Saving the Economy With Green Collar Jobs
By: BJ Lawson
Today we celebrate the Fed’s balance sheet topping $2 trillion, led by purchases of commercial paper that may include a stealth, alternative mechanism for bailing out AIG:
Just two weeks into its operation, the Fed’s commercial paper facility expanded by nearly $100 billion. The Fed now owns something like 20% of all the commercial paper outstanding, holding a total of $243 billion of the short term loans.
It’s unclear who is selling the commercial paper to the Fed. One guess is that it’s AIG, which has not been borrowing as much from the dedicated AIG facility as may have been anticipated given the size of its liabilities. AIG’s borrowings under the special facility actually dropped from $83.5 billion to $81.2 billion. In a sense, the Fed’s commercial paper facility may be operating as a hidden bailout of AIG.
It was hoped that these commercial paper purchases would save companies and preserve jobs. But it’s going to take more than the Fed helping out with short-term corporate financing needs to save jobs.
Our economy is currently a patient with multi-organ system failure. Unlike medicine, however, where one can triage problems in a rational way, our American form of corporate socialism prioritizes industries for government assistance based upon lobbyist clout.
The automobile industry is currently at the head of the line:
The obvious and easy first move for President-Elect Barack Obama is to put some money into the automobile industry to save a large number of jobs, financier Wilbur Ross said Wednesday.
General Motors and Chrysler “need something like $10 billion to pay the one-time cost of merging, that’s a very cheap investment,” Ross said.
Just stabilizing the auto industry will save a large numbers of manufacturing and auto supplier jobs and “do an awful lot of good for the economy,” he said.
It would also be a consistent with the support Obama has with labor unions, Ross added.
“It would be a very quick, easy thing,” Ross said. “I can’t imagine a cheaper way to protect a very, very large number of jobs.”
Nancy Pelosi was being lobbied today by the CEOs of Chrysler, Ford, and GM, and she managed to pay lip service to “green collar jobs”:
“We must work together to ensure the viability of the U.S. auto industry,” Pelosi said in welcoming the CEOs and Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers, to the meeting.
Another priority, she said, was to help “transform blue-collar jobs to green collar jobs.” The meeting was mainly a listening session for Pelosi to get the views of the auto industry, which is facing an unprecedented financial crisis due in large part recently to the global credit crunch that has choked off borrowing by consumers for auto purchases.
In a statement, GM said the session was constructive and that it would work closely with Democratic leaders to ensure “immediate” funding to keep the industry viable.
So let’s get this straight — auto sales have tanked, and manufacturers are going to the government for help. Let’s assume the manufacturers convince our government to borrow yet more money to keep them in business — at taxpayer expense. Consumers, however, still can’t afford to buy new cars. We’re still making them, but who’s going to buy them?
Should the government then start giving us money so we can buy these new cars as they roll off the assembly line?
Why spend taxpayer money to subsidize building wasteful contraptions that burn nonrenewable imported fuels at ridiculously low efficiency, clogging highways and polluting the air, when consumers are leveraged far past the point of being able to handle a new car payment?
I’ve got a cheaper and much more environmentally-sensitive idea. My wife and I were in China last year and saw a great example of green collar jobs in action — folks who were hired to cut grass in Beijing parks using hand clippers.
The sun makes the grass grow. Just pay people to cut it by hand. Presto, green collar jobs.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I wonder how long it will take the new administration to learn that a company whose primary purpose is to provide jobs will not stay in business for very long.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Good to see you back to work…the revolution has just begun…
November 7th, 2008 at 1:25 am
Im sure ole Nancy is going to be pushing green, since she is a shareholder in Clean Energy(CLNE).
Why don’t we just clean the american publics debt instead of the corporations. Then we can start over and go back into massive debt and buy new toys!!! That would boost spending….LOL
I wonder what the GDP would be if it didn’t count things bought on credit that were not paid off in a certain time period. Those times when we where “growing” our economy may not have been what the “experts” thought.
I’m going to use the more debt and spending plan on my finances, I will keep everyone updated
Corporate welfare will only guarantee inefficient corporations….Kinda like all the autos, airlines, and now banks. tisk tisk
November 7th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Nice tongue-in-cheek ending, BJ. Keep the common sense coming. Will this still be your primary blog from here on out, or are you going to switch back to “B.J. Lawson’s Reality Check”?
