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.
This shows that socialism is intertwined with energy and since socialists cannot understand the economy, neither can they understand energy. Instead economic and energy issues are a proxy for some other agenda. By the things they advocate, it is to destroy liberty and prosperity.
A socialist (or a Keynesian, both the same thing), cannot understand how a job is economically justified. They just think if they spend the money, the jobs will come. They never care to understand where the money comes from, or more correctly, where the economic resources come from. In every case however, just as the socialist thinks nothing of waving a wand and creating one million new jobs, they will forever reserve the right to intrude in the economy as they please, to correct and direct, to set wages and prices at the what they think is “fair” at the moment.
Demanding a certain number of jobs to be created or a certain price, is a way of destroying the price that people in voluntary free trade would set.
The economist Ludwig von Mises showed in 1920 [1,2] that since a socialist economy destroys price information via government intrusion, the myriad of participants in the economy are unable to make a fully rational calculation about true profit and loss. Any economic activity that operates at a loss cannot be “sustainable”, a concept the left loves to scold us about, yet cannot really grasp.
Taking another approach, the Nobel economist F.A. Hayek showed that a national economy had such an immense myriad of dynamic economic relationships that no single committee or bureaucracy, no matter how smart or how well staffed, could possibly know enough to direct prices or production levels. His Nobel Lecture [3] was entitled The Pretence of Knowledge. Hayek had previously used this idea as the basis for a very thorough article [4] on the subject, “The Use of Knowledge in Society.”
When these two different withering critiques of socialism are combined, it is easy to see that not only is it dangerously foolish to think that economic decisions can successfully be made by government, but that competing bureaucracies will invariably react to the consequences of intrusions in the marketplace by each other. It would be like trying to control the height of waves on a lake by measuring them from the back of a boat circling in its own wake.
Socialism is also morally bankrupt, for it demands we accept the premise that we can each live at the expense of others, despite how this violates the Commandments that forbid coveting and theft.
[1] Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth by Ludwig von Mises
http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf
[2] Why a Socialist Economy is “Impossible” by Joseph T. Salerno
http://mises.org/econcalc/POST.asp
[3] The Pretense of Knowledge
http://mises.org/daily/3229
[4] “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” American Economic Review, XXXV, No. 4; September, 1945, pp. 519–30.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=92
M Courtney says:
May 15, 2012 at 4:27 am
@ur momisugly me, May 15, 2012 at 3:31 am
You know, we are very different on either side of the Atlantic.
I thought my comment was incredibly right-wing as it values people for their work (contribution) not their right to be who they feel like (the compassion that lets them live off welfare).
You saw that compassion (that I do value) as being in opposition to the contribution and as a drip-drip-drip ratchet to the left.
We aren’t all that different. I saw your comment for what it was, and agree with that in principle.
However, I have also spent the majority of my life watching venal hypocrites use existing social “safety net” programs and inventing new ones under the umbrella of “compassion” to create three entire generations of people completely dependent on those programs, and in return for that bi-weekly stipend, they dutifully vote for the ones who bestow those checks upon them. I have nothing against giving someone a helping hand until he can get back on his feet. What I *do* object to — vehemently — is giving someone multiple handouts. So many handouts from so many “safety net” programs, in fact, that he enjoys a lifestyle better than mine. And when I raise the question of reforming the system, the same hypocrites who take my tax dollars and redistribute them call me “heartless.”
Now that I think of it, we are very different on our respective sides of the Atlantic — on your side, the pols haven’t yet succeeded in turning “compassion” into a dirty word…
Oh brother; here we go again (mods, I apologize in advance for minor transgressions or infractions I may draw in making this post) ….
Tragically, when one’s ‘financial education’ (re: banking et al) begins with the fictional and entertaining works by G. Edward Griffin, we are apt to see all manner of ‘extrapolations’ into the absurd, and from one who appears somewhat rational and factual on some subjects.
Maybe a little refresher on the ‘background and history’ of banking and banking practices is called for, and rather than a reliance on the many dry, textual sources out there, perhaps something with a more little more ‘flow to the narrative’ will do the trick to jump start this trek into a deeper understanding of this subject seeming so ‘foreign’ to so many otherwise smart folk:
Understanding Money & Banking Pt. 1:
And with that, I will refrain from any more off-topic/non-subject-specific posts on this thread.
.
Keep in mind….. This is the crowd it’s appealing to…
http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/J45t6dZq5WN1WH1a7XRjBw–/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD01MjE7cT04NTt3PTYzMA–/http://l.yimg.com/os/153/2012/05/14/justin-bieber-kevin-winter-getty-images-5-12-12-jpg_200329.jpg
I think we can just all dig two holes, then use the dirt from one to fill up the other. Let’s get the government to pay us to do this. Yay! World Saved!!
The people in that photo and those who sign the petition are parasites. They produce nothing and they impose a huge cost on everyone.
ive been saying it for several years now but this proves me right.
