OK, I am going to take a break from the important things like chili to comment on a chart that has the folks out there wailing and gnashing their teeth. Before I get too far, I am admitting up front that I am a government employee (GS-5 with the princely salary of 32K a year for busting my ass as hard as I have ever worked). I admit that there are problems with how the guvmint works us wages slaves (I think that some of my co-workers are the laziest pieces of shit I have ever seen), but there are a lot of us there trying desperately to fight the good fight.
Anyway, here is the chart
omg…WE ARE SO FUCKED.
But, being the geeky dweebie kinda of guy that I am, I noticed that the red line for guvmint employees is pretty smooth and up-trending. Odd that.
So, rather than digging for the raw data (which would take time, effort, and a desire to not keep the Alabama/Texas game in sight) I did this quick chart from the data and the historic population figures from here. The chart data is where the govmint scum crossed major lines and then I took a guess at what the factory worker number was at that same year. So precision is not that great, but the idea is sound.
| Year | Guvmint Workers | Factory Workers | Total Population | Percentage Guvmint | Percentage Factory |
| 1940 | 5,000,000 | 15,000,000 | 142,000,000 | 3.5 | 10.5 |
| 1966 | 10,000,000 | 20,000,000 | 197,000,000 | 5.1 | 10.2 |
| 1977 | 15,000,000 | 22,000,000 | 220,000,000 | 6.8 | 10.0 |
| 1999 | 20,000,000 | 23,500,000 | 273,000,000 | 7.3 | 8.6 |
| 2009 | 22,500,000 | 18,000,000 | 304,000,000 | 7.4 | 5.9 |
So it appears to me that the hard data is a little suspect in the way that they present it. I am not saying right or wrong, good or bad, but it appears that there are trends here that defy the simple rants of ideologues.
So my questions are: Why is there a pronounced fall off of percentage of the population employed in goods producing? What is the breakdown of guvmint workers (state, federal, local, schools)? What will happen to a damaged economy when we start purging the government jobs? Will reducing the government sector cause an increase in employment in the production sector. Why is there such a profound shift in the ratio in the last ten years?
The questions I have are many, the answers provided by shrill and screeching ideologues few. Take care.
(Monday, back to my Magnus Opus on Chili
1 comment:
Well, we know that the majority of American manufacturing has moved to China/elsewhere, so we know why that number is tanking. We also know that CONgress just loooooves to create and/or expand bureaucracies, so that number steadily climbing somewhat makes sense, though I'd expect to see spikes in conjunction with dates new bureaucracies were formed. But that could have been tempered by the ever increasing number of public indoctri.... I mean schools that increase with the population. Provided faculty and staff are counted among government employees on this chart, which I'm assuming they are.
As far as purging government jobs, I think the obvious answer is that there would be an economic hiccup roughly in relation to the percentage of workers purged. Reduce the force to 5%, and I'd expect things to drop temporarily by 2.4% or so (using the 7.4% number from your chart). Other jobs will be effected as well, which could make the economic dip higher, but the (yeah, right) reduction in taxes would counteract this effect, maybe even eliminate it.
Anyways, the theoretical end result would be a large net tax savings for those still employed across the board, and likely private sector job creation in excess of the number of .gov jobs shaved. But the .govs rarely reduce taxes, so I'd expect them to pilfer the savings to expand other pet projects... Hmmm.... Reducing government leads to increasing government..... That sounds about par for the course, don't it!
As to the last ten years, well lessee here... We got the bloated juggernaut known as the Department of Homeland Security. We got the TSA (or a huge expansion of it anyways). We've had massive increases in the Border Patrol. Local/county/state police depts. expanded dramatically (I think they've added over 300 officers to our PD in the last 5 or 6 years). As noted before, more schools. Existing .govs have expanded up 'till the recession. States/locals have pulled back some, in some places, but the feds continue growing like a noxious weed.
Meanwhile, it wasn't 10 years ago that WalMart was touting "Made in the USA" (or has it been longer....)? It seems to me that the Chinese invasion has rapidly gained steam in the last 5-7 years. Anyways, American manufacturers are bailing like rats from a sinking ship. Also, cheap slave labor made imported junk has driven many domestic manufacturers out of business, since American workers are rather fond of being paid a living wage. I reckon that about sums it up...
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