Posted on 04/01/2011 7:56:35 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
What most people don’t understand is that every dollar that government “spends” has to be taken from someone else first.
Now we have more people riding in the cart than pulling it, and this is unworkable.
As a good friend once observed, “Wealth is created on the shop floor.”
She’s right.
We may need to start thinking about a plan B. I'm not sure elections are going to undue the damage.
A tax revolt, or serious enforcement of the 10th amendment by courageous governors.
Stephen Moore who wrote this is pro open borders and amnesty. See where open borders has led us Steve.
Not just that, but then there’s people who claim that employing more govt workers means tax revenue goes up. While this may be true, government pay goes up even more. For every extra $20 or so the government gets off their taxes, they first have to pay out $100.
You ever try to make something is this country today with EIR’s and fees and taxes.
We only have the government to blame and our fellow citizens that elected liberals.
I don't know the specifics, but being 63 years old, I can recount a few memories.
Before I joined the Army in '65, I could work almost anywhere an inexperienced teenaged kid could work.
After Army in '67, I got my first job walking into a cellophane wrap factory (NOone remembers collecting cig wrappers and turning them in for donated prosthetics ?? .. I do).
When could I start?
Tomorrow
Be here at 7AM
It was that easy.
Then came hippiedom and drugs and sex and rock and roll and I was hooked.
I sort'a woke up around '80/'81 and realized a lot had changed, not the least of which seemed to be a lot of talk about taxes sending companies overseas.
Japan had ceased to be an econamic threat (we ran through the transister stage in about 2 or 3 years) and I just had a conversation with someone that claimed it was the VCR that killed America.
Whatever ... IMO, the simple answer to "What conditions .. " seems to be the desire to make cheaper the products we invrnted and higher taxes followed to make up for lost revenue when a local factory went to Japan or China.
The snowball rolled and we're in the middle of the belly of the snowman.
U.S. manufacturing has not been destroyed. Yes, some manufacturing sectors have declined in output (notably steel), but we are still the largest manufacturer in the world, but we don’t need that many people to work in manufacturing because of automation. We also need fewer people in farming to produce the same, or more, agricultural output. The same would be true of construction if it weren’t for trade-unions preventing a lot of the economies that would result from pre-manufacturing large building components. The market will naturally seek efficiencies, and cutting labor costs is one of the quickest ways to cut costs in any enterprise.
Naturally, the government, which seems to have the opposite incentive structure, absorbs more and more labor.
Now there are some manufacturing sectors that for strategic reasons should not have been allowed to decline — steel and semiconductor devices come readily to mind — but to preserve them would have meant (and to revive them would mean) modernizing them and thereby making them less labor-intensive (i.e. fewer jobs).
Do his positions on borders and amnesty invalidate his message? If so, how? If not, then what's the point of your post?
Ah, the golden goose - government jobs.
Fewer farmers to feed the pigs...
Understand, too, that the government jobs produce zero.....they are siphons of public earnings. NOTHING of value is produced by the Government, and the constant over-sight and regulation stifle productivity, innovation, and cost-effective production. We PAY much more for goods and services in the real world because of un-Constitutional interference in personal endeavors by the government, and bloated schemes to reward the politico’s donors.
thanks for the post seekandfind...
I pinged a great post a while back that said (my interpretation here) that government employees and government employee unions are the (sole) Island of the liberal/progressive/socialist dreams, where the employees get to decide their terms of employment without the laws of economics or competition or productivity to hinder them. It's the model of their utopia and their own safe Island to launch political attacks and battles from . (I think I wrote it better here LOL. )
They pay for political ads that portray their mission to rape the taxpayer as ‘protecting all worker's rights”. A liberal on MSNBC pointed out the other day that collective bargaining for government employees becomes 20% MORE popular and supported when they add the word ‘rights’ at the end. “The government is taking away workers rights and the workers are standing up for them.”. Be aware of the enemy's activity.
The parasite is now about to kill the host.
Government Unions Are Different
http://freemarketsfreepeople.net/?p=363
With the lack of market forces, taxpayers must rely exclusively upon management to say no to costly demands. Management in this case of the current issue in Wisconsin is the Governor, but the scenario is no different throughout other levels of government. County Executives, Mayors, & Town Councils all act as management in the government “corporation”. The government official must work even harder to represent the taxpayer in negotiations with public employee unions under these circumstances. There is a political party, however, that is beholden to the very government unions they are supposed to be negotiating with.
For every one government job saved, a private job is not created.For every one government job created, a private job is destroyed.
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