The Rain in Spain Blocks the Sun and Causes Pain, Part 3,545

Why the fancy numbering on the continuing saga of the Green Jobs Bubble? Because that's what the Washington Post this morning reported is the actual number of jobs (3,545) created by the government's 38.6 billion dollar green jobs loan guarantee program, or a cost of over 10 million dollars in loan guarantees per job. Government reports that the number is closer to 60,000 jobs apparently include accounting that claims that about half of the Ford Motor Company workforce has been converted into green jobs and therefore "created". Even at 60,000 jobs, that would be a cost of over $600,000 in loan guarantees per job. Apparently as the fund has been only half allocated, one might argue that you could cut those numbers in half, so that the cost per "green job" drops to somewhere between $300,000 and $5,000,000 in loan guarantees per green job. But, as the famous Spanish report (see posts below) pointed out, this doesn't allow for any jobs lost due to the financing of the program.

Now one could argue that as these are loan guarantees, eventually the government will get its money back. But as the Solyndra bankruptcy shows, that is not guaranteed.

(H/T to Hot Air for the track to the WaPo article).

(After the first publish, I edited the text to make clear that this program is a loan guarantee program as distinguished from a direct grant program).