dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL) (09/12/86)
[] > From me (tim sevener): >> >This is patent nonsense. >> >> >[some stuff about government jobs] >> >> >But to say the government provides no jobs is absolutely ridiculous! >> > tim sevener whuxn!orb >> >> I never said it doesn't provide jobs; just that they must come at the >> expense of other jobs. Do you think they are free? Dammit Tim, where >> the hell do you think wealth/jobs come from? Do you think they fall out >> of the sky? >> >> David Olson >So when the United States suffered a 33% unemployment rate during the >Great Depression, you are going to tell me that the WPA projects, the >Civilian Conservation Corps, and other such projects *cost jobs*??? >What jobs? >If Pres. Roosevelt and the Congress had not provided money to put Provided??? Are you saying that the Pres and Congress are the *source* of this wealth? Where did they get it? Did they generate it themselves? Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes from the private sector via taxes. Suppose it requires 1 unit of wealth to provide/maintain 1 job. So, for 10 jobs it would require 10 units -- not 9, not 9.826, but 10. Let's say that XYZ Widget Company produces 10 units for 10 jobs. To provide 1 government job, government takes 1 unit as a tax from XYZ, and sure enough 1 government job is "created" (BTW, this is an at-best scenario, since for this to happen, government would have to be 100% efficient). Oh but wait, XYZ now has only 9 units -- 1 less unit for 1 less job. "Sorry buddy. I can no longer afford to pay for 10 jobs, only 9. You're out!" >these people to work, they would have still been *unemployed*. Unemployment was shifted from one person to another. >tim sevener whuxn!orb David Olson ..!ihnp4!drutx!dlo "Government is that fiction by which people believe they can live at someone else's expense." -- Frederic Bastiat
mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Thomas J Keller) (09/13/86)
In article <1291@drutx.UUCP>, dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL) writes: > Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes > from the private sector via taxes. > > Suppose it requires 1 unit of wealth to provide/maintain 1 job. So, for > 10 jobs it would require 10 units -- not 9, not 9.826, but 10. Let's > say that XYZ Widget Company produces 10 units for 10 jobs. To provide 1 > government job, government takes 1 unit as a tax from XYZ, and sure enough > 1 government job is "created" (BTW, this is an at-best scenario, since for > this to happen, government would have to be 100% efficient). Oh but wait, > XYZ now has only 9 units -- 1 less unit for 1 less job. "Sorry buddy. I > can no longer afford to pay for 10 jobs, only 9. You're out!" Hold the phone! This is the sort of deliberate misinformation and dishonest argumentation about which I have been complaing all along. 'Libertarians' seem to just love this sort of bull puckey. Assume for the sake of argument that there are, say, 150 million tax paying entities in the US. Assume further that some 500,000 of them are "corporate" entities (a delightful fiction which the 'libertarians' ought to love, the legal assignation of *INDIVIDUAL* rights and privileges to an organization). Let us further assume that the US government determines that it is desireable to generate 500,000 juobs (most probably training postions). Each taxed entity will be paying 1/30 of the real cost of providing these jobs. Thus, at *MOST*, XYZ Widget Co. pays 1/30 of one unit. Of course, this ignores the reality that corporate entities (businesses, really) ****DON'T PAY TAXES****. Face it, it's true. The cost of taxes paid by any properly managed business are passed on to the clients or customers of that business, through higher prices. Thus, taxes may be paid *THROUGH* a business, but seldom, if ever, are taxes paid *BY* a business. The 'libertarian' also conveniently ignores that possibility that such a jobs program does not necessarily have to result in an increase in taxation. It is thouroughly possible to simply build two fewer B1 bombers, or to cease wasting billions of dollars on SDI in order to provide a service of much greater benefit to society as a whole. But 'libertarians' don't want to discuss this point, because then they can only fall back on their BS argument that any form of taxation is thievery. -- Disclaimer: Disclaimer? DISCLAIMER!? I don't need no stinking DISCLAIMER!!! tom keller "She's alive, ALIVE!" {ihnp4, dual}!ptsfa!gilbbs!mc68020 (* we may not be big, but we're small! *)
radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal) (09/15/86)
