Solar Panels Jobs Go to China
by Oly Mike
The NYT has an article about the closing of Evergreen Solar's manufacturing plant in Massachusetts and transfer of manufacturing to plants in China. This is symptomatic of the failure of US public policy to recognize that clean energy and manufacturing jobs are critical to our future.
Flattened tax tables, huge salaries and bonus income to our best and brightest who spend their time trying to figure out how to manufacture profits from money trading without manufacturing any tangible goods is a recipe for disaster for the US. We need a steeply progressive tax schedule that encourages investment in infrastructure instead of private planes, yachts and third vacation homes. The tax schedules also need to shift income and wealth down from the top 2% to the middle 50%. We need a bell curve wealth distribution scheme instead of the hockey stick the current tax rates produce.
From the NYT piece:
Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to ChinaBEIJING — Aided by at least $43 million in assistance from the government of Massachusetts and an innovative solar energy technology, Evergreen Solar emerged in the last three years as the third-largest maker of solar panels in the United States.
But now the company is closing its main American factory, laying off the 800 workers by the end of March and shifting production to a joint venture with a Chinese company in central China. Evergreen cited the much higher government support available in China.
Even though Evergreen opened its Devens plant, with all new equipment, only in 2008, it began talks with Chinese companies in early 2009. In September 2010, the company opened its factory in Wuhan, China, and will now rely on that operation