Category Archives: Government

Life In The Oink Sector Revisited

Free Markets, Government, Private Property, South-Africa, The State

“Life In The Oink Sector” detailed the cost to the private economy of the ever-growing public sector, likening the public-private sector relationship to that of “parasite vs. host. The first is sucking the lifeblood of the second. The larger the parasite gets, the weaker the host will grow.”

Now John Stossel takes on the public sector “bankrupting America”:

“NY Transit Union boss, John Samuelsen argues, we are the richest country in the world and can afford it. Really?

Here are some of the facts;

Public pensions have unfunded liability of $1 trillion [1] to $3.5 trillion [2]

Federal workers take home twice pay and benefits [3] as private workers. Local and state workers also make more [4].

Total Pay Benefits

Private $59,909 $50,028 $9,881

Local/state $67,812 $52,051 $15,761

Federal $119,982 $79,197 $40,785

— Average TWU union worker makes $60K without overtime or benefits.

— 25% took 15 or more sick days. Average was 8 sick days.

— Fox average 3 sick days (same for men and women)

— No FOX employee took 15 days

Relative Danger of Jobs (Deaths per 100,000 workers)

— Fishing 128.9

–Logging 115.7

–Iron workers 46.4

–Farmers 39.5

–Firemen 3.8

–Transit workers 1.4

(Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, except Transit worker death, that is from interview with TWU Local100 President)

Some people argue that there’s no alternative to the government monopoly on municipal work, but Sandy Springs, Georgia, privatized most of it’s jobs in 2005. Now the city pays about ½ of what it used to pay. It enjoys a $14 million surplus, in addition to funding a $20 million reserve.”

[SNIP]

Incidentally, the most dangerous job—even more hazardous than fishing—is farming in South Africa. The mortality rate (due to murder) among Boers stands at 300 per 100,000.

It’s in my upcoming book (now lingering with the publisher).

Desperately Seeking Ebonics Experts

Government, Labor, Law, Multiculturalism, Pop-Culture, Race, Racism

It sounds like OUR Myron Pauli, the relative of THAT Wolfgang Pauli (Nobel Prize for Physics, 1945) has had enough of his current position, and the type of federales that come with the job. I got wind (via another very smart man, R. J. Stove) about a job opening with the feds. This is Myron’s opportunity to push boundaries.

As far as Rob could make out, this is serious (i.e. not an ONION satire):

Justice Department Seeks Ebonics Experts.

“Move over Ali G.,” says Rob.

In all seriousness, an Eminem-type federal employee should push this envelope hard and insist that, as an adaptable honky who has mastered the future lingua franca, he ought to have access to this job with all its benefits and fun (talking in tongues? ‘Cmon). The feds can’t discriminate based on race. The job should be open to whites with flare and improvisational abilities (at least that should be the pitch on the resumé).

Send Us Your Cameron; We’re Tired Of Our Crazyman

Britain, Debt, Economy, Government, Inflation, Political Economy, Socialism, The State

He has “unveiled 23 bills (and one draft bill) detailing ambitious plans for major reform of schools, welfare, the police and the political system. Every week brings another policy, proposal or white paper,” and all ­aim at “dismantling the British welfare system and rolling back the state; to make changes which … ‘will affect [that country’s] economy, [its] society – indeed, [its] whole way of life.'” He is David Cameron, Britain’s Prime Minister. And he is making the Fabian socialists at the New Statesman furious for not being more like FDR.

The Keynesians at TNS consider Tony Blair and Gordon Brown proponents of the free market. In this essay, the argument for the continuation of deficit spending, state-sector growth and endless stims and bailouts—until the English economic Eden is restored (not)—takes the form of The Complaint. Mehdi Hasan believes that he need not argue his case for the merit of FDR-like government growth, massive public works, regulation of banking and Wall Street, and subsidies for agriculture and labor. These “proven” state initiatives are good on their face.

On the other hand, doesn’t everyone know that living within your means is a dangerous gamble, the province of reckless high rollers?

In his zeal to cut an already falling deficit and “balance the books”, for example, Cameron and his Chancellor, George Osborne, have delivered £40bn of tax rises and public spending cuts on top of the £73bn target they inherited from Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling. In the US, cutting the deficit may be a medium-term challenge, but here in the UK, for the Cameron-led coalition, it has become an obsession – “the most urgent issue facing Britain”, according to a letter sent by Cameron and Clegg to their cabinet colleagues on 2 August.
Inside the space of 50 days, and behind the cover of an “emergency” and “unavoidable” Budget, Cameron and Osborne have taken one of the biggest macroeconomic gambles of any prime minister and chancellor to have entered Downing Street.