In article <907@gilbbs.UUCP>, mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Thomas J Keller) writes: > In article <1291@drutx.UUCP>, dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL) writes: > > Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes > > from the private sector via taxes. > Hold the phone! This is the sort of deliberate misinformation and > dishonest argumentation about which I have been complaing all along. > 'Libertarians' seem to just love this sort of bull puckey. In addition to being impolite, this tirade is quite unjustified by the text of the posting, which might perhaps be wrong, but is almost certainly sincere. > Assume for the sake of argument that there are, say, 150 million tax paying > entities in the US. Assume further that some 500,000 of them are "corporate" > entities (a delightful fiction which the 'libertarians' ought to love, the > legal assignation of *INDIVIDUAL* rights and privileges to an organization). > Let us further assume that the US government determines that it is desireable > to generate 500,000 juobs (most probably training postions). Each taxed > entity will be paying 1/30 of the real cost of providing these jobs. Thus, > at *MOST*, XYZ Widget Co. pays 1/30 of one unit. This is incomprehensible. Are you really trying to claim that the government multiplies jobs by a factor of 30 by this process? > Of course, this ignores the reality that corporate entities (businesses, > really) ****DON'T PAY TAXES****. Face it, it's true. The cost of taxes paid > by any properly managed business are passed on to the clients or customers of > that business, through higher prices. Thus, taxes may be paid *THROUGH* a > business, but seldom, if ever, are taxes paid *BY* a business. Probably not true, but irrelevant even if it is true. *Somebody* pays the taxes. They might have instead hired somebody. Or bought something from somebody who hires somebody. > The 'libertarian' also conveniently ignores that possibility that such a > jobs program does not necessarily have to result in an increase in taxation. > It is thouroughly possible to simply build two fewer B1 bombers, or to cease > wasting billions of dollars on SDI in order to provide a service of much > greater benefit to society as a whole. But 'libertarians' don't want to > discuss this point, because then they can only fall back on their BS > argument that any form of taxation is thievery. If the job program is paid for by building fewer B1 bombers, I'm all for it, assuming we can't just keep the government from spending the money at all. In case you don't know, libertarians are generally opposed to vast military expenditures designed to let the government interfere in other countries' business. I don't fathom why you think libertarians wouldn't want to discuss this point. In practice, however, "defense" spending goes on regardless. > tom keller "She's alive, ALIVE!" There's no way you can prove that the government increases the net number of jobs using this sort of argument. I'll help you out: 1) By taxing the population, the government can invest wealth productively that the people would otherwise have frittered away on non-essentials. 2) By spending money on jobs without increasing taxes, creating the money out of nothing, the government can cause wealth to be utilized that otherwise would have been idle. Argument (1) is commonly used in socialist countries. Aside from being paternalistic, it doesn't seem to work. Argument (2) suffers from the flaw that it only applies in a deflationary situation. Any such situation would today be the fault of the government in the first place, since it controls the money supply, and would be better solved in other ways. Radford Neal
mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) (09/15/86)
In article <907@gilbbs.UUCP> mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Thomas J Keller) writes: > [. . .] > Of course, this ignores the reality that corporate entities (businesses, > really) ****DON'T PAY TAXES****. Face it, it's true. The cost of taxes paid > by any properly managed business are passed on to the clients or customers of > that business, through higher prices. Thus, taxes may be paid *THROUGH* a > business, but seldom, if ever, are taxes paid *BY* a business. This is hogwash. In point of fact, corporate profits are (in general) subject to DOUBLE TAXATION: once via the corporate income tax, then again when the after-tax profits are distributed to shareholders and are subject to the individual income tax. Whether this cost of business can be administered by future receipts is economically irrelevant; the point is that it diminishes the profit that can be transferred to the owners of the business. If we were to believe Mr. Keller, corporations or other businesses don't really pay rent, nor salaries, nor utilities, because all they do is pass their costs on to customers. Interesting view of economics... And he calls libertarianism weird? Michael C. Berch ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA UUCP: {ihnp4,dual,sun}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb
orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (09/15/86)
> [] > > > From me (tim sevener): > >> >This is patent nonsense. > >> > >> >[some stuff about government jobs] > >> > >> >But to say the government provides no jobs is absolutely ridiculous! > >> > tim sevener whuxn!orb > >> > >> I never said it doesn't provide jobs; just that they must come at the > >> expense of other jobs. Do you think they are free? Dammit Tim, where > >> the hell