November 7th, 2008 at 10:31 am
BJ,
The next year could be very rough for all lovers of liberty. But as Ron Paul said, let the revolution BEGIN. There is so much to be accomplished, mainly because there is so much WRONG with government. BJ you have already stepped up as a great leader of this revolution in support of a constitutional government! Thank you for that!
-David Carlson
http://www.davidcarlsonpolitics.com
November 7th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
a company whose primary purpose is to provide jobs will not stay in business for very long.
Well, if we’re talking about a government make-work scam, it can exist for as long as there are productive activities somewhere for it to loot.
-jcr
November 7th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
BJ,
Is it too soon to announce your candidacy and begin fundraising for 2010? To beat Price, you’re going to need to do a lot of voter education over the next two years.
-jcr
November 7th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
JCR,
I was thinking about that as well. I really do hope Lawson runs again in 2010, and I vow to do whatever I can to help him out, as I’m sure the many supporters he has gained in the past year will as well. But then again, maybe instead of just making it a relentless two year campaign for BJ, it might be more effective to just do ‘voter education’ about differnet issues without necessarily shoving the name BJ LAWSON down their throats. People may be turned off by a nonstop campaign for BJ to get into the house. There has to be some sort of balance where we can educate voters who, with that education, will most likely switch over to vote for BJ in 2010. But if its just LAWSON LAWSON LAWSON people may become very turned off. Know what I mean? Just a few thoughts.
-David Carlson
http://www.davidcarlsonpolitics.com
November 8th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
This data is consistent with the current growth of the true money supply:
http://nimamahdjour.blogspot.com/2008/11/money-supply-watch-oct-27th-2008-aka.html
November 8th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Car companies need money? How about they negotiate a loan or two from the multi-billion dollar profit per quarter OIL companies? After all, isn’t there a certain symbiosis there? Without cars around, the oil companies would lose ALOT of their business. They’d be reduced to heating houses and lubricating sewing machines. How do we set up this blind date?
DT
November 9th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
David,
That would make sense if the oil companies were facing the prospect of the entire auto industry going belly-up, but they’re not. What we’re talking about here is three particular companies with unsustainable cost structures failing, and they’ll be replaced by other producers who didn’t get themselves into this mess.
For a bit of perspective, GM’s market cap is $2.8 billion. Ford’s is $4.75B. Chrysler’s not publicly traded these days, but its value is probably well under $2B at the outside. If they all go under, the oil companies would barely notice, and just keep selling gasoline to people driving Toyota, Hyundai, and Volkswagen cars.
-jcr
November 9th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Hiring people to cut the grass by hand or anything like that would probably be immediatly labeled as demeaning or pseudo slavery. I think thats nonsense though. I’ve always thought that if we were going to have a welfare system at all it should involve labour of some sort. Set people to building roads (necesary ones only) and they will do their best to get off of welfare as quickly as possible. Road construction sucks as most people who have ever done it will testify.
November 10th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Hi John,
I know it’s wishful thinking. I just feel that the oil companies are in a MUCH better position to loan money than are we, the taxpayers. I can’t avoid the mental image of being chained down in the galley of a ship, exhausted from the perpetual rowing, while the drunken captain shouts down to ask for help with directions as he steers the ship over a gigantic waterfall into the mouth of a monster.
The “problems” in our economy are all man made. It’s not like we’re facing an asteroid impact or a new killer pathogen. I guess I was hoping for more awareness on the part of the electorate this last go ’round so we could turn the tide of self interested candidates away from public office and get with the job of repairing the cracks in our system with a capable fellow like Dr. Lawson. Unfortunately, people seem to choose their leaders like they choose their diets. They’re more inclined to pick what tastes good over what is healthy with little regard for consequences until it’s “do or die.” Let’s hope we get a few more years before it comes to that.
DT
November 11th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I just feel that the oil companies are in a MUCH better position to loan money than are we, the taxpayers.
So what?
So are Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Larry Ellison. We have no obligation to bail out the car companies, and neither do they. An oil company isn’t a charity, and its duty is to its shareholders.
-jcr
November 23rd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Hey BJ,
You should check out this youtube video of the END the FED protest in Charlotte yesterday. At the end of the video they chanted ” Ron Paul 2012 and BJ Lawson 2010″!