Buying Utopia is expensive — and it rarely turns out as promised:
I read an article today about a gang called Global Wind Systems, Inc that is bringing a “ray of hope” to Michigan where the unemployment rate is the nation’s highest and the economy is something out of a Marx Brothers comedy. These guys are “creating” 250 jobs and the big boss — a guy named Chris Long — thinks being in Michigan is great because “unions are fantastic for us”. I put the word ‘create’ in quotes because the idea that these guys have created jobs would be like saying I went to the grocery store and ‘created’ the gallon of milk I walked out with. Nothing was created — Michigan paid this guy $7.3 million. It would be more accurate to say that the woeful economy of Michigan spent $7.3 million to buy 250 jobs.Let’s set the job debacle and often insane leadership of the state of Michigan aside, however, and take a look at the bigger picture — and the picture is very, very big indeed. 7.3 million is a lot of bucks by any measure, but it is a drop in the bucket for environmental improvement these days. The bankrupt state is ready to plow another half billion into this and similar ventures. And Mr. Long is just getting started — he is going to turn all that cash into 2,000 jobs. And he is going to sell his wind generators for $2.5–3 million a pop. Creating jobs and saving the plant is happening on an epic scale in Michigan, apparently. No small measures in the Great Lakes State.
You can read the results of similar investments in Spain where they came to the conclusion that “for every green job that’s created with government funding, 2.2 regular jobs are lost and that only one in 10 green jobs wind up being permanent”.
The planet is going to be saved — if it needs saving — by kaizen, not by such grandiose schemes.