A key element of the current administration’s approach to recovery from our current economic and financial crises is a fundamental reorientation of the kinds of work performed in our economy. But a proposed shift to “green” jobs in the name of well-paying, high-impact employment that cannot be outsourced overlooks the essential nature of how human labor fosters economic well-being.
Simply put, the key to prosperity is high productivity per worker. There is simply no other way to be rich unless you sit on top of a gold mine (or oil well) and have few mouths that need to feed off that source of wealth.
Discarding the vain hope that a nation of 300 million can live well off a raw materials-based economy, we are left with productivity as the wellspring of affluence.…
Continue Reading“Climate change is not an economics problem. It’s an ethics problem.”
– Stephen Schneider, Science, June 4, 2004.
Well, yes it is. And the climate-change debate brings up the energy-policy debate.
Poor people around the world need abundant, affordable, modern energy. And this points to private property and free markets–and adaptation in the face of uncertainties–and not government ownership and control of energy resources. The failure of Kyoto I should not be followed by a Kyoto II. The United States should not enact either a carbon tax or a carbon cap-and-trade program. Resource access on government lands (and waters) should be permitted. The goal is a robust supply-side strategy that respects free consumer choice to benefit one and all, and particularly the most vulnerable.
Here are some quotations on the need to eradicate energy poverty (a list that needs to be added to if folks have other quotations that can be added in the comment list).…
Continue Reading[MasterResource editor] Clean Power Now VP Charles Kleekamp argued in favor of the proposed Cape Wind offshore wind project on economic grounds in guest editorials in the March 6 Cape Cod Times and March 15 Cape Cod Today. In letters-to-the-editor to the same papers (not published), Glenn Schleede challenges Kleekamp’s analysis and describes what information the developer of Cape Wind would need to provide to help determine what the ensuing cost of per kilowatt-hour is likely to be. Still, Massachusetts electric users can be expected to be paying more because such power is bring driven by state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard and the fact that electricity from wind is intermittent.
Mr. Schleede’s analysis follows.
Dear Editors:
Unfortunately, Mr. Kleekamp’s Opinion column in the March 6 issue of Cape Cod Times and March 15 issue of Cape Cod Today presents highly misleading information about the true cost of electricity that would be produced by the proposed Cape Wind project.…