Well, as you know, the economic benefit of creating jobs depends entirely
on whether you are the consumer of the jobs, or the provider of the jobs.
From the perspective of a boss, jobs are a cost, and from the perspective
of a worker, jobs are income.
I was speaking of society as a whole, mainly because it's the easy
case, but it extends to the individual as well.
What you're describing is true of any voluntary economic transaction.
The parties exchange 'value', in one form of the other. I.E. The maker
of widgets sees the sale as 'income' and to the purchaser it's a
cost.. But in all cases there is the underlying premise of an equal
'value' on both sides, otherwise it's charity or, in some cases, a
political bribe.
How does it extend to the individual? Take the case of expending
resources to 'fix global warming'. Before the 'fix' society produces X
value of goods. Now divert resources to the 'fix' that would otherwise
produce Y amount of goods. Society then has X-Y goods to spread among
the individuals. If the 'fix' does not 'fix' global warming then
you've expended resources and made society poorer for no benefit. If
it does 'fix' global warming then *that* is the 'benefit' as society
is still Y amount poorer in goods. That's the cost of it.
It's potentially worse because some portion of that Y expenditure
might otherwise go to productivity improvements that are also lost.
Now, one can claim that the 'fix' might stimulate productivity
improvements too but it's a distortion of the process, because the
'goal' is the 'fix', and almost certainly guaranteed to be less
effective as a productivity enhancer than if the market was left to
it's own incentives.
That doesn't necessarily mean you don't want to do it anyway, I.E. if
the benefit is worth the cost, but the notion that expending X
trillions of dollars will be, on the whole. 'offset' by 'job creation'
is a myth.
The confounding case is when you 'create jobs' for people who would,
otherwise, not have jobs. But that's essentially charity, regardless
of what else one calls it, and is equivalent to moving the rocks back
and forth for no purpose. Again, you might want to do it, from the
charitable aspect, but it's an added cost.
But, guess what, productivity matters to the jobless poor too because
a society can only afford the charity if it's productive enough to
generate spare resources. Put in the simplest, degenerative, case, if
you've got 6 people and 4 apples it doesn't matter how 'sympathetic'
one is, there aren't enough apples to go around. It's only when you've
got a prolific Johnny Appleseed that you have 'spares' to pass out,
unless you divert him into carbon sequestration instead of apples.
