Government Creating a Green Job Destroys 2.2, Study Shows

A new study from Gabriel Calzada, an economist from Spain, is getting a lot of attention amongst those opposed to socialistic "green job creation" by government. Of course, since it contradicts the idea that government can save us all AND give us jobs, those in government are largely ignoring it.

The study quantifies the opportunity costs of the green energy policies of Spain. The results show that for every government job created, 2.2 jobs are lost in the private sector. This is due to a number of factors, the main one being that government doesn't "create" anything, it only redirects resources--and usually very inefficiently.

Caldoza points out that progressives in the U.S. seem blind to the obvious negatives of government-run social services and job creation when they point to Europe as their model for them. Spain, he says, has an unemployment rate of 18%--that's according to their own government. Why would this be the model for the U.S.?

It should also be pointed out that the average "poor" person in the United States has it much better than even their European counterparts. The poor in the U.S. are more likely to own a refrigerator, a car, and have more living space than their European counterparts.

The following video is over an hour long, but well worth the trouble to watch. It features a discussion at the Heritage Foundation between Bob Murphy and Calzada.