Whence Comes our Help?

We will Lift Up Our Eyes to the Gummint

We have said repeatedly that the dominant idolatry of the West is the bowing down in heart and mind to the government. Now all idols are constructed from out of the hearts and minds of men, so all idols actually resemble the creature, rather than the Creator. Idolatrous government is no exception: after all, the modern democratic state is really the corporate expression of the people.

The people generally have no patience or truck with those who argue for a much reduced and limited role for gummint. When problems arise, everyone to a man (it would seem) lifts eyes to Wellington and expects (and demands) the gummint to "do something". Christians, by contrast, lift their eyes to God, when comes our help.

When governments are formed by those on the left, the statist idolatry becomes more overt and pronounced. It also becomes more stupid, foolish, and impotent. It is an abiding characteristic of the Left that they cannot execute properly. Now, this is not to say that right-of-centre governments escape: it is rather that the left tends to believe fervently in the omni-competence of government and run at the folly at full throttle.

An overwhelming and lasting impression of the Obama administration for us will be its incompetence. The current President, it seems, really does buy into the idea that the government makes the difference and that all things can be put to right through legislation and tax-exacted or debt created spending. It would make grimly amusing reading to list all the historic achievements Obama has declared he will accomplish, by starting this programme or enacting that regulation--only to have the whole thing collapse before his eyes. The sad thing is that he and his colleagues really seem to believe this stuff.

One of the latest examples is the White House's proposed new spending initiatives to "get the economy moving". Remember how Obama announced and pronounced that he and his administration would fundamentally transform America and create a new economy which would be based upon green jobs. Billions would be spent, but billions would be created as a result. He declared it with the emphatic certainty of a true believer. Now it warrants not a mention. It is as if Obama has been stupid enough to think that the mere pronouncement would create out of nothing; that his words would call forth the reality. How incredibly naive. He really does worship the idol.

Obama's new economy, the one based upon "green energy", now lies in the dustbowl of history. The Washington Times writes:

Noticeably absent from President Obama's latest economic-stimulus package are any further attempts to create jobs through "green" energy projects, reflecting a year in which the administration's original, loudly trumpeted efforts proved largely unfruitful.

The long delays typical with environmentally friendly projects - combined with reports of green stimulus funds being used to create jobs in China and other countries, rather than in the U.S. - appear to have killed the administration's appetite for pushing green projects as an economic cure.

After months of hype about the potential for green energy to stimulate job growth and lead the economy out of a recession, the results turned out to be disappointing, if not dismal. About $92 billion - more than 11 percent - of Mr. Obama's original $814 billion of stimulus funds were targeted for renewable energy projects when the measure was pushed through Congress in early 2009.

It turns out that most of the money to create ex nihilo millions of "green jobs" went overseas. Wind farms were the craze at the time: it turned out that the world's cheapest producers of turbines were in places like China.

Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland, said much of the green stimulus funding was "squandered." "Large grants to build green buildings don't generate many new jobs, except for a few architects," he said. "Subsidies for windmills and solar panels created lots of jobs in China," but few at home.

In one of several embarrassing disclosures for the administration, a report last fall by American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop found that 11 U.S. wind farms used their grants to purchase 695 out of 982 wind turbines from overseas suppliers.

And the jobs "created" in the US are completely dependant upon ongoing government subsidies. In other words, they are not economically sustainable.

Despite the massive infusion of government funding in recent years, renewable technologies have captured only a tiny share of the energy market and remain heavily dependent on government funding to be viable. Because of the need to constantly renew government funding, private investors remain skittish about committing to new projects.

Mr. Sherraden said the problem with job leakage overseas promised only to get worse, because governments in Europe and Japan - which in years past spent lavishly on renewable energy - now are drastically cutting back their green subsidies as they try to pare enormous budget deficits.

With the United States left as the only major developed country still flooding the market with government funding, competition from overseas suppliers promised to be more fierce than ever, Mr. Sherraden said. "It is impossible to guarantee that clean-energy stimulus is not leaked abroad," he said. "We have to recognize that we are funding job-creation programs in Germany, Spain, Japan and China."

You don't say.

And the amount of energy now being produced by these wonderful new green technologies called into existence out of nothing by the Word of the One? Diddley squat.

Even if the green-energy funding is viewed as a long-term investment to replace dwindling reserves of oil rather than as pure economic stimulus, advocates have greatly exaggerated the benefits, said Kerry Lynch, senior fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. "For all the hype over wind and solar, the reality is that they contribute very little to our energy supply," she said, saying that wind accounts for less than 1 percent of total U.S. energy production and solar power for just one-tenth of 1 percent. "Together, they could power the country for all of three days a year."

Ah, the stupidity and idiocy of it all. But those who worship the idol always have a comeback. "Sure, we did some things wrong. Sure billions have been wasted. Sure, green energy is no sustainable at the moment. But, next time we will do it better. Next time things will be different." One thing the West, in its present enslavement, will never, ever do. It will never tolerate any criticism of the idol, of the reigning god, of the established religion. The state remains ideologically omni-competent. "We will lift up our eyes to the gummint, whence comes our help." It is the great credo of the age. To suggest otherwise would be blasphemous.