If “green jobs” mandates are such a swell idea – and indeed, taxes and subsidies in their name are now increasingly touted as the way forward to economic recovery – how is it that they require a bailout . . . before the program has even started?

Reading today’s CCNet, we see an item from the Financial Times noting that China has upped its price for continuing its lucrative Kyoto role as carbon-offset bank for the EU (and, as many hope, for the U.S., as well). China wants $300 billion in “green technologies” – $130 billion from the U.S. (1 percent of our GDP), though we aren’t even Party to the pact, which begs the question why we would not only join this economy-killing treaty, but pay through the nose to do so.

The green technologies might come from American companies, or maybe not; they might be made here, or maybe not, but the presumption is that we will pay China in exchange for their promise to use the money to buy such products, instead of buying economically viable products that they want and need, on their own. Or, slightly less insane, possibly the U.S. taxpayer could just pay to make these green things no one wants, and then send them to China. This smacks of the worst of the WPA and foreign aid rolled into one.

In essence, China’s proposal is that the West pay people to dig holes . . . to China . . . and then to fill them back up again — amply wetting China’s beak for the privilege.

No matter how many times T. Boone repeats his mantra, buying oil from countries — any country — is not a wealth transfer, but a voluntary exchange of dollars for a valuable commodity that we want. This “green jobs” scam is a wealth transfer, the most blatant and obscene one ever proposed. “Green jobs” programs are not the way forward to saving the economy, but instead “saving the economy” is the latest excuse to save an uneconomic industry that like other spectacular successes before it – say, Fannie & Freddie, ethanol, and soon “carbon trading” – owe their existence to government boondoggles.