Hasan takes credit for having warned his homies of the impending austerity.

We cannot say we were not warned. In his speech to the Conservative party conference, in October 2009, Cameron declared that his mission as prime minister would be to tear down so-called big government. The phrase “big government” appeared 14 times in that one speech, in which, studiously ignoring the role played by bankers in causing the worst financial crisis in living memory, he claimed: “It is more government that got us into this mess.”

AND:

“Despite appearances to the contrary, Cameron is less a Whiggish pragmatist than a radical, in the Margaret Thatcher mould. His combination of market-oriented reforms to the public sector and savage cuts to public spending – hailed by the investment bank Seymour Pierce as heralding a ‘golden age of outsourcing’ – suggests that he is intent on completing the neoliberal, state-shrinking revolution that Thatcher began and which Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did little to reverse.”

“Cameron’s right-wing instincts on the economy, however, have never been properly acknowledged by a press pack beguiled by his ‘rebranding’ of the Conservative Party and distracted by his ‘progressive’ stance on gender, sexuality and race issues, [classical-liberal like] as well as his self-professed passion for civil liberties and the environment. …

Disregard the rhetoric and image, and consider instead the record: in his first 100 days, Cameron has gone further than Thatcher – and much faster, too. His ‘modernising’ ally and minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, has said that the Tories always planned to outstrip the Iron Lady.”

[SNIP]

The nation of shopkeepers may soon leave the US in the dust.

Send Us Your Cameron; We're Tired Of Our Crazyman

Britain, Debt, Government, Inflation, Political Economy, Socialism, The State

He has “unveiled 23 bills (and one draft bill) detailing ambitious plans for major reform of schools, welfare, the police and the political system. Every week brings another policy, proposal or white paper,” and all ­aim at “dismantling the British welfare system and rolling back the state; to make changes which … ‘will affect [that country’s] economy, [its] society – indeed, [its] whole way of life.'” He is David Cameron, Britain’s Prime Minister. And he is making the Fabian socialists at the New Statesman furious for not being more like FDR.

The Keynesians at TNS consider Tony Blair and Gordon Brown proponents of the free market. In this essay, the argument for the continuation of deficit spending, state-sector growth and endless stims and bailouts—until the English economic Eden is restored (not)—takes the form of The Complaint. Mehdi Hasan believes that he need not argue his case for the merit of FDR-like government growth, massive public works, regulation of banking and Wall Street, and subsidies for agriculture and labor. These “proven” state initiatives are good on their face.

On the other hand, doesn’t everyone know that living within your means is a dangerous gamble, the province of reckless high rollers?

In his zeal to cut an already falling deficit and “balance the books”, for example, Cameron and his Chancellor, George Osborne, have delivered £40bn of tax rises and public spending cuts on top of the £73bn target they inherited from Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling. In the US, cutting the deficit may be a medium-term challenge, but here in the UK, for the Cameron-led coalition, it has become an obsession – “the most urgent issue facing Britain”, according to a letter sent by Cameron and Clegg to their cabinet colleagues on 2 August.
Inside the space of 50 days, and behind the cover of an “emergency” and “unavoidable” Budget, Cameron and Osborne have taken one of the biggest macroeconomic gambles of any prime minister and chancellor to have entered Downing Street.

Hasan takes credit for having warned his homies of the impending austerity.

We cannot say we were not warned. In his speech to the Conservative party conference, in October 2009, Cameron declared that his mission as prime minister would be to tear down so-called big government. The phrase “big government” appeared 14 times in that one speech, in which, studiously ignoring the role played by bankers in causing the worst financial crisis in living memory, he claimed: “It is more government that got us into this mess.”

AND:

“Despite appearances to the contrary, Cameron is less a Whiggish pragmatist than a radical, in the Margaret Thatcher mould. His combination of market-oriented reforms to the public sector and savage cuts to public spending – hailed by the investment bank Seymour Pierce as heralding a ‘golden age of outsourcing’ – suggests that he is intent on completing the neoliberal, state-shrinking revolution that Thatcher began and which Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did little to reverse.”

“Cameron’s right-wing instincts on the economy, however, have never been properly acknowledged by a press pack beguiled by his ‘rebranding’ of the Conservative Party and distracted by his ‘progressive’ stance on gender, sexuality and race issues, [classical-liberal like] as well as his self-professed passion for civil liberties and the environment. …

Disregard the rhetoric and image, and consider instead the record: in his first 100 days, Cameron has gone further than Thatcher – and much faster, too. His ‘modernising’ ally and minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, has said that the Tories always planned to outstrip the Iron Lady.”

[SNIP]

The nation of shopkeepers may soon leave the US in the dust.