and I say it's alright

People, this is so freakin' bad, even for the low standards of economic analysis of the NY Times.

In a recent article bemoaning the move of a solar panel plant from Massachusetts to China resides the following paragraph:

"Beyond the issues of trade and jobs, solar power experts see broader implications. They say that after many years of relying on unstable governments in the Middle East for oil, the United States now looks likely to rely on China to tap energy from the sun."

Alex has already mocked this brilliantly ("China monopolizes the sun!!"), but I gotta say a bit more.

First, the analogy is whack. The sun is (at least not yet) in Chinese possession. The analogy would work if we'd been buying oil rigs from the middle east and are replacing that now with buying solar panels from China.

Second, autarky is BAD, people, not good. A world where we are self sufficient for everything is a world quite a bit worse than the one we currently inhabit. There is nothing inherently "wrong" with importing oil; the problem is the effect using oil has on the environment, which is unchanged by where the oil comes from.

Third, China obviously has a comparative advantage on the US in low level manufacturing. Assembling solar panels is not a natural fit for the US in the global economy.

As Mungowitz has been saying, there isn't going to be a "green jobs machine" in the US, unless we are going to *massively* subsidize each job.