A story today should prompt some discussion in how our society is changing as more and more Americans work for the government. For years, there has been a concern that we are becoming an institutionalized society with millions of Americans serving or working in prisons while millions more work for police and government agencies. Now, a report shows that one out of every 100 Americans work for the Defense Department. That is an astonishing figure. That figure balloons further when one considers the number of citizens working in the internal security, police, and intelligence systems.
The Economist magazine shows that the Defense Department employed 3.2 million people, including 700,000 civilians.
We beat out the Chinese Army and even more frightening Wal-Mart (which comes in third after the Red Army). McDonald’s follows in fourth. The remainder in order are the China Petroleum Corporation, the State Grid Corporation of China, National Health Service of England, Indian Railways, China Post Group, and Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Company.
Despite such huge numbers, Sen. Jon Kyl announced that he will resign from the Super Committee if the members consider significant cuts in the defense budget.
Source: Washington Post
However, if you’d like to address the subject of the Austrian school of economics as a political movement instead of actual economics, that’s another story all together.
You’ve mistaken me for somebody impressed with credentials of someone who would publish through a von Mises organization. I don’t care who she is. Reading a von Mises themed or sponsored website and expecting sound economics instead of, oh, what’s that thing where people believe things with no scientific proof called like von Mises does . . . um, terligion? no, no, wurligion? no, that’s not it . . . religion! yeah, that’s it, is about like expecting the sun to shine blue. She discredits herself by association with non-scientific pseudo-economics traditions like the Austrian school. The Austrian school is to economics what astrology is to astronomy.
Claptrap.
Calling you Buddha (the corporation formerly known as Buddha is Laughing) is a fact, sport. No organization was cited. An article written by Annelise Graebner Anderson was linked for those who may be interested in the history of fire departments.
Who is this Annelise Graebner Anderson?
A.B., Wellesley College, 1960; M.A., Columbia University, 1965; Ph.D., Columbia University, 1974
Annelise Graebner Anderson is an economist who has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1983. She is currently a member of the Advisory Board of RAND’s Center for the Study of Immigration Policy, a member of Governor Wilson’s Council of Economic Advisers, and a member of the Governor’s Task Force on California Tax Reform and Reduction. She has advised the governments of Russia, and Romania, and the Republic of Georgia on economic reform and studied the transition process in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Mongolia.
From 1981 to 1983, Anderson was Associate Director for Economics and Government with the Office of Management and Budget, where she was responsible for the budgets of five cabinet departments (Treasury, Justice, Commerce, Transportation, and HUD) and over 40 other agencies. While at OMB, she participated actively in the development of the administration’s policies with respect to housing and housing finance, deregulation of financial institutions, transportation, and immigration.
During 1980, she was a senior policy adviser to the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan, and as Associate Director, Office of Presidential Personnel, worked on staffing the departments of Treasury, Transportation, and Commerce during the transition to the first Reagan administration.
As a member of the faculty of the School of Business and Economics, California State University, Hayward (1975-80), Anderson taught courses in macroeconomics, corporate financial policy, investments, and capital markets and financial institutions in the MBA program and the undergraduate program.
We have a former member of Reagan’s staff endorsing municipal fire departments and Buddha wants to complain about the source? Not because it can find any fault with the conclusions of Dr. Anderson, but because of the location of the link? That is sooooo Buddha.
You seem to think that calling me Buddha somehow makes you citing a clown organization as economic experts somehow more evidentiary palatable.
It doesn’t.
@Buddha
If you weren’t such an idiot, you’d take the time to read the linked article instead of attacking the source. The article clearly supports municipal rather than private fire departments.
In typical Buddha fashion, you go looking for an argument where there is none to be found, sport. 🙂
Some people keep quoting von Mises organizations as if anyone other than true believers consider Ol’ Ludwig the Unscientific Economist as credible.
They don’t.
@Slartibartfast
“I worry about the corrupt CEO of Fire, INC. who doesn’t tell his workers about the lucrative arrangement he has with Arson, LTD…”
So where is the corrupt CEO of Private Security Guards, INC who doesn’t tell of the lucrative arrangement he has with Pawn Shop, LTD?
There is no end to where the fantasy mind can go. It must be tempered with the reality of historical events. As I stated earlier, we have, in the past, had private fire departments. Do you have evidence of the same circumstance happening in our past?
Here’s a good article on the history of fire departments: http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_3/3_3_6.pdf
No Way,
I don’t worry about the fire chief – I worry about the corrupt CEO of Fire, INC. who doesn’t tell his workers about the lucrative arrangement he has with Arson, LTD…
Roco,
Given that you seem to believe that the free market solves every problem most efficiently in light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, your comments seem like more stones (pebbles, really) thrown from your glass house…
Face it – the American people overwhelmingly support socialism to some degree (if they didn’t, the Republicans would run on an outright end to Social Security and Medicare) and there are problems which the free market, far from solving, makes immeasurably worse.
