Paying for the other half
Bookworm on Jan 19 2009 at 1:57 pm | Filed under: Economics, Government
In words so simple even a Democrat (or Thomas Friedman) could understand, Thomas Lifson, editor at American Thinker, explains how American workers are being divided into an economic class system, with private sector employees supporting their more lavishly funded public sector counterparts:
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12 Responses to “Paying for the other half”
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Wow.
Excellent analysis by Mr. Lifson.
Oh great…we can send our country right into the economic crapper like France and Argentina, where those that parasitize their country’s Gross Domestic Product outnumber those that contribute to GDP, and high salary and benefits suck the talent out of GDP-producing industry into the entitlement culture of government.
are through with us, we’ll give Argentina a real run for their money (or is it “a run on the money”?).
Argentina, too, used to be one of the world’s richest economies. Look at it now. This will be Democrat heaven…lots and lots and lots of new victims classes.
My Obama-loving kids generation doesn’t yet realize how they’ve (we’ve) committed suicide. The damage done over the next two years may well prove to be irreversible this time.
It’s not as simple as private-sector-vs-public-sector. A lobbyist may be employed by a corporation and hence be part of the private sector, but you can bet that career opportunities for lobbyists are greatly enhanced by activist government…ditto for lawyers whose practice involves regulatory issues.
Also, corporations in many industries will increasingly find that the way to win is either to get their products edicted by the government, or to get directly subsidized by same. Expect to see a lot of *major* sucking up.
If there had been a “computer industry czar” in the late 1970s and early 1980s, would there have been a Microsoft and an Apple? I doubt it, because the czar would have directed so many resources to incumbents like IBM and AT&T.
And had there been a “transportation czar” in the early 1800s, the canal and coastal shipping interests would never have allowed development of a railroad industry.
Greetings:
Back in the 70s and 80s, I spent some time working for the state and federal governments. At that time, the explanatory logic behind the wage structure was reduced to lower pay, similar benefits, no layoffs, no strikes.
Since then, government employment has become highly unionized and those same unions have become major suppliers of both money and labor contributions to elected officials. The result being you don’t see very many (any?) Reagan vs. the air traffic controllers shootouts anymore.
Just recently, San Francisco’s mayor agreed to large raises for municipal employees. Shortly thereafter, he discovered major deficits and asked for givebacks. Want to guess what the reply was?
I’ve worked in the printing industry most of my life. That industry used to be made up of family owned businesses or partnerships. There is something about taking the money out of your own pocket to pay your employees that provides a governance that isn’t available in the bureaucracy.
This looks more and more like the People’s Republic of Haven. David Weber really is a prophet.
Brilliantly clear analysis. I hope things will change before stagnation and collapse, but I don’t see a catalyst. Also, I wonder where the foreign havens will be for productive capital. The best thing about the anglosphere, and by extension, Pax Americana has been the rule of law and the operation of relatively free markets. Dirigisme is a disaster. Guess I had better start comparing and contrasting the works of Henry Kamen on the decline of imperial Spain with the Niall Ferguson’s books on empire. On a more practical note, I’m researching the causes and consequences of sovereign default.
re (the fatuity of) Thomas Friedman, this takedown had me laughing until I cried:
http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html
A longish excerpt:
“I think it was about five months ago that Press editor Alex Zaitchik whispered to me in the office hallway that Thomas Friedman had a new book coming out. All he knew about it was the title, but that was enough; he approached me with the chilled demeanor of a British spy who has just discovered that Hitler was secretly buying up the world’s manganese supply. Who knew what it meantbut one had to assume the worst
“It’s going to be called The Flattening,” he whispered. Then he stood there, eyebrows raised, staring at me, waiting to see the effect of the news when it landed. I said nothing.
It turned out Alex had bad information; the book that ultimately came out would be called The World Is Flat. It didn’t matter. Either version suggested the same horrifying possibility. Thomas Friedman in possession of 500 pages of ruminations on the metaphorical theme of flatness would be a very dangerous thing indeed. It would be like letting a chimpanzee loose in the NORAD control room; even the best-case scenario is an image that could keep you awake well into your 50s.
So I tried not to think about it. But when I heard the book was actually coming out, I started to worry. Among other things, I knew I would be asked to write the review. The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. I’ll give you an example, drawn at random from The World Is Flat. On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here’s what he says:
‘I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins.’
Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.
This would be a small thing were it not for the overall pattern. Thomas Friedman does not get these things right even by accident. It’s not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It’s that he always screws it up. He has an anti-ear, and it’s absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius. The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that’s guaranteed, every single time. He never misses.”
I usually don’t like snark, and I don’t care about Taibbi’s politics, but what a dead-on piece of prose.
Actuality, not theory.
http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2009/01/california-government-for-benefit-of.html
Love to hear the conversation if you discuss this with your DH, Book.
Suek – that link should be absolute required reading for ALL of us!
The State has become an oligarchy with complete control over the public purse with which to control and butter its own interests. The State no longer exists for the people but as a governing body that preys upon the people.
At this point, one really must wonder if democracy has any meaning anymore. A sign of things to come, I fear.
Yeah…kinda reminds me of the old USSR where the people waited on multi-year waiting lists for apartments that housed 2-3 familes, but the government officials had grand Dachas.
And we always wondered why the citizens didn’t rise up against their government…
David Foster: Good points. Thanks.
Nation is being divided into various sub-cultures. Military culture, Hollywood culture, conservative culture, coastal fake liberal culture, the culture backing bureaucracy, and, of course, the culture of private investment and risk.
They sometimes interpenetrate each other, but ultimately they become mutually exclusive. A culture of bureaucrats, for example, cannot promote a culture of private investment and risk.
This is the class wars, definitely. One class against another class. Just like the Left wants.
We’ve reached the tipping point. Maybe even passed it.
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/01/depressing-chart-o-day.html