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I'm pretty sure we're so far invested in being crappy at government that we can't feasibly turn back without inflicting a lot of pain. Admittedly anecdotal, bu

I'm pretty sure we're so far invested in being crappy at government that we can't feasibly turn back without inflicting a lot of pain. Admittedly anecdotal, but after having lived near two major DOE national laboratories (where >40% of my neighbors worked at the lab), I wouldn't be surprised if 60-80% of the workers at these labs could be eliminated under a combination of audit-based reform, regulatory reform, and management changes. Without any change in output or results. I've listened to descriptions of what people do at these labs, and it blows me away how low productivity they are compared to the private sector. I've known people who work entire workweeks that could be consolidated into 3-5 hours of work, and they're willing to admit it. In fact, those that would try to change from within have told me they would feel vulnerable to retaliation if they went through with it. And that's before we get into the shitshow that is federal contract work. We've turned federal contract work into a goldmine for whoever has enough lawyers to win a bid. And we don't even know how many people are employed doing that contract work [0]! At this point, meaningful reform means taking 10's of millions of people and forcing productivity on them to the point where most of them are unnecessary. We could probably double the unemployment rate with the right reforms. That's why it won't happen. [0] http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2015/03/even-cbo-stumped-size-contractor-workforce/107436/ http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2015/03/even-cbo-stumped-...

zanny 9y ago
This is a symptom of David Graeber's phrase of "bullshit jobs". Capitalism and the government work together to create unnecessary work (often through regulation and oversight and middle management stuffing) to maintain "safe" employment levels to keep the economic system working. If we were only hiring people to do productive things, and considering we saw a 75% productivity increase between 1975 and 2005 with all the bullshit jobs, while domain-specific productivity figures hit the 300% or higher ranges, you could maintain the same GDP at 40%+ unemployment. The only problem being the country would collapse with that much unemployment, so the private and public sectors respond by fabricating things to do that don't actually create goods or services.
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  Isn't this simply "fiscal stimulus?" I mean, the federal government is supposed to create jobs by spending money. Doesn't matter what they spend the money on. The only acceptable way to measure economic output is in terms of the dollar value of all the goods and services bought and sold. It could consist of marijuana farming, muscle car paint jobs, bass fishing lures, watery beer, custom gun barrels, cow-brain sandwiches and East European strippers. Doesn't matter. We can't go around imposing our value-based notions of "bullshit jobs" on top of that measurable dollar amount. That wouldn't be economics.

zanny 9y ago

This is a symptom of David Graeber's phrase of "bullshit jobs". Capitalism and the government work together to create unnecessary work (often through regulation and oversight and middle management stuffing) to maintain "safe" employment levels to keep the economic system working. If we were only hiring people to do productive things, and considering we saw a 75% productivity increase between 1975 and 2005 with all the bullshit jobs, while domain-specific productivity figures hit the 300% or higher ranges, you could maintain the same GDP at 40%+ unemployment. The only problem being the country would collapse with that much unemployment, so the private and public sectors respond by fabricating things to do that don't actually create goods or services.

HillaryBriss 9y ago
Isn't this simply "fiscal stimulus?" I mean, the federal government is supposed to create jobs by spending money. Doesn't matter what they spend the money on. The only acceptable way to measure economic output is in terms of the dollar value of all the goods and services bought and sold. It could consist of marijuana farming, muscle car paint jobs, bass fishing lures, watery beer, custom gun barrels, cow-brain sandwiches and East European strippers. Doesn't matter. We can't go around imposing our value-based notions of "bullshit jobs" on top of that measurable dollar amount. That wouldn't be economics.