A Goldman Sachs economist found, according to the climate realist website, wattsupwiththat.com, that as of January of this year, fossil fuels still comprised 81% of our total energy consumption, compared to 82% in 2012, this after $3.8 trillion spent on wind and solar, i.e., totally wasted with respect to its nominal goal.
However, from a LaRouche standpoint it’s much worse: The $3.8 trillion invested into so-called green capital goods, was not merely wasted, but since it was not investment into the technological frontiers of the physical economy, if we apply the “JFK moonshot payoff” standard, where every dollar invested yielded $10-plus of payoff, we the people lost $38 trillion: That $38 trillion should have been translated into better housing, health care, food, education, in which we might have ended homelessness, reduced or ended the high suicides among young people, and increased longevity, whereas between 2019 and 2021, U.S. life expectancy dropped from 79 to 76—which is a shameful 54th in the world, even behind our overly-sanctioned neighbor, Cuba!
Finally, however, the “10 to 1” comparison is itself not only an underestimate, but an incommensurable, since the investment of the “1960s dollar” in space technology that had never existed, generated a “multiplier yield,” or return, in the form of 10-plus, or however many “dollars” that in fact expressed physical capabilities and potential that had also not previously existed. And what about the cultural transformation this would also have produced, and its effect on the productive process, including “quantitative effects”? How do we quantify the symphonies, portraiture, and medical breakthroughs that were not produced—including the ones that may have saved the lives, and productive potential, of those that have recently perished and are still perishing from the ongoing pandemic?
