PostHeaderIcon Economics 101

The other day, I was listening to the radio as I drove to a nearby town. I was only half listening until I realized a reporter was interviewing a member of congress whose name I missed. This congressman was explaining that, now that the debt ceiling crisis was behind us, it was time for both parties in congress to work together to start creating jobs.

Are these morons really that stupid? The average American clearly understands that the only jobs government can create are government jobs. And, we most certainly don’t need more of those. As well, I have just re-read my copy of the Constitution and I see nary a word authorizing the federal government to create jobs. Certainly government has a role in the free enterprise system:

→ It is tasked with maintaining a stable currency. Current grade, F-.

→ It is tasked with creating and enforcing rules, such as contract law, patent protections and the like. Current grade, C.

→ It is tasked with establishing regulations that prevent states and nations from preying on each other through unfair and unethical trade practices. Current grade, D.

What should government be doing right now? I will answer that with an oversimplified view of our economic system.

To begin with, our economic system has two principal groups of actors: Makers and Takers.

The Makers are those who create our national wealth. This group can be further divided into Doers and Facilitators. The Doers are the people who directly build, invent, install, etc. In a word, they are the prime movers who do the actual work. The Facilitators can also be broken into Active Facilitators and Passive Facilitators. The Active Facilitators are the managers, the accountants, the sales force, all those who actively facilitate the activities of the Doers. The Passive Facilitators are the investors, venture capitalists, etc. who supply the capital “fuel” that powers the engine of production.

Ultimately, the Makers pay for everything in the economy, especially the taxes consumed by government.

The Takers are those who consume wealth without directly contributing to its creation. This group I divide into Protectors, Freeloaders and Bureaucrats.

The protectors include such as police, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, the military and the like. While they do not directly produce anything, they still provide services that are vital to society. And, they otherwise do little to interfere with the engine of production.

The freeloaders are those entitled folks who consume without providing anything useful in return (although some of them, such as social security recipients may have done so in the past). The only good thing that can be said about them is that, like the protectors, they do little to interfere with the engine of production.

Then we have the Bureaucrats. Not only does this group consume far too much while producing nothing in return, their whole reason to exist is to HAMPER the engine of production.

Clearly, if those in government really wanted to help the free enterprise system, they would start with the Bureaucrats. While I lack the economic skill to determine an exact figure, it takes no imagination whatever to guess that, for every Bureaucrat eliminated, multiple jobs in the private sector could be created. Yet, when the alleged “leaders” in our government, from both sides of the aisle, look for ways to promote job growth, shrinking the bureaucracy is not the first place they look, it is the last. We get lame proposals to cut the police, to cut the military, to “reform” entitlements, but hardly a peep about chopping out entire departments. In fact, they are most prone to do the opposite. If they ever did propose to eliminate a department or two, you can bet they would first establish a Department Of Departmental Elimination.

Will the insanity ever cease? Only when we forcibly take back our government.

Think about it.

Troy L Robinson

3 Responses to “Economics 101”

  • Extremely well put, Troy. I love your categories, and will adopt them wholeheartedly. Interestingly, I am enmeshed in economics myself at the moment. I will probably post an article in the near future; but here is a heads up. Go download yourself a copy of the “Cost of Government Day – 2011 Report” PDF. It is fascinating reading, because they take the old notion of “Tax Freedom Day” and add in the borrowed money government spends, plus your bureaucrats’ regulatory compliance costs to the economy, to calculate the day of the year we REALLY stop working for the government each year (although they admit that it is worse still, because they rely on CBO estimates for growth, which are completely unrealistic at the moment). This year, the average was Aug 12th, although you TX folks finished on Aug 5th, and we CA serfs won’t finish until Aug 18th.  ◄Daveâ–º

  • Are these morons really that stupid?

    Frightening so, yes.

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