anglingfortruth

Inefficiency: The Key to Job Creation

It has been quite awhile since I, or anyone else for that matter, has posted an
article on the anglingfortruth site. From time to time I have felt that I should write something, but have lacked the time, inspiration, or insight. Then just today I had one of those "aha" moments. Perhaps I actually have something of value to contribute, not just to this site, or even to the field of philosophical inquiry, but something of practical value, an insight that might save thousands of jobs and the planet as well. In the March edition of U.S. News and World Report (Clean Energy Already Paying Off), Jerome Ringo (former president of the Apollo Alliance, "a coalition that promotes clean energy and green jobs"), writes "a new study published in the journal Energy Policy found that non-fossil fuel technologies create more jobs per unit of energy than coal and natural gas do." Eureka! For a long time I had been under that illusion that improved efficiency was a good thing for our economy. From my skewed perspective, I would have expressed the findings cited by Ringo something like this: "non-fossil fuel technologies cost more man-hours per unit of energy to produce." Of course, because these technologies are more costly, the government will have to subsidize them so they can compete with older, more efficient technologies. And, as Ringo himself points out, Congress will have to do something to keep these jobs from going overseas (google "Hawley-Smoot"), as well as provide financial support and job training for those who lose their jobs, but, as he also points out, we've done that kind of thing before.

Now this is all well and good, but I'm not sure that even Ringo himself realizes the full potential of his insight. Living here in timber country, I have long been concerned about the plight of the logging industry.Many former loggers struggle to find work and adjust to the economic changes that have transpired over the last few decades. Many have not only lost their source of income, but a whole way of life. Congress could fix this immediately by simply outlawing the use of chainsaws to cut down trees. Imagine how many jobs would be created if every board-foot of lumber had to be harvested by hand-saw and axe. And, it would reduce the output of greenhouse gases and our dependency on fossil-fuel to boot. Of course we would have to put a high tariff on lumber imports from Canada, but Congress has done this sort of thing before (google "Hawley-Smoot"), and it fits exactly into Ringo's template.

This is just one example. There are many application. I want to encourage some brainstorming of possibilities. Were we to apply just a fraction of them, just imagine the ways in which our economy would be revolutionized overnight.