My main objection is an observation on the awesome green economy that was rolling right long before the pandemic hit. The vast majority of the jobs in the “green economy” aren’t installing solar panels or any other high-brow technology. 85% of the “green economy” is performed by an army of professionals doing energy audits of homes and businesses. They were doing this unheralded work without any government support (other than modest rebates from utilities for some projects), and the growth rate of the energy conservation was in double digits.
The Democrats want to dump hundreds of billions of dollars into “research and development.” Sounds like a wonderful idea, doesn’t it? The problem is that American industry is truly incapable of transforming ideas into technology. The Chinese are extremely proficient at taking American know-how and manufacturing it economically.
Solar technology was developed by U.S. companies; now American companies make 0% of solar panels in the world. Ditto with practically every other modern, engineering technology: electronics, smartphones, etc… Created in the U.S.A. Then exported to China, where they made all the profit and created ten million high-paying, skilled jobs for Chinese nationals in 150,000 brand new factories.
Finally. Manufacturing accounts for only 12% of the U.S. economy. And “food production” is part of that 12%. The actual factory kind of manufacturing is at most 5% of the U.S. economy ~ 80% of which is automobiles. And so, it’s all but impossible that Biden’s so-called American Jobs Plan would create any real manufacturing jobs in the U.S. ~ but tens of millions of good jobs in China.
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Excerpted from Going Green, available as an eBook at this list of eBook retailers online.