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Keep in mind that the solar industry employs more people than the coal industry. Why is it a good thing to soften the blow by keeping the coal industry alive, i

• ookdatnog 10y ago
  I won't respond to the specific example of the coal industry; I'm not advocating for keeping the coal industry alive artificially. My claim is that it's not always bad policy to do so. So in a more general sense, why not simply pay the workers of an obsolete industry? I'm not sure I have a good answer to that, since I'm not educated in economics. But I would guess that a dying industry can still generate net wealth, just not enough to sustain itself. It depends on how much of its costs are labor vs infrastructure. An industry that cannot generate enough wealth to sustain its infrastructure is probably generating negative net wealth, and it's better policy to let it die and give money directly to the workers. But if an industry can sustain its infrastructure without government help, but it can no longer afford the labor costs, I think the industry can still generate positive net wealth for society if the government plugs that gap. The portion of the money the industry is paying out of its own pocket to its workers is already net gain for society, why throw that away?