patrick.net

Are you?

OK, let me answer the question.

No, our government is not going a good job with the resources we are giving it.

Allegedly total government spending this year will be well over $6T. I think this is double-counting Federal transfer payments to the states but let's go with $6T.

The way I see it, every dollar spent by government ends up in someone's pocket eventually, either as wages to labor, profit to entrepreneurial effort (including graft and embezzlement of course), or capital interest to savings (government bills & bonds).

Naively, at $100K per job that would fund SIXTY MILLION public sector jobs, either directly on government payroll or indirectly like the military-industrial complex.

But it doesn't end there. People who get government checks spend this money into their local economies, supporting another round or three of jobs until the money leaves the local economy.

The velocity of money is a curious thing but I would think that should result in another SIXTY MILLION jobs at say $30K to $60K.

So in this notional world we've got sixty million people allegedly creating or preserving wealth on the government dime, and another sixty million people dependent on this government money coming into their economy.

In reality, state and local government employment is 16.7M and Federal employment is 2.8M for around 20M government jobs.

Federal payroll was $180B/yr and state and local government payroll is $800B/yr, so $1T per year is going to government workers, at an average of $50K per job.

That leaves $5T of government spending to account for.
About a trillion flows through social security and medicare, so there's $4T of spending.

Much of this $4T is leases on land and buildings and procurement that is direct transfer to the private sector. That's a lot of money!

There's no doubt an immense amount of waste in this $4T the government doles out into the private sector. US GDP is supposed to be $14T, so that's almost 33% of our GDP being spent by government at all levels.

I'd like to scale back spending, but most of the fat is in the defense budget with its $700B+ a year outgo. Cutting jobs there will really hurt many communities dependent on the government teat.

More importantly, am I awesome? At least that's quantifiable. (hint, the answer is "hell yes.")

elliemae says

More importantly, am I awesome? At least that’s quantifiable. (hint, the answer is “hell yes.”)

Self delusion is considered to be a sure sign of mental illness. I'm not in any way saying that applies to you ellie.

Other people think I'm awesome, so your statement certainly doesn't apply to me. But thanks for playing, rayray.

elliemae says

Other people think I’m awesome, so your statement certainly doesn’t apply to me.

I've noticed you don't pay much attention to factual information. I have no idea how that relates to your claim of being "awesome." For some strange reason they seem to be related, but it's only a wild guess on my part.

If this administrations order of business was to give every person in the world that is not a Liberal Democrat, a mental wedgie. Then yes I'm satisfied. The Democrats have proved every Republican that I've heard utter the words... "The Damn Democrats just wants to get in there and tax us all to death and spend like a drunken Sailor!" right.

I used to just listen to this rhetoric and let it flow in one ear and out the next, just considering the source.
I mean I did consider my self a Democrat until January 2000, when Crybaby Greenhouse Gore, started the Bastardization of America's Democratic process. They were the one to kick Pandroa's terd.

The Democrats have managed to make me definately "Not one Party" so by default that makes me the other. If you ask them...

I assume you're talking about the United States federal government.

The short answer is yes.

The long answer really depends on what you're comparing to. Is the US federal government doing a worse job than European, Asian, or African governments? Are we comparing it to the US government from a different era?

Most of us enjoy relative prosperity, which is far more than you can say for 90% of the people on this planet. There are definitely better governed nations, but you'd have to be pretty crazy to think that it was bad here.

The gov'ment didnt fail.
Wallst failed.

If you think more, even larger government, more looting of Americans, more inflation, more police-state measures, more unnecessary war, more deficit spending, more entitlements, more government takeover of private industry, more bailouts, more taxes, more "pork" projects and more centralization of power are good things, then yes, government is doing a good job.

And maybe you have no clue what unintended consequences are.

Todays book for my intentionally illerate 'friends' - Empire of Debt, William Bonner

Hahahahahaha.

Honest Abe says

Empire of Debt, William Bonner

Abe ... great book. Too bad they won't read it. Bonner's take on Thomas Freidman was so funny I read that section twice.

I've noticed a weird indifference among a lot of Americans when it comes to the subject of our government. Maybe they're just highly insulated, or perhaps they just don't want to look like a member of some Glenn Beck personality cult - for which they could be forgiven - but given some of the highlights of our Federal governments portfolio: our phony economy/financial collapse/wealth transfer, glaring SEC failures, our ongoing trade deficits/tariff policy, our insane and quasi-theocratic foreign policy, our failed drug war, our little problem with crony capitalism, our corrupt congress, skyrocketing unemployment and inevitable stagflation, Bush Doctrine and the reverberations from eight years of unprecedented malfeasance, environmental abuses, our Military industrial complex/DOD spending, etc. etc., it's really hard to understand how anyone could be so insouciant or forgiving. Is it fucking Beirut? No - but the Gulliver-sized pile of bullshit preventing what looks like a pretty good system on paper from being a reality is pretty hard to get around.

As for most of us enjoying relative prosperity - 'relative' as a qualifier renders this remark equivocal at best; poverty is not a subjective phenomenon, and the rate of poverty in this country far exceeds prosperity by any measure, unless we discount the massive amounts of personal and public debt created to fund our ersatz wealth this past decade. I guess I could compile a nice nerdy digest of charts and links referring to things like personal bankruptcy rates, savings rates, wage/salary erosion and unemployment/underemployment to help aid my point, but I'm too lazy.

Maybe Congress should be waterboarded?