Can we afford "Green Jobs"? - The U.S. can't.

The following article was published in the Investor's Business Daily yesterday under the heading:

Capping Jobs

The [Obama] administration likes to defend bad policies with analogies to the post office. New studies from a business group and the administration itself confirm that cap-and-trade belongs in the dead-letter bin.

Along with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Rep. Ed Markey likens the cost of the Waxman-Markey cap-and trade bill to "about a postage stamp a day," based on estimates made by the Congressional Budget Office and the EPA.

But as we and others have shown, they arrive at this magical number in part by ignoring the hit on gross domestic product and employment that will occur.

As Garret Vaughan, economist with the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, has written on these pages: "More expensive energy would inevitably slow growth in production and income, as measured by the gross domestic product," and the CBO study "looks past the proverbial elephant in the room with a discrete footnote stating that its cost estimate does not indicate the potential decrease in GDP that could result."

Grasping the real costs of Waxman-Markey is a study released Wednesday by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Council for Capital Formation. From 2012 to 2030, it says, Waxman-Markey could cost GDP $3.1 trillion. By 2030, it says, job losses could total 2.4 million jobs, residential electricity prices could jump 50% and the price of gasoline could escalate 26%.

Read the rest of this depressing story here.

What is really depressing, though is that Australia's own Trade Union leadership is completely oblivious to this economic reality and is actively selling its members out, as evidenced by the following:

“Australia can create up to a million clean energy jobs in at least six industries, but there’s no time to waste, we must get started now. We need strong policies implemented as quickly as possible to drive investment so we can begin the economic and environmental transformation. Our international competitors are already down the track. Australia cannot finish first by starting last.” - Sharan Burrow, President, ACTU

Does Ms Burrow really think that this "pie-in-the-sky" nonsense is in the long-term interests of her members? Or is she simply jockeying for a position in Federal parliament when Kevin Rudd pushes the eject button for his new job as UN Secretary General?.