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| Home Front Economy |
| America passes a milestone |
| 2009-01-20 |
| We now have more people employed in government than manufacturing. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #10 I didn't know that, good tidbit JFM. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2009-01-20 18:40 |
| #9 Barbara Skolaut I will not discuss it, I just pointed at one of the technicalities of GNP calculation. Now, baically your employees are also taking your money but the activity of your company is measured by the value added (difference between sales and raw materials) and that is usually higher than salaries (otherxwise you should close shop, fast). For government agencies it is accounted by how much they spend on salaries (or is it their total spending, I don't remember) because for many of them there are no good ways to measure what they do in economic terms. How do you measure in economic terms the activity of your fire department? BTW,, the option of accounting all government activity as zero was what was done in Soviet national accounting. |
| Posted by: JFM 2009-01-20 18:23 |
| #8 "You can think they are improductive but military, police and your friendly IRS employees contribute to the GNP." Only by taking money from other people's pockets, JFM. Their work may well be useful to the nation (well, maybe not the IRS), but they are paid only by confiscating money from the public (as, in fact, are all gummint workers). They don't produce anything. Unlike businesses and workers that make their profits by persuading other people to willingly fork over their cash in return for what the businesses/workers produce. My problem isn't with the military, police, etc.; it's with the tens of thousands of totally unnecessary bureaucrats who apparently exist to make life miserable for the people who are actually paying their salaries, and are impossible to fire. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-01-20 18:06 |
| #7 Activity in government employees A lovely word, that. Similar I suppose to motion, which does not necessarily denote progress. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-01-20 17:53 |
| #6 Trailing wife. Activity in government employees is accounted for the amount of the salaries when computing GNP. You can think they are improductive but military, police and your friendly IRS employees contribute to the GNP. |
| Posted by: JFM 2009-01-20 17:39 |
| #5 Question: of those employed in government, how many work for the U.S. military, the FBI, CIA, or Homeland Security, which have been upsizing since 9/11? For that matter, how many are employed by local/state police, fire departments, etc. I'm pretty sure I want those people to stay on the job, and even hire more, despite the fact that not one contributes directly to the gross domestic product. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-01-20 16:10 |
| #4 And there's only 856,000 Agricultural workers. How will there be enough food? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2009-01-20 15:24 |
| #3 More like America passes a kidney stone. Or a gall stone. Take your pick. |
| Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie 2009-01-20 14:43 |
| #2 How can GDP keep going up if manufacturing is going down the crapper? We now have more blood sucking lice than we do workmen who actually turn out a product. My mind boggles. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2009-01-20 14:39 |
| #1 More bloat and waste rather than production. Great. This is how empires fall. Internal greed and rot. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2009-01-20 11:03 |