I never said anything about what impresses me. I said these workers are being paid through involuntary means. No doubt scientists and engineers are impressive. A lot of government employees have impressive skills. It's not that all government services are unnecessary, it's that they're inefficient. If there was demand for that government service, that service would be created in the private sector. And since it would be in the private sector, it would be subject to competition. And since it would be subject to competition, efficiency would be at its optimum level. Multiple businesses would be competing for the consumers' money. Prices would continue to drop and quality would continue to rise, which is clearly seen in every real world example of true competition. The reason government is inefficient is because they don't need to compete with other companies for the chance to provide its services to consumers. They simply steal money from everyone through taxes. There is no incentive to keep improving the quality of their service or to keep lowering costs, because they can take that money from you and you can't say no. Can you imagine real businesses operating this way?! If I mowed zigzags in everyone's front lawn in my neighborhood without any knowledge of who wanted that service, AND they were forced to each pay me $20, that would seem pretty criminal, right? I have no reason to fully mow their lawn, and I have no reason to ask if anyone even wants their lawn mowed. I have no reason to do the best job I can to compete with any other people who mow lawns. I'm getting paid either way, so why bother? Where is my incentive to do anything the consumer wants? The economic world is based on incentives, and the government has none. This is also why there are possibly many, many unnecessary government services. If all services are paid for by stolen money, how do you know which ones actually have demand? How do you know how much demand there is? There is no monetary feedback. The private sector looks at their bottom line to see if there is enough demand to provide a profitable service. If there isn't, that service won't exist. Government doesn't need to worry about that, and can provide any service it can think of. So it can end up bloated and nobody really knows what is necessary and what isn't. It's the epitome of inefficiency. If government workers truly have desirable skills, which most of them do, they will be paid accordingly in the private sector. If not, their skills aren't important to consumers. But working for an entity that steals its money from the "consumer" and gives it to you should not be an honorable profession. Being compensated for what you and the consumer agree upon is moral, efficient, and is the real cause of economic growth.
Numerous things disturbing about that response, but I'll keep my response limited to just one: how do you "market" cancer research? R&D to go to the moon? Clean air? Investigation of plane crashes? Putting all these endeavors on the private market is a tremendous risk to some very beneficial projects - hell not even those, the essential as well. Not to mention the incentive to cheat, to market defective products, and the lack of regulatory systems meaning that consumers are at the mercy of whoever has monopolized this, that, or the other commodity. Before you say in response to the regulatory systems part that "the market will decide," that "industries have an incentive to provide better care/products," or that we'll achieve that end by "voting with our wallets," there is a major obstacle in front of that solution: market failures. Such a method of providing goods and services may be more cost-efficient, but it's not utility-efficient or welfare-efficient, if you will. You might expect that if some corporation makes a product unwell or so that it's killing people, loss of profits will incentivize improvements. I ask: what incentive does any company have to improve in the face of overriding cost-efficiency concerns? If you can get away with it, consumer knowledge or not, there's no incentive. If you look up the history of motor safety regulation, you'll see a mess of killings that were invariably blamed on the driver. Automotive companies took absolutely no responsibility for their own defective designs or manufacture, and because there wasn't a federal regulatory scheme to create and enforce a safety standard, they had no reason to take responsibility - they'd win the torts case anyway, so why bother? (I forgot to emphasize these car companies were winning in state courts.) You may say then that the consumers will stop buying the product or service. After all, a corporation wants to keep people buying. But what if it's an essential good? Are they just going to have to choose to pay for either dangerously ineffective firefighters or take their chances? You may say "it's their choice," but it isn't if the choice is between dangerously negligent or unfairly inadequate provision or good and having nothing at all, that's not a choice; that's exploitation.
U.S. Capitol In Lockdown After Gunshots Fired Outside: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/03/capitol-lockdown_n_4038560.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
Guns are basically banned in DC. How is this possible? There are so many laws that should prevent this. Kind of like that mass shooting at the DC Navy Yard a few weeks ago. I don't get it.
Really, it's hard to believe how the GOP have become so hardheaded and incompetent. In the end, it's like they're cartoon villains or something. The President Can Not back down on the ACA. It's been through due process and has been vetted by the Supreme Court of the United States. To give in would be unprecedented in this countries history and would allow so many negative outcomes it actually gives me nightmares. Not to mention if he does give in these cunts will most likely try to impeach him for going against a law that the Supreme Court has already upheld. They're literally committing treason and holding the nation hostage and there are those who say the President should negotiate? Come on! Even though he's done a ton of shit I dislike there's no benefit and every reason to not back down, for the safety of due process and the economy.
I was surprised to learn that he does have a constitutional way out of this in case of default: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/opinion/obamas-options.html
http://egbertowillies.com/2013/10/09/government-shutdown-strategy/ Man, you know your caucus is in deep when your own propaganda machine stops supporting you.