Ponzi was reading the Wall Street Journal last Friday when he came across a statistic that stunned him — nearly twice as many Americans work for government now as in manufacturing industries — a complete reversal of the pattern a half century ago.
Cartoon: Manufacturing government
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Great News!
People need money to spend on goods and services, which helps the economy prosper more than any other economic activity. If many are getting that money by working for the government, that suits me just fine.
missing the point
billy joe,
You are missing the point of the cartoon sarcasm and I could not agree with you less. Government jobs are a drain on the economy. Look at an extreme scenario. What if we all wanted a government job with all the benefits, retirement pensions after 20 years on the job, union rules that govern our employers every move, 9 – 5 hours set by the union, guaranteed vacation, etc. Life would be great. Except the private sector pays for all those government jobs and benefits. So, if there were no private sector, we would all be unemployeed.
Government jobs drain the economy, period.
dumb reductio ad absurdum
" Look at an extreme scenario. What if we all wanted a government job with all the benefits, retirement pensions after 20 years on the job, union rules that govern our employers every move, 9 – 5 hours set by the union, guaranteed vacation, etc. Life would be great. Except the private sector pays for all those government jobs and benefits. So, if there were no private sector, we would all be unemployeed."
Well, if we didn't have food we would all starve to death….therefore, anyone who is not a farmer is a drain on the economy. We should all go back to tilling the soil.
This is a dumb argument.
Moreover, it just isn't true. To take an extreme example, there is no 'private sector' in North Korea, yet people have jobs there.
You state your axiom, "Government jobs drain the economy, period." , without any convincing argument or facts. Government jobs – in the form of police, prison guards, social workers, postal workers – have historically been the entry into the middle class for generations of Americans ( See 'Ohio Town Sees Public Job as Only Route to Middle Class' if you can get through the NYT paywall)
Ponzi’s antiquated world view
Ponzi, might want to consider what has changed in the last 50 years. Manufacturing has gotten tremendously more productive, requiring fewer workers to produce the same value of good. Manufacturers, seeking to "maximize shareholder returns" ahem have moved jobs off shore in search of cheap(er) labor.
We have a very large military, need it to fight 3 wars at once, larger than the next ten nation's military budgets combined. Someone has to fly those drones.
As jobs moved off shore and the population stayed here services filled the employment gap. Government is in the service business. Generally for the care of the wealthy, but still services are the thing that the US produces these days. The 311 service, for example, was long overdue as a way to manage citizen requests. Is Dear Ponzi suggesting that calling the police chief's office to report graffiti was efficient?
Perhaps Dear Ponzi will check his outdated expectations at the door the next time he writes one of his non sequitur cartoons.
Now if he's willing to propose that unions and a vibrant middle class that's not burdened by covering the costs the largest corporations and top 1% of the population don't care to carry a share of is the thing we need, well that might make an interesting cartoon and a big conceptual jump too.
Extremes are not the issue
The issue the Wall street journal is pointing out is the change in the relationship between the jobs.
If there are less jobs in the private sector the government will either start to shrink due to lack of taxes and revenues which it now appears to be doing or it can try to maintain its size through raising taxes, most units of government are not raising taxes too high. ( except the state of Illinois )
The correction of the in balance appears to be occurring.
Mr Who, Billyjoe and Ben – do any of you think the city of Evanston will have enough money to fund its pensions fully? They are likely to go broke at some point. or the benefits will be cut. this is the reality of the situation. The taxpayers here will not fund them fully no matter what the Mayor or council say in public –
Unless the economy starts to dramatically improve the City of Evanston will continue to shrink – in the last two years the city would have had to raise the property taxes between 30 to 40 percent just to keep the status quo.
Mr Who , Billy joe and Ben what is your solution? More government?