Deficits

Events occurring and how they relate/affect Anabaptist faith and culture.
appleman2006
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Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 1:50 pm
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Re: Deficits

Post by appleman2006 »

I agree that governments have given lip service to finding waste and efficiencies but to large extent that is about as far as it goes. Very little is actually done and there are reasons for this.
1. Very very powerful government sector unions. Until some government tackles this head on. Fires every last government worker and then starts a rehiring program based on actual need. This of course will only work if public sector unions are made illegal. And yes they should be illegal. No worker that works for an organization that holds a monopoly of any sort should be able to unionize. It is a recipe for abuse and waste.
2. This one is closely related to the first. The fact that government is to a large extent a monopoly in everything they do and a very large one at that means that the very people involved in finding efficiencies have very little motive to do so as they may very well put themselves out of a job. While the following proposed solution may not work in every case tendering out to private industry a much larger portion of the things government does would certainly be a step in the right direction.
3. The powers that be (i.e. elected officials) benefit hugely from a system that allows them to promise the world every time they need to be elected using tax payers money to at least try and fulfill those promises. Actually at this point they are using future tax payers money.

If the above does not explain why I am a very small government person then I am not sure what more to say. Big by it's very nature but especially in a scenario where there really are no at least short term penalties for wastefulness simply does not work. It never has and it never will. There needs to be accountability as well as noticeable incentives for success.
But until elected officials are actually held to a standard similar to what I prescribed before nothing will change.

Does any of this stuff really matter to those of us with our citizenship in another kingdom. I would say yes and no. Yes in that there is a sense where I think we should care in that a collapse would cause a huge amount of immediate pain and suffering to our neighbors and friends and since we are called to care for our neighbours, to not at least speak to possible solutions that may avoid disaster would be unethical IMO.
But due to the fact that ultimately our treasures are in a different place and a point could be made that God could use the collapse of world economies to actually bring people to himself I also am at peace that Good will eventually triumph.
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JimFoxvog
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Re: Deficits

Post by JimFoxvog »

appleman2006 wrote:Fires every last government worker and then starts a rehiring program based on actual need. This of course will only work if public sector unions are made illegal. And yes they should be illegal. No worker that works for an organization that holds a monopoly of any sort should be able to unionize. It is a recipe for abuse and waste.
When there is a very powerful employer, employees should not have the right to gather together and discuss how to improve the chances they will be treated well? I don't understand.
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appleman2006
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Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 1:50 pm
Affiliation: Midwest Mennonite

Re: Deficits

Post by appleman2006 »

When the people making the decisions for that very powerful organization have no skin in the game other than to keep that very powerful engine moving is when the workers of said organization should not be able to hold the rest of society ransom.
The temptation is to simply do the easiest thing which is to give them more and more so that eventually government workers by default actually become the privileged ruling class with very little if anything to hold them accountable. It is a recipe for duaster. And we are well on the way. Especially here in Canada.
It is a very different situation than private sector unions.
BTW study union history and you will discover that unions actually prefer situations where there are monopolies. It really is when they are at their most powerful and it is why very few private sector unions are only contained to one company anymore.
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