California measure FAILS to create green jobs>

[TrumpIsPresident]

California measure FAILS to create green jobs
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-c...050919689.html

Three years after California voters passed a ballot measure to raise taxes on corporations and generate clean energy jobs by funding energy-efficiency projects in schools, barely one-tenth of the promised jobs have been created, and the state has no comprehensive list to show how much work has been done or how much energy has been saved.

Voters in 2012 approved the Clean Energy Jobs Act by a large margin, closing a tax loophole for multistate corporations. The Legislature decided to send half the money to fund clean energy projects in schools, promising to generate more than 11,000 jobs each year.

Instead, only 1,700 jobs have been created in three years, raising concerns about whether the money is accomplishing what voters were promised.

"We've got a long track record in California of over-promising green jobs and under-delivering," said Clark [VP of the California Business Roundtable], who also expressed concern that most of the jobs created so far appear to be consulting positions.

This embodies the problem with the current path towards green energy.

Let me say that again for those of you who had your responses ready from reading the title alone.

Its the PATH towards green energy that is controversial:

--Mob ignorance inspired measures hostile to business which are used to prop up the guise that green tech is
a) ready to meet all energy needs, and
b) a thing that should be funded with government appropriated and distributed dollars rather than the free market

--Grandiose and hypocritical promises that jobs can be created by destroying a functional foundation and replacing it with one that fails to work as effectively.

--Lack of transparency, and accountability.

Green tech is the future that is undeniable, but we will not get there any time soon so long as it is allowed to be a sector held hostage by political agenda.

[Daelak]

This embodies the problem with the current path towards green energy.

Let me say that again for those of you who had your responses ready from reading the title alone.

Its the PATH towards green energy that is controversial:

--Mob ignorance inspired measures hostile to business which are used to prop up the guise that green tech is
a) ready to meet all energy needs, and
b) a thing that should be funded with government appropriated and distributed dollars rather than the free market

--Grandiose and hypocritical promises that jobs can be created by destroying a functional foundation and replacing it with one that fails to work as effectively.

--Lack of transparency, and accountability.

Green tech is the future that is undeniable, but we will not get there any time soon so long as it is allowed to be a sector held hostage by political agenda.

It isn't political, the progress to green technology is hampered due to our own limitations of investing money and resources due to the price function and scarcity. The biggest actors (governments, large corporations) aren't simply spending enough money nor identifying and training young minds that can accelerate its growth.

[Independent voter]

The initiative process practiced by many states is a terrifying process.

1. You write a law, it can be anything, "The Paint all Highways Pink Act" or whatever.
2. After getting so many signatures on a petition your law goes on the ballot
3. Next election the voters decide yes or no on your law. If they vote yes, it becomes law and the highways are painted pink.

There's a very good reason we have a representative democracy and not a pure democracy. The masses don't have the time to study this issues and many are written in a confusing way.

[Garnier Fructis]

--Mob ignorance inspired measures hostile to business which are used to prop up the guise that green tech is
a) ready to meet all energy needs, and
b) a thing that should be funded with government appropriated and distributed dollars rather than the free market

Item a) is just a strawman. Everyone recognizes that it's not ready to meet all energy needs. That's why we need b). Speaking of b), fuck this irrational infatuation with the free market. We can stop subsidizing green tech when we stop subsidizing standard energy. How's that? Free market enough for you?

[TrumpIsPresident]

Item a) is just a strawman. Everyone recognizes that it's not ready to meet all energy needs. That's why we need b). Speaking of b), fuck this irrational infatuation with the free market. We can stop subsidizing green tech when we stop subsidizing standard energy. How's that? Free market enough for you?

Spamming the phrase "strawman" is often a favorite pastime of people who don't like facts they disagree with, and I think that applies here considering this measure was passed by people who were sold a lie about green tech that had no viable foundation and turned out to be exactly what opponents predicted.

Free market will make next gen green tech the standard just as it made smart phones the standard.

[Garnier Fructis]

Spamming the phrase "strawman" is often a favorite pastime of people who don't like facts they disagree with, and I think that applies here considering this measure was passed by people who were sold a lie about green tech that had no viable foundation and turned out to be exactly what opponents predicted.

Free market will make next gen green tech the standard just as it made smart phones the standard.

Considering that everyone recognizes that green energy can't currently meet all energy needs, your statement is nothing but a strawman. There's no fact there. You're attributing a claim to a group that doesn't hold that claim.

[Elegiac]

Free market will make next gen green tech the standard just as it made smart phones the standard.

Free market doesn't have a history of doing anything that isn't profitable in the short term.

