Reply To: Questions regarding DPF.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote: The only worthwhile “efficiency” initiatives are the ones that pay for themselves. Attempting to promote/hype one or the other with subsidies and tax benefits has consequences in Bastiat’s “unseen” sphere: the opportunity costs, the uses of capital now deflected that will never occur. The most obvious and dramatic modern reality-proof is the Spanish govenment report on the Spanish GreenJobs initiative. Each GreenJob cost 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy. It’s a rolling disaster.

Would have to see how they came up with that. Correlation or causality is hard to determine. Job availability is always shifting.

Things like productivity increases in a sector, which are considered good for the whole economy, end up costing jobs, but I don’t see you labeling that a “rolling disaster” even though it is to many families involved. In any case, not enough info here to put it in perspective.

Is it like the studies where mgmt wrings their hands about how much it costs them that people at work are surfing the internet rather than doing their jobs?

You can also look at the unregulated games high finance institutes have been playing and calculate how many jobs have been lost for each of those hedge fund jobs. I’m guessing it’s much higher than 1:2.2