In the private sector, an employee either directly or indirectly provides a product or service that is valued by others. The service or produce is purchased and either consumed, used (and replaced) or sold to another for the same. Thus the cycle grows wealth and wealth increases standards of living. There is no limit to the wealth that can be created (ever). However, wealth creation has a starting point. The beneficiaries of wealth creation are those entering the job market or industry regardless of age. Eventually, and hopefully, many of those will become wealth creators themselves as they advance in society's social structure.
That is until the cycle is interrupted and those who would otherwise enter the wealth creation cycle at an entry level are plucked from the process and placed on an entitlement program that requires government worker supervision and management.
Conversely, a government job is created by paying a government worker to manage the expenditures of tax revenue for the “good of the nation.” Politicians and media elite would have you believe that hiring a government worker broadens the tax income revenue base. At what cost? If a government worker is paid $100,000/year in salary and benefits, they may pay $18,000 per year in taxes. This worker is costing the other tax payers $82,000/year.
It is hardly a good thing that the government has “added” jobs in this case.
What's worse is that the government employee produces nothing that is actually consumed or builds wealth. It is impossible for the government to “build wealth” through job creation. Indirectly, the government does make many individuals wealthy (Fannie and Freddy, Solyndra, Politicians, etc.), but at a cost to the tax paying public at large far in excess of what is made.
Wealth is only a “zero sum game” when the government intervenes and interrupts the free market capital system. Since government does not produce a consumable product or service, it can only redistribute wealth based on the revenue it collects. AND there is a cost to collecting, accounting for and redistributing this wealth that must be skimmed from the collected revenue to pay for the government management of it before it can be redistributed.
Thus government can only be a consumer of wealth, not a creator.
If a government worker is paid $100,000/year in salary and benefits, they may pay $18,000 per year in taxes. This worker is costing the other tax payers $82,000/year.
The way I do the math the other tax payers pay $100,000, not $$82,000. Other tax payers paid both the net pay and the benefits and the taxes. The government worker paid N O T H I N G.
Good explanation. I often site a much shorter version, something like, without profit, there is no business, without business there is no middle class, or any jobs for that matter.