[TrumpIsPresident]

Considering that everyone recognizes that green energy can't currently meet all energy needs, your statement is nothing but a strawman.

What you're ignoring is the fact that's what this bill was sold on, and that's what this thread is about.

People were told they'd have green energy and jobs ...they got neither.

A government scammed its citizens.

- - - Updated - - -

Free market doesn't have a history of doing anything that isn't profitable in the short term.

/facepalm

You want to rethink that?

[Elegiac]

You want to rethink that?

Not particularly, considering it is the truth. Capitalism is garbage for long term policy.

[TrumpIsPresident]

Not particularly, considering it is the truth. Capitalism is garbage for long term policy.

Free market doesn't have a history of doing anything that isn't profitable in the short term.

Long term short term which is it?

Your anti-capitalism diatribes are becoming increasingly difficult to decipher.

[Cyberowl]

Long term short term which is it?

Your anti-capitalism diatribes are becoming increasingly difficult to decipher.

Your reading comprehension blows SO hard, lol.

[Garnier Fructis]

What you're ignoring is the fact that's what this bill was sold on, and that's what this thread is about.

People were told they'd have green energy and jobs ...they got neither.

A government scammed its citizens.

First, the bill was never sold with the promise that it will meet all energy needs. It was sold primarily as a closing of a tax loophole. Arguments centered on jobs were to the tune of "as much as" 40,000, from the voter guide. It didn't meet that mark, but it never promised to anyway.

Second, they did get green energy and jobs. Just not as much as some projected. The article you quoted gave a decent argument, which is that much less jobs were created than projected. But then you went ahead and threw that away in favor of the factually wrong argument presented here.

And seeing as I wasn't defrauded by this, it's hardly a scam.

[Calfredd]

Long term short term which is it?

Your anti-capitalism diatribes are becoming increasingly difficult to decipher.

It's the same thing said differently. He said Free Market sucks for the long term but makes profit in the short term.

[Garnier Fructis]

Long term short term which is it?

Your anti-capitalism diatribes are becoming increasingly difficult to decipher.

Are you serious? Both sentences are along the same lines. It literally takes lower than SAT level reading comprehension to get the point.

[Frogguh]

Long term short term which is it?

Your anti-capitalism diatribes are becoming increasingly difficult to decipher.

He was consistent. Read it again lol

[TrumpIsPresident]

He was consistent. Read it again lol

Are you serious? Both sentences are along the same lines. It literally takes lower than SAT level reading comprehension to get the point.

It's the same thing said differently. He said Free Market sucks for the long term but makes profit in the short term.

They're neither consistent, along the same lines, or the same thing said differently.

Capitalism and the free market are not interchangeable words.

They are two different things.

I wanted him to explain why he thought the free market doesn't do anything profitable when the entire point of the free market is wealth exchange.

His response was to invoke "capitalism" which was neither relevant nor a satisfactory explanation of his position, at least not in my opinion.

[Sky High]

lol oh the semantics battle. don't die on that hill.

[Garnier Fructis]

lol oh the semantics battle. don't die on that hill.

It's amazing that it took 30 minutes to craft a semantics argument.

[unbound]

This embodies the problem with the current path towards green energy.

Let me say that again for those of you who had your responses ready from reading the title alone.

Its the PATH towards green energy that is controversial:

--Mob ignorance inspired measures hostile to business which are used to prop up the guise that green tech is
a) ready to meet all energy needs, and
b) a thing that should be funded with government appropriated and distributed dollars rather than the free market

--Grandiose and hypocritical promises that jobs can be created by destroying a functional foundation and replacing it with one that fails to work as effectively.

--Lack of transparency, and accountability.

Green tech is the future that is undeniable, but we will not get there any time soon so long as it is allowed to be a sector held hostage by political agenda.

You are ignoring the history of every new energy source that has come before what we have today.

Oil was heavily subsidized (actually, it is still rather heavily subsidized to the tune of tens of billions each year by the US alone...hundreds of billions internationally) to get it off the ground. Energy alternatives will need the same level of government assistance to become viable. It would be helpful if we stopped the failed attempt at corn-based ethanol and divert that into more promising renewable energy alternatives.

In regards to the measure in California, there should have been oversight committee involvement at a more fundamental level and a lot earlier. But then people like you would just cry "Over-regulation!!".

Let's be honest here, California wasn't going to win with people like you no matter what the outcome was.

[TrumpIsPresident]

lol oh the semantics battle. don't die on that hill.

Somebody smart enough to reduce all economics down to a single statement should at least be able to get the label right.

Wouldn't you say?