This link was provided today on the last post, with the following guidance from Anonymous.
"As someone concerned about our country's long term economic strength you should really vote for a Democrat for President."I'll need to do some more research before I understand why this would be the case. However my first question will be:
Are they wealth creating or depleting jobs?
The quick version:
- Inventors, Manufacturers, Farmers, Teachers, etc create wealth.
- Bureaucrats, Service Providers, Maintainers, etc are at best wealth neutral.
Just like home maintenance depletes wealth (ie same value after spend) and home improvements add wealth (ie more value after spend). Did these jobs add value to the USA?
G2A Made in America: The Myth?
Jobs are pretty much jobs. The problem we have is that there is a tendency to create bad jobs. Those are in fact the easiest jobs to create. This is a reason I have never viewed building stadiums with much enthusiasm. We seem to have convinced ourselves that spending a billion dollars to create a couple of dozen Wally the beer man jobs is a good investment. It's an example of what I think of as pushing on the string, in that there always seem to be lousy jobs around.
ReplyDeleteA conservative myth, one of the most dangerous ones, is that government cannot create jobs. Of course it can, just like any other economic entity. When a school is opened and a teaching job is created, it makes no difference whether that school is run by the government, or by a private entity, the economic effect is the same. Texas' jobs record, the one Rick Perry was briefly in a position to crow about, is almost entirely due to creation of jobs in the public sector. And the decline of government jobs is one of the main factors depressing the economy and fueling the recession.
--Hiram
Jobs certainly are not jobs...
ReplyDeleteGov't spends $1 million to fund new technology that later flows into the private sector. Thus creating USA wealth, future jobs growth and technological dominance.
vs
Gov't spends $1 million to fund personnel to monitor the distribution of food program, medicare, etc. No future value created, just some fraud prevented.
are you saying no future value is created when people eat?
ReplyDeleteWell that really depends on the person you are feeding... Do they choose to learn to fish and work, or do they choose to let someone else provide the fish while they complain that life is unfair...
ReplyDeleteThe investment in public funds may enable someone who will add great value to our society.
Or it may prolong dependency and support a life long public wealth drain.
Unfortunately the second seems much more likely with the current systems.(ie The Blind Side movie)
Now there may be ethical reasons to feed the poor. But it certainly isn't because it will help our economy grow.
Food for thought... G2A Why are Poor People Poor?
ReplyDeleteI don't think feeding these folks is likely to address these issues.
I disagree that service workers create wealth. Wealth is the ability to do things for people-- feed, clothe, cut hair, advise financially....... Of course, not all services are equally valuable, which accounts for different salaries, and some "services" are not useful at all, like the vast army of government bureaucrats redistributing wealth.
ReplyDeleteJ. Ewing
Since I said that service providers are wealth neutral at best. Are you agreeing or disagreeing?
ReplyDeleteMany jobs and services are supportive of the wealth creating jobs, however they themselves create little or no wealth.
At work we have "value add" jobs like the mechanics, engineers, etc and the rest of us. Without them we would have no job...
Service providers are the very essence of wealth when in the private sector. They are doing a service that someone is willing to pay to have done, and that is wealth, enabling somebody else to produce more than they would if they had to do their own accounting, purchasing, etc. Government "service" workers, on the other hand, rarely do something that someone willingly pays them to do; the fire and police services and other essentials being such a small part of government today. They are wealth redistributors and thus destroyers.
ReplyDeleteJ. Ewing
I think service providers are great, it's just that they serve wealth, they don't produce it, at least not enough of it. I spend some time in Florida which is a deeply divided society consisting between the rich, and the poor. And what always seems to be the case is that the rich made their money somewhere else.
ReplyDelete--Hiram
J,
ReplyDeleteAccountants and Wealth in the same paragraph, I can not believe it...
I can see it already, the USA is a richer country because we have more accountants... Now I have heard it all.
People from other countries flock to buy our ledgers and balance sheets.
Actually, that's true! Other countries can manufacture more cheaply than we can, but we provide excellent service industries, accounting included.
ReplyDeleteAgain, you have to go back to the definition: Wealth is the ability to provide goods and services to people. Wealth is produced by people working. If accounting is something some people want and other people can provide, you have wealth being created.
We must have different definitions of "creating wealth" or you must have different accountant friends than I do. I am guessing a very low percentage shop their services out to the world.
ReplyDeleteNext you will be telling me that Lawyers are wealth creators.
I don't doubt that some small percentage of these fields are highly sought after for their expertise. On the whole though I think they are just a necessary burden that businesses must bear. Kind of like government and regulations.
Vastly different things, though. Accountants in private business work because there is work to be done. Bureaucrats work to increase the amount of accounting work to be done but do none themselves. The first is a service a company willingly pays, even though it may be incidental and "overhead" expense to the business. Bureaucrats peddling meddling over-regulation are NOT an expense we willingly pay and one we do not need-- indeed would be wealthier without.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't like "wealth" as a word describing the ability to do things for people (that they want done), pick another. Service industries are GREAT examples of wealth creation, the existence of Merry Maids for housework being one of many. Their existence means that there is an ability to do housework for people that won't or can't or don't. That's wealth, and it is created by the work these folks do.
J.