Government Payroll Economy

MKTrader · Oct 4, 2010

Quote from tradestrong:

Why? It's a meaningless statistic. Why don't I just graph the position of Venus against it too...it would have the same correlation.

btw...you seemed to have glossed over my point that government jobs have also grown at virtually the same rate as population growth...so I guess it was just as bad at the beginning of your chart in 1939 as well.

Uh, yeah, I didn't want to highlight the gaping holes in your grasp of U.S. history, there were quite a few gov't jobs in 1939. It's not exactly the year you'd want to start such a comparison.

MKTrader · Oct 4, 2010

Quote from TGregg:

More than tripled? One hopes you are more careful with your position prices and sizes than you are with population facts.

US pop in 1930: 122,775,046
US pop in 1940: 132,164,569

US pop in 2000: 281,421,906
US pop in 2010: 307,006,550 (est)

More than doubled, would be apt. Yet the chart has government jobs going from about 4.5mm to 22.5mm, or from about 3.4% of the population to 7.3%. The percentage of people working for the government has doubled (or in TS speak - tripled).

But a far more frightening picture would be a chart of how many people are receiving money from the government over time. That data would make a mere doubling (or tripling if you are TS) of public employees completely unimportant.

Oh, don't confuse him with the facts.

MKTrader · Oct 4, 2010

Quote from trefoil:

Oh please.
You're another in the ten thousand and one posters who's always bearish, predicting the end because of the government and Obama and the government and the Democrats and the government and the Fed and the government and...

Did I mention the government?

My, we've mastered the ad hominem, haven't we?

tradestrong · Oct 4, 2010

Quote from TGregg:

More than tripled? One hopes you are more careful with your position prices and sizes than you are with population facts.

US pop in 1930: 122,775,046
US pop in 1940: 132,164,569

US pop in 2000: 281,421,906
US pop in 2010: 307,006,550 (est)

More than doubled, would be apt. Yet the chart has government jobs going from about 4.5mm to 22.5mm, or from about 3.4% of the population to 7.3%. The percentage of people working for the government has doubled (or in TS speak - tripled).

But a far more frightening picture would be a chart of how many people are receiving money from the government over time. That data would make a mere doubling (or tripling if you are TS) of public employees completely unimportant.

I was talking in estimates...not absolutes...but thank you for trying to prove how smart you are and taking my statement literally. I stated that government jobs have grown at virtually the same rate...and I would say that a 4% freakn' difference over 70 years as qualifying as "virtually" the same. From the OP, you'd think that difference was quite significant. 4% to you may seem like the end of the world. You may like a good conspiracy. I'm a realist. And in reality, that chart with two meaningless variables was just that...meaningless.

tradestrong · Oct 4, 2010

Quote from MKTrader:

Uh, yeah, I didn't want to highlight the gaping holes in your grasp of U.S. history, there were quite a few gov't jobs in 1939. It's not exactly the year you'd want to start such a comparison.

I didn't start it there...you did with that meaningless chart trying to prove "how scary" the world is. Do you believe in the pyramids on Mars too?

achilles28 · Oct 4, 2010

Industrial production is one of the best indicators of money velocity or labor employed per dollar spent. It's not coincidental America paid down it's ww2 debt at the height of it's manufacturing dominance. And for the same reason, will default this time around with an equivalent debt load = no productive capacity and trade surplus to finance it. But yes, somehow a vibrant manufacturing sector is a "bad thing"...

If you want to split hairs, pull up labor numbers from the BLS and chart the decline of manufacturing, information technology and engineering services over the past 20 years.

The actual evolution of America's labor market went from manufacturing dominant to > information technology dominant (10-20 years ago) to > banking and finance dominant. The FIRE sector now represents 25% of GDP. From industrialization to > deindustrialization to > ponzification.

FWIW, most of the tech component of US GDP draws from earnings on sales of gadgets designed and made overseas. Engineers and factories in China doing contract manufacturing for Apple and Dell is not "progress". It's called deindustrialization. H1B's and India do a great job at capturing our domestic market for engineers, programmers and CSR's. Don't kid yourself. Most of those 12 million jobs lost aren't coming back. The few that do will be food service or Walmart shelf stocker.

tradestrong · Oct 4, 2010

Quote from MKTrader:

Oh, don't confuse him with the facts.

Don't worry...facts don't confuse me nearly as much as statistics seem to confuse you. You've been dazzled by a chart with two non-correlated variables.

achilles28 · Oct 4, 2010

Quote from tradestrong:

I stated that government jobs have grown at virtually the same rate...

Yet the deficit skyrocketed over the last 30 years. That's a problem, dummy.

Federal workers earn nearly twice their private sector counterparts, endless welfare, and a ponzi economy juiced to paper-over deindustrialization.

tradestrong · Oct 4, 2010

Quote from achilles28:

Yet the deficit skyrocketed over the last 30 years. That's a problem, dummy.

Federal workers earn nearly twice their private sector counterparts, endless welfare, and a ponzi economy juiced to paper-over deindustrialization.

Hey bonehead...what does the deficit have to do with government jobs? The deficit is from overall mismanagement. Not because government jobs rose by 4% over 70 years. Nice strawman there dummy.

achilles28 · Oct 5, 2010

Quote from tradestrong:

Hey bonehead...what does the deficit have to do with government jobs? The deficit is from overall mismanagement. Not because government jobs rose by 4% over 70 years. Nice strawman there dummy.

The budget represents the cost of Government, dumbass.

You can measure it by a head count, or dollar count.

Which is more relevant, moron?

Federal employees earn nearly twice as much as their private sector counterparts.

That explains part of it.

The ponzi-economy explains the rest. Which just so happened because America liquidated it's manufacturing base. Something which, according to you, is irrelevant. After all, we made it up in "tech jobs" (20 years ago) that got outsourced to Chindia (10 years ago). Fucking brilliant. Wake up.