I never liked the deal for a new professional baseball stadium in Miami. I never have. Today's front page story in The Miami Herald gives me reason to like it even less. I could enumerate my reasons (Michael Lewis, of Miami Today, has done it better). My reasons probably correspond with lots of our readers'. But instead I'll just focus on this one theory, stated by Mayor Carlos Alvarez at the end of the article: "The stadium will create thousands of jobs."
I disagree that serial event venues-- like the Homestead Raceway or the Performing Arsht Center-- create thousands of jobs. What they do create is transient profits for engineering and construction firms and temporary jobs that fade away once the project is finished. How many permanent jobs and at what pay scale will be created by a new baseball stadium? I'd like to see them, and measure the nonsense against what was promised for the Arsht Center.
Here is what I'd like to see before any baseball stadium in built in Miami: put a solar panel and battery storage for solar energy on every rooftop in the county.
First of all, provide through an ease-to-access county fund the opportunity for citizens to lease or purchase solar at a low cost, to demonstrably lower monthly energy costs. Second, require equipment suppliers to manufacture and assemble the majority of components in Miami-Dade County. Third, provide installation training and certification to engineers and installers through a program that is made available to local, small businesses. Tax credits and insurance issues should also be part of the plan, to create a low threshold for entry and allow for business growth. Require FPL's participation, but make the program independent of its influence that has proven so irresponsible in Miami-Dade. Finally, use county-funded business services to promote the program and participants to other parts of the state and nation.
Let me put it bluntly: stop this idiocy that entertainments provide economic growth. They don't! If half the energy spent by county and city staff on making more millions for millionaire sports entrepreneurs and players was put into removing the obstacles to growing jobs through solar and other sustainable technologies, there would be more hope for the South Florida than any sports fantasy could ever provide. Oh, but the critics say, government shouldn't be involved in telling the free market what to do. EX-CUSE ME?
Put another way: if government can subsidize so much of so little consequence, why can't it find something of substance to do first?
14 comments:
I remember the early 80s when it was all the rage to have a solar panel up on your roof.
That worked out pretty well huh?
m
Gimleteye writes:
No it didn't work out well, because Reagan threw out govt policies for solar in favor of fossil fuel producers. So what are you in favor of? Now that the limitations of the "free" market are clear and the economy is in a ditch, we have to grow jobs in industries that are critical for our economic and national security, starting with energy. That takes leadership from government, not just following what the lobbyists want for clients who are supported by other, unsustainable policies related to energy production and economic growth. How far down do you think the economy has to go, before this becomes clear?
The fact is that today we have a fair price FPL has to pay for energy that benefits consumers who install solar panels. In the 80's there were no such state law.
In addition, energy costs were much lower in the 80's, and new technologies have improved early designs.
Its time to live in the present and not keep your head buried in the sand.
Its time for the Jetsons...
M, so predictable. I could write your comments.
Gimleteye writes:
I'm not sure all the wrinkles are out of the agreement that the utilities reached last year, to buy back power from consumers. But it is going to take a lot more to push demand for solar at the consumer and industrial level. I've read the legal agreement; it is so lop-sided toward the utilities that a lot of consumers will be scared away by the fine print. What is needed to make solar work is for low-cost loans for consumers to easily adopt and install solar and other renewable technologies. They have to be cheap, simple, and efficient; and they have to create local jobs in the small business sector; which is where the growth for our economy will come from.
Again and again it is the BRIBES paid to those who make the decisions that decides what is built.
From the International Herald Tribune: "At Davos: Economic Gloom is the order of the day".
"Trevor Manuel, the South African finance minister, cautioned that some fiscal plans might "come to naught" until countries figured out how to spend money sensibly.
"We see a lemming-like approach: trying to get to the precipice first without having any idea what that money will do," Manuel said. "I think we will have wealthy states indebted without much to show for it."
Solar panel financing, plus installation, will be a great economic booster. In addition, weatherizing government buildings, businesses and homes will create jobs in the short run and save alot of money in the long term.
In Liberty City several homes have 25 year old solar panels on the roof and those families get some electricity or hot water even after the hurricane blackouts.
A must read on this subject is Van Jones' book "The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems" It details how going green can both cool global warming and lift the economy, specifically low income people of color currently out of the blue collar jobs which have been exported elsewhere.
Of course, the fact that this makes so much sense is precisely the reason why it will never happen here in Miami-Dade.
The real irony of the efficiency of solar energy in Florida is that although we have the sunshine, we also have cheap nuclear electricity. The basic economics of Solar don't work well here whether or not there are subsidies. It is shocking when flying into MIA of FLL how few solar panels you see from the air as compared to landing in LAX or Phoenix.
Just like the Obama plan is not stimulus, neither is building a baseball stadium.
Note: if the top baseball players got together, they could finance this stadium with their signing bonuses!
If that doesn't prove Mr. Alvarez's foolishness, then nothing will.
One has to realize that the political will has to be there to figure out the way to redirect the "tourist" dollars into a more productive stimulus. This would be either an election to change the laws or some of emergency measure that the courts would allow.
But, this is not going to happen.
"THEY" want construction jobs and "THEY" want to be big shots with the wheeler dealers.
The community has suffered cost overruns on ever project they have planned and built. I can not see any hope for anything but more of the same with the stadium, tunnel and whatever is next on the agenda.
By the way, the design is dumb looking and I imagine going to be difficult to keep in good repair.
Interesting set of comments on solar in Miami.
Nukes aren't "cheap electricity." Actually it is so expensive that FPL got permission to charge you now for electricity you won't start to use until 2020 or later.
Investments in energy efficiency and solar see results now, not 20 years after you shell out the dough.
Dr. Fenton with the Florida Solar Energy Center had a good editorial in their energy newsletter several months back.
www.miamisolarforum.blogspot.com
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