Green really is the new stupid.
“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.”
Sounds like a fun thing to do for a bunch of young people. Unfortunately, what they are up to sounds about as relevent to climate change as rowing to the North Pole – another uniquely British (and silly) stunt.
As far as moving out of California – I moved my small manufacturing business out of California in 2004. Believe me, it was painful moving machinery and people across state lines. It was a good business move, but I must say California is a special place due to the large number of brilliant, energetic people there. They are keeping California going, and you certainly do not hear about them in the media. Sad what is going on in California with the poor governance.
How many economists can we find who would endorse this ‘Million Climate Jobs’ proposal? How many can you find who think the Obama stimulus failed because it wasn’t big enough? How many economists believe we need to increase aggregate demand through government spending.
Simply put, if we mandated economics education, we’re likely to get Social/Fascist (Corporatist)/green economics.
So, maybe the increased CO2 has caused something else. Might it have caused massive stupid.
The problem is these people believe it. They think “breaking windows” to increase business is a good business model.
Reminds me of the lady saying “I’m gonna get me some of that Obama money.”
Obama “stash”
Schools no longer teach what money actually is and how it works.
Thank you for the videos. Classic
Presented whilst guy calmly drives car. inference, simple basic easy, normal.
But is transference, ignores source of money, the root, the control. The gold was soon replaced with gold certificate that soon had a combined face value in excess of the stocks of gold. And so it began.
Put is this way
Capitalist print their own money and charge us for it
Socialist spend other peoples money.
But Still no analysis of the hard sums involved, why does the illusion persist.
oh and what the watermelons do, is not political?
Robert of Texas says:
May 14, 2012 at 5:08 pm
“This is just another example of how education has failed – ultterly and completely – to teach young people about how economies really work. It’s frightening these people get to vote.”
Read up on eugenics, a pseudo-science of the 1880’s clear through the 1940’s. People were sterilized, incarcerated and what have you with the power of government all the way to the supreme court behind false science. Not unlike our green movement today. It was the progressives then, as it is now, and they always take hold of the educational system, then the media and finally the government. By the way, eugenics was attempting to build a pure race and was popular in the US before Hitler latched onto it.
I just finished putting in the garden this past weekend and I learned a way to create 1 million new green jobs: stop using tractors and other gasoline powered machinery in agriculture and use people with hoes and rakes instead.
Because I’m cheap, I decided not to use any gas powered machines to put in my garden this year (unlike past years). I only used a shovel, rake, and a hoe. Compared to using a tractor it took five times as long, created a lot more blisters, the results weren’t as good, and I broke the hoe. Lets see how much produce I get.
Next year I’m buying a nice new rototiller for the tractor.
How do you create 1 million jobs?
Well create 83,300 per month for 12 months and hey presto you got a million new jobs.
Why hasn’t anybody thought of this before? Genius! It’s given me an idea. I can become a millionaire in a year. Guess how!
I’m motivated to set up a tautology blog and have this as the first quote.
Strange, visited the web site earlier and visted just now. Seems they have dropped George Monbiot. Cannot find stuff about campaigns on skeptic websites. Also noticed that these fools have stopped talking science.
Total loons, As someone said for these folks climate change is a proxy in there war for a communist society.
In Cuba everyone has a job all Castro does is give everyone a broom, job done. Give everyone the same wage. Then give everyone a ration book because the money is worthless. Strange Cuba is now sacking state employees and allowing free enterprise.
Dr. John M. Ware says:
“A million workers at–let’s say–$40,000 or equivalent each”
Willis Eschenbach says:
“we’re up to $3,500 per taxpayer, $7,000 per working couple …”
Gentlemen, I’d suggest that you have both sorely underestimated the scope of this fiasco. Having been pulled kicking and screaming into working on budgets for a large project being done by the government, I can attest that things are not this cheap.
There are 2080 hours per year in work weeks (52 wks X 40hrs/wk). $40k/yr is not even $20/hr. In gov land, even a new hire clerk with no experience is about $12-15/hr, $24-30K/yr; and the pay scale escalates from there. An engineer or scientist with 10-15 yrs experience can be $100-150K/yr. Project manager $250K/yr (low end estimate, and don’t forget Deputy Managers and Department Managers). Average salaries would probably be closer to $80-100K/yr/person. And those are just salaries.
As Willis notes there is an additional burden (i.e.: “Plus their pensions, of course and various benefits, that’s gotta add maybe 20%”). When you consider vacations, health care, pension, holidays, sick leave, office supplies (computers, xerox, pencils, paper, staplers, etc), and office space and power and maintenance, etc., etc.; it adds closer to 100% for a full time equivalent (FTE). Now up to $160-200K/yr/person
Support staff at 10% also appears underestimated. You need departments of human resources, training, budget, planning, maintenance, IT, quality assurance, etc.. Probably more like 25%.
Then each year, staff would want raises. Also, no bureaucrat worth their salt is happy unless they are adding more staff to increase their fiefdom and expand their power; underlings could be promoted to start their own fiefdoms, etc.
So just SWAGing it, it would probably be closer to more than $10,000/yr/taxpayer. And then increasing each year. But as some watermenlon once said: “No amount of money is too much to protect the environment”. Of course, no one ask this person to immediately sign over all their future paychecks to protect the enviroment.
Dave Ward said:
They have completely fallen for the socialists dream (the movement is partly sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party)
A name from the past! I remember seeing them in University back in the 70s. This scheme is doomed from the start if the Socialist W**kers Party are involved! I saw the Occupy St Pauls people on TV news, while anyone was still paying any attention to them, brandishing posters supplied by these w**kers, and look how that went from strength to strength.
So the Socialist W**kers have found a couple of dozen more useful idiots to feed their fantasy of actually mattering and being relevant, and creating a mass movement that takes over the country. Don’t hold your breath while you wait.
A bunch of useful (useless?) idiots if ever there was one.
ansel61 says:
May 15, 2012 at 12:57 am
Indeed not, and we here in the US assuredly have our own variety of, to use your lovely UK expression, “numpties” … in fact, at the moment one seems to be President …
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
May 15, 2012 at 10:26 am
So, maybe that eugenics thing wasn’t such a bad idea after all, if it could only have predicted who would be producing the “numpties” and sterilized them.
Robert of Texas
“It’s frightening these people get to vote.”
It’s worse than that Robert – we let them breed as well.
The Unions are always good at spending someone else’s money. They seem to think that they can endlessly dip into the public purse and endlessly tax the rich to refill it.
All this against the background of a slowly disintegrating Eurozone and a rapid decline in the UK’s economic position in the world.
So this is how we are to compete with China? Create non-jobs to solve non-problems?
Yeah, that should work.
In England, we know that this is actually a ‘Very Good Thing Indeed’!
83,300 off the dole every month!
[It’s not the ‘dole’ – politicians with no experience of life keep changing its name – but it is recognised as sucking at the taxpayer’s pap, no matter what it is called, even if it is ‘taxpayer-funded freebies for workshy slothful layabouts’.]
That 83,300 will be all the freeloaders, who have lived [as noted, sometimes for genrations] off the taxpayer.
And they’ll be Green jobs – making, transporting, installing, maintaining – and also powering – huge bicycle chains linked to the useless bird-killing windmills that so befoul my native land. no need for back-up gas- or coal- or [dreaded] nuclear-fuelled back-up plant, when you’ve an Army of willing (Oh – so willing; they must be UCW [Union of Communicatoin Workers] and the rest tell us they are!) greenworkers to make those turbines hum.
They’ll get more cash for their efforts, too – albeit the subsidies will have to go to provide that cash. and, by the end of the day, with luck, they may be too tired to think about further procreation of their feckless kind.
It won’t solve the spendaholic Government’s budgetary imbalance; that is running at £5 every day for every person – young and old, in care-homes or kintergardens, native or legal immigrant – in the country. So £140 per family of four each week. every week. Borrowed – in addition to the £559,200 million in taxes and charges government [partly mis-]spends evey year.
If that was all wisely spent – but I digress form the real world!
Oh, and another thing – just outside the Bank of England today – occupying lots of rozzers who might otherwise have been persecuting the harmless motorist, but disturbing those of us unable to join them, as we have jobs, and like to shower most days – was a handful of the same rabble; ‘Occupy’.
Not ‘Build’ – ‘Occupy’. Funny, that. Doubtless co-ordinating their ‘anti-everthing useful including capitalism using smartphones [which the USSR so conspicuously invented and developed and mastered]. Happily they were moved on back to their yurts after a few minutes, so we could get back to the deluge of emails from functionaries that strive to keep anyone from achieving anything useful in this world.
Hints of sarcasm?
Maybe.
clivebest says: May 14, 2012 at 7:10 pm
“OK – Here is the plan. We build factory size gyms across all UK cities each equipped with 1000 cycle machines hooked up to the national grid. A top cyclist can reach 1000 watts output so let’s assume about 200 watts for normal people. So working in 3 shifts our miillion climate change heroes can supply about 70 Megawatts of renewable energy ! They can be paid in carbon credits. This might also help cure UKs obesity problem and save the health service millions. :-)”
Also:-
Gail Combs says: May 15, 2012 at 12:06 am
Jonathan Smith says: May 14, 2012 at 8:20 pm
and others.
Sorry, but the Greenies beat you to this. They have already been peddling (sorry!) your brilliant idea:-
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-06-06/pedal-powered-farms-and-factories-forgotten-future-stationary-bicycle
A mere 1.2 Billion peddlers could produce all the UK’s electricity power needs. That’s 1,200 times as many jobs as these faint-heart namby-pamby union thermageddonists are offering! And check out all the other things you can do with pedal power! The way to go!
Britain can lead the world again!