Monday, November 23, 2009

Killing jobs softly

Readers of this blog will be familiar with the "net job effect" argument, which basically holds that investments in one sector (such as renewables) create fewer jobs than investments in other sectors (such as -- and I kid you not -- flipping burgers).

Perhaps the most incredible thing about the net-jobs argument was that the "studies" published were so shoddy and yet received so much flattering publicity -- the Spanish one in particular was only ever a draft, and that was eight months ago. We have yet to see the final version of this document.

Now, it seems that lobbyists in the health care sector have realized how successful such "reports" are. As the Washington Post writes, a similar campaign is now planned against the Obama administration's proposals for health care reform:

"The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document."

1 comment:

  1. The health care lobbyists will create one job for this report in question and, after the "expert" reaches the desired conclusion and only then, they will scream from the rooftops that health insurance reform will kill jobs.

    It would be shameless except there's stiff competition in that industry.

    And how can it be called a "grass-roots document" when lobbyists pay someone to produce it???

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