Of course, I'm speaking of the study that says green subsidies create net negative jobs. Here is the umpteenth reference I've seen, and tried to ignore, this time in an email from the "Western Business Roundtable" (i.e., Dick Cheney, or, at least, that is the image I get):
While some U.S. politicians point to Spain as a model for how government subsidies can create "green jobs," a groundbreaking new study documents that every renewable job created by the Spanish government destroyed an average of 2.2 other jobs. Each “green” megawatt installed in Spain destroyed 5.39 jobs in non-energy sectors, the study found. ...
If U.S. subsidies to renewable producers achieve the same result -- and President Obama has held Spain up as a model for how to subsidize renewables -- the U.S. could lose 6.6 million to 11 million jobs while it creates three million largely temporary “green jobs," the study predicts.
That result is too extreme for me, for the same reason that crazy positive green jobs numbers are, er, bogus. It is difficult to believe that green subsidies have much macroeconomic impact, postive or negative. And "jobs" isn't the best way to measure aggregate labor market activity. See www.bls.gov for the unemployment rate, labor force participation rate and employment population ratio. Can we get back to those basics, please? '