@Slartibartfast
“A capitalist fire department would have direct incentive to start fires…”
And Republicans have a “direct incentive” to kill Democrats (and vice versa). Your argument calls for illegal and immoral acts. It must be rejected as the nonsense of fantasy.
No ne despises a fire starter more than the good men and women who risk their lives to preserve life and property. It is an insult to their legacy to suggest that they would risk the lives of their brethren for potential financial gains.
One of my longest friendships is with a current Fire Chief. Another is with a Fire Captain. Whether they are a public or private employee, there would be no incentive to create their own most devastating enemy.
Do you have evidence of private security guards increasing the number of armed robberies?
Slartisan:
you would pay a monthly fee to the fire department like you pay your insurance payment for your car. The fire department would market to you just like the insurance company. You wouldnt write a check for the fire while your house burns unless you were a total dumbass. You pay a monthly or yearly fee to keep your house safe.
I think you need to stick to things you understand, clearly it is not this.
Slarti:
your ideas dont even lack merit, they dont work. In the real world, socialism is an abysmal failure. It is failing all over the world and causing much misery.
When you economic numb-nuts on the left understand that, the better off society, and by society I mean individuals, will be.
Slartisian, no not as good as Genesianism. Maybe Slartibartfartianism? that has a ring to it.
Elaine,
I’m more of the, “go away or I will taunt you a second time” sort…
“But if it helps, I never said I was a fine person, just that I wasn’t a stupid poopeyhead like you.”
Stupid poopeyhead? What is this…kindergarten?
*****
Slarti,
You should tell anon that you’d like to meet him out by the swings at recess!
😉
No Way,
A capitalist fire department would have direct incentive to start fires as more business means more profit (in general), while in a socialist fire department funding wouldn’t be linked to the work load in such a simple way.
anon,
The fire department is being run by libertarian principles* (regardless of what anyone calls it) – which says nothing about the socialist** fire departments that most municipalities in the US have (and which I advocate). A capitalist*** fire department MIGHT put out the fire in that situation – or it might view watching it burn as incentive for others to pay for their “fire insurance”. And if the capitalist fire department thought they could get away with it, they would probably have set the fire because the guy hadn’t paid…
I may be a poopeyhead, but at least I’m not a fool like yourself. Personally, my ability to suffer fools gladly has gone the way of civility in our civic discourse. All ideas are NOT created equal and, like Roco, your ideas have a distinct lack of merit.
* By which I mean you only get fire protection if you pay for it.
** By which I mean funded by the government to protect the people.
*** By which I mean a for-profit business.
We tried private fire departments. They did not work. The main problem was concurrent jurisdiction.
As far as incentive goes? It’s irrelevant. Both private and government agencies could use more fires as justification for higher pay.
The relationship between our public fire departments and the private entrepreneurs who further techniques and technology has been a symbiotic one. I see no reason to change that.
l believe the States can best govern our home concerns, and the Federal Government our foreign ones.
Slarti, near as I can tell, the South Fulton Fire Department is a City Fire Department. They are listed on the City’s website, the Mayor defends their policy.
It doesn’t seem to be a private fire department, but a city organization.
Aside from one dumbass at the National Review quoted by the Times, I don’t see anyone calling this some sort of libertarian fire department or libertarian rules.
Since the guy, on scene, offered to pay the entire cost, I have a hard time believing a for profit fire department would then have continued to turn him down — I do think that sounds more like something a civic fire department run by dumbshits would do.
“Even when he offered to pay whatever the cost might be to put out the fire, the department refused to respond to the emergency during the two hours it took for the flames to spread from his yard to his house.”
If you have evidence this was a private for profit fire department, I would like that, and I will put that in the wikipedia as well.
But if it helps, I never said I was a fine person, just that I wasn’t a stupid poopeyhead like you.
anon,
So you’ve shown that a libertarian fire department doesn’t work – which doesn’t really impact the argument that a private fire department is a bad idea. Apparently you are content to just disparage people and make straw man arguments – what a fine person you must be.
It’s a shame this blog is so filled with dumbass partisan hackery it emulates a bot war striving to pass some twisted Turley Test. I propose a bot finally passes the Turley Test when it realizes the crap it spews is pre-programmed partisan dumbassery and just shuts it face. By that account, there are so many miserable bot failures here.
Anyway Slarti, Rafflaw, this is apparently what a City Fire Department might do
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/tennessee-firefighters-watch-home-burn/
Olbermann blames it on Tea Party thinking, and who knows, he may be right.
But it’s hard to imagine Roco not successfully making the point that a for profit fire department, would not have put out the fire when the owner then and there said he would pay.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71f6B0AqZAU
Tags: Bot Wars, Partisan Dumbassery, Turley Test