We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers. More people work for government than most industries.

Wall Street Journal ^ | 04/01/2011 | Stephen Moore

[SeekAndFind]

If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

Every state in America today except for two—Indiana and Wisconsin—has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods. Consider California, which has the highest budget deficit in the history of the states. The not-so Golden State now has an incredible 2.4 million government employees—twice as many as people at work in manufacturing. New Jersey has just under two-and-a-half as many government employees as manufacturers. Florida's ratio is more than 3 to 1. So is New York's.

Even Michigan, at one time the auto capital of the world, and Pennsylvania, once the steel capital, have more government bureaucrats than people making things. The leaders in government hiring are Wyoming and New Mexico, which have hired more than six government workers for every manufacturing worker.

[reaganator]

“Who is John Galt?”

[OneWingedShark]

>>“But look what has happened in WI. Even after they passed a LAW! the leftists have found ways to ignore the will of the people.”
>
>That is very disturbing

The Judiciary hasn’t been on the side of the people in a VERY long time.
Consider, for a moment, Kelo v. New London; in this case the Supreme Court allowed as legitimate the usage of Immanent Domain to serve a “public use” the ‘projection’ of higher tax-revenue. This boils down to the USSC saying that “we *think* the government will make more money if...” as being sufficient reason to dispossess a person of their property.
Never mind that this amounts to a de facto amendment of the Constitution’s 5th Amendment to remove ‘for public use’ because it renders those words of no meaning because the mere assumption, even mistaken, of “more revenue” is held to be ‘public use.’ {and how far is it to grant this legal larceny to allow the government seizing private property and selling it off to pay for debts/”unfunded liabilities”?}

[OneWingedShark]

>It doesn’t help when our college age kids overwhelmingly choose to become lawyers and political science majors.
>Those are the academics degrees of “pie slicers” not “pie makers”.

Here’s what some good “lawyerin’” can do for you: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2698298/posts

[OneWingedShark]

>>”government at ALL levels must be severely slashed
>
>Unfortunately this includes the military.

You know, I don’t see this as an ‘unfortunately’ because in a SHTF-scenario it will do us good to have such trained violent men on our side. {On the other hand UNtrained can be infinitely better: you know what the professional soldier is going to do, it’s the amateur that’s unpredictable. That precept is exactly why the losses in Iraq were so high initially and then tapered down — our military had to ‘learn’ how to counter the unorthodox methods of its opponents.}

In a SHTF/CWII-scenario we will likely have to be even more unorthodox ourselves.

[kearnyirish2]

The best part of Kelo was the outcome; after seizing the property the company that wanted it didn’t use it anyway.

What a disgrace; a similar situation happened in NY along the Hudson River in the 1960s. The government forced people out of their homes in a little hamlet called Doodletown, allegedly to build some sort of ski area; the project was abandoned and the properties remain in the hands of Bear Mountain State Park to this day (the homes were all demolished).

[OneWingedShark]

The best part of Kelo was the outcome; after seizing the property the company that wanted it didn’t use it anyway.

And that is the exact danger of allowing "projections" to stand as justification. All the government has to do is say "I think that we might possibly get more money if we take so-and-so's property;" arguably Kelo v. New London was the Suprem Court's repudiation of property-rights in whole.

[x_plus_one]

A new type of stainless steel alloy, developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is the "Superman" of its class, offering superior oxidation resistance compared to conventional stainless steels while in the same time being affordable, with no significant increase in production costs.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Scientists-Developed-New-Super-Stainless-Steel-58006.shtml

New metal alloys are appearing and are available to Joe Machinist. Small manufacturers are adapting to new alloys rather than go out of business. Research in ceramics (at Rolla and other engineering schools) is creating new materials with incredible capabilities that are functions of high voltage and temperatures. But ceramics are not currently used to design commodity or industrial machine products due to their difficulty to manufacture. Steel and aluminum alloys are the choice for manufacturing and design since they are easy to mass produce, are available and are cheap enough for the middle-man to make a profit.

The driving force behind the continued use of steel, aluminum and other similar metal alloys is their availability and cost effectiveness.

[kearnyirish2]

I couldn’t agree with you more; the start of the slippery slope was when rather than using eminent domain for projects that truly served the public “good” (lengthening airport runways, widening roadways, etc.), it was being used for private developers’ moneymaking schemes (whether for housing developments or corporate uses). I remember a few years ago in Neptune, NJ, people put up a stink because they were being forced out of their homes so a developer could build other housing that the current residents could never afford; it was gentrification-via-eminent-domain. I don’t know if the project ever got off the ground.

[4Liberty]

The community college where I work is totally neutered by the thug-ocrat Unions. The Board of Trustees as supposed to be “Management” - but they are bought & paid for by the teachers union. They do whatever the unions want - raise salaries, big obscene benefits, whatever the teacher union bosses want.

There is no “management” side of the labor - management equation.

They just ream the taxpayers for mediocre service and moderate skills work, and soak up the political contributions (from the Union protectionists), to climb to another corrupt, political, sinecure position (”state office” or obscure overpaid bureaucracy committee post). Labor protectionists control everything. ALL OF THESE SERVICES NEED TO BE OUTSOURCED, OPENED UP TO HONEST BIDS & COMPETITION, TO HELP TAXPAYERS / CONSUMERS!

4L