable if it has an acceptable return on investment to its stockholders.
I hope I cleared this all up
Playing monopoly, even in real life, only makes you an expert at monopoly. You need to see the bigger picture, the direct connection between carbon credits, oil contracts and fiat money. They are all intangibles, conjured out of thin air. No offense meant, been there done that.
All the pumping, liquidity boosts, QE etc are just smokescreens for “printing money”
Until the highly esteemed and vaunted brain power here realise that, the battle with the watermelons is very far from over.
To set thought in motion, name a truly free market? I think that there is only one and it really tells you what is happening and that is not a scenario the media will tell you.
Have enjoyed the humour here, its needed, but dont forget, solutions are needed, results, ideas.
I think perhaps a less expensive solution would be to send these million folks somewhere everyone *is* employed by the government.
Like North Korea.
Then they can see the consequences of their ideas.
I am informed by a reliable source that I was not this foolish when I was a zygote.
If 1 million idiots stopped breathing for a year it would prevent roughly 1000,000,000 lb of carbon dioxide being expelled into the atmosphere. (Note for warmists – it’s a joke)
Alternatively they could be employed on piecework blowing CO2 into Latro lamps:
“Latro (latin for thief) incorporates the natural energy potential of algae and the functionality of a hanging lamp into its design.
“Breathing into the handle of the lamp provides the algae with CO2, whilst the side spout allows the addition of water and release of oxygen. Placing the lamp outside in the daylight, the algae use sunlight to synthesize foods from CO2 and water.
“Energy is subsequently stored in a battery ready to be called upon during hours of darkness.
Owners of Latro are required to treat the algae like a pet – feeding and caring for the algae rewarding them with light.”
Good Lord, the real Lensmen would be ashamed, were they real.
You’re starting out with a 100% loss, including administration costs. From there it is likely, barring “magic,” that everything you produce from there on out will be at a loss (see hundreds of articles and studies on green power). You don’t “make that up” the initial loss by counting MORE LOSSES against it.
Taxes paid back out of government-paid money can’t put you in the black, they can only (in theory) make you slightly less in the red. In theory, because of the high compliance, enforcement and administrative costs. In practice, you’re probably just adding more losses.
Economic Fallacy (n.) : A policy imposed by politicians on people, from which the latter suffer but the former never learn.
Hello Willis,
I am at present watching Franc24 TV Hollande is getting his medals, a commenter on his new policy says that he wants to create government jobs for the unemployed, Problem : over 50% of the working population does its 35 hours a week for the government, if one tries to open a business in France, problem ! if you employee in France, problem !
Hah, another petition to collect signatures and email addresses of those that don’t think things through or look beyond the media Hocus Pocus. Typical of the Fenton communications style or GetUp puffing their “membership” to weild influence of claiming these as representing their actual political membership, when all they are is a front organisation to be used to fool the media into believing they actually represent something.
Don’t be fooled, or lulled into complacent acceptance. Its akin to the old myth of “consensus of sceintists” (then add your own agenda.)!!
ah misc spelling “scientists” dislexic fingers!!
green = naive and easily deceived or tricked
Grey Lensman says:
May 15, 2012 at 12:49 am
Socialism is the monopoly of labour. Capitalism is the monopoly of money, same beast different spots. I think the posters mean Free Markets not capitalism. Science demands accuracy, No?
____________________________________________
No. Fractional Reserve Banking (Central Banking) is the monopoly of money. Screwing up what “Capitalism” means by confusing it with Central Banking is part of the scam. Capitalism is dead because banker created fiat money drives out wealth based “money”
“Capitalism,” is a system based on individual rights and property rights in which all property is privately owned. It is based on investing real wealth, labor and resources, into creating more wealth which is then traded with others.
The creation of banker printed fiat money acts as a short across the system of capitalism and redirects the created wealth into the pockets of the bankers who neither provide raw materials nor labor to create wealth. It also facilitates monopolization of industry by the “friends” of the bankers who have better access to cheap money where as small businesses normally do not.
Money Is Created by Banks, Evidence Given by Graham Towers
A Primer on Money by the US House Banking and Currency Committee
Mises on Money
Oh, and _Jim, before you trash Mises, here is a speech given by blogger Robert Wenzel in late April to the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Wenzel is an Austrian economist. It is covered at Jo Nova’s site and the whole speech is in Economic Policy Journal.
This quote from his speech is a winner:
One million treadmills will both create energy and one million jobs.
@ur momisugly Mike Spilligan:
May 14, 2012 at 10:26 pm
“I live in the UK but, truly, I haven’t seen this reported here, yet. ”
I saw this first in a tiny article in the Norwich Evening News nearly two weeks ago. But that’s the only MSM mention I have seen.
These nut-jobs have it all worked out – If you go here: http://www.climate-change-jobs.org/node/14
there are links to a number of PDF downloads with all sorts of calculations and reports, including the full 56 page document linked by Willis (which still works for me as I write this). They have completely fallen for the socialists dream (the movement is partly sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party) – here’s some quotes from the above document:
“No one will lose out. Of course some
people are going to lose their jobs in a low
carbon economy. But a National Climate
Service can have a simple policy. Anyone who
loses their job because of the new economy
will be offered work in the NCS, with
retraining and their old wages guaranteed.”
And:
“The government will save money on taxes
and benefits. When you lose your job, you
pay the government a lot less tax and you
collect more benefits. In the same way, every
unemployed worker costs the government
money. The government gets less tax and they
have to pay out more in benefits.
Individual cases vary. But on average, every
time the government employs someone on
£27,000, they save £13,000 on that person’s
taxes and benefits. That’s £13 billion saved
on a million jobs.”
There you are, problem solved! I intend to pay the caravan a visit – I think I’ll take a printout of the Neta site from this past February, when the UK’s windfarms were producing 42MW out of a total demand of 51,630MW. I’ll back this up with some extracts of Stuart Youngs report on the frequency and coverage of low wind events over the past 4 years. By the way, the home insulation aspect mentioned earlier appears to be compulsory – the report says that whole streets will be “hit” by teams of workers in one go to save on costs.
I thought the Iron Curtain fell 20 odd years ago…
I’m glad my union isn’t on the list.
However, there is something here that is interesting. Taking public money and giving it to people for public works is better than taking public money and giving it to people for doing nothing.
It will discourage sloth.
The Government ought to be on the phone these unions asking for their support in reforming welfare.
The compulsion or starvation is an unfortunate side effect of this reform but a very minimum level for survival could be provided as a safety net out of compassion.
M Courtney says:
May 15, 2012 at 3:13 am
The compulsion or starvation is an unfortunate side effect of this reform but a very minimum level for survival could be provided as a safety net out of compassion.
And then that minimum level would be raised, then raised again — out of compassion.
That *compassion* (i.e., buying votes) is the reason that unfunded obligations in Congressional spending (we haven’t had an actual budget since 2008) now outstrips US military spending.
Tsk, tsk, such cynicism. Especially about the mileage being covered.
That well-known eco-warrior, Jeremy Clarkson from BBC’s Top Gear show proved that trips from London to Edinburgh CAN be green !
He borrowed an Audi A6 and by going at 65mph listening only to BBC Radio2 instead of his thrash metal tapes he managed to drive from London to Edinburgh and back ON A SINGLE TANK OF DIESEL !
There, see ? So if we employed 80,000 people a month to drive taxis between London and Birmingham, we’d create a million jobs and it’d probably still be cheaper than building the HS2 high speed rail link !
“But on average, every time the government employs someone on £27,000, they save £13,000 on that person’s taxes and benefits. That’s £13 billion saved on a million jobs.”
That’s the logic my ex-wife used when she spent $800 on clothes and then declared she had actually *saved* $400 because they were on sale.
Not to say that was the reason she’s my ex, y’unnerstand…
“………It seems that they’ve invented a machine that can idly lean on a shovel, promising big savings in labor costs………..”
I think this applies equally to the CAGW brigade. Willis I must do some work, WUWT is becoming addictive with it’s mixture of strong science and lightheartedness. Wonderful-
The UK is already all but bankrupt. The state has run out of other people’s money. Unfortuneately, there are nut cases who consider that the state can create wealth and that the public sector contributes to the economy rather than serving as a drag on the private sector. If the public sector was truly wealth creating then in theory it would be possible to exempt all those employed in the private sector from paying any tax. If one were to exempt private sector employees from all tax, it is obvious that there would be no money to fund the public sector. This proves that the public sector is a drain and needs to be substantially scaled back in the UK and in all western countries.
If the UK has say 20 million workers (and I am not sure that it has that many) then each worker will have to pay about an extra $2,000 in tax merely to fund the salary. Given the costs of admin and workplace and infrastructure costs, that would probably raise by 50%. Then, and this is a big problem for the UK, there will be unfunced pension rights which will cost every worker perhaps an extra $1000. So annually each UK worker will have to pay an extra $4,000 in tax just to cover this scheme. Of course some workers will pay more and others less depending on their salary and theoretical ability to pay. Since the average UK wage is about $30,000 one can see that the necessary tax rise to fund the scheme will be a substantial slice of that.
Of course, it will not help UK unemployment. Over the past 10 years many many millions of jobs have been created and yet UK unemployment figures remain largely static. The reason is immigration. Over 90% (I recall reading an estimate more in the region of 95%) of all new jobs created in this period has been taken up by immigrants.
Accordingly, this proposed plan would if implemented at best reduce unemployment figures by about 5,000 to 8,000. All the other jobs created would be taken up by the influx of immigration. Economic migrants would be more attracted to the UK if such a silly plan were to be instigated. So the UK would need to build more roads, schools, hospitals etc to provide for these immigrants thereby further costing the UK tax payer.
Sheer madness, but what can you expect of the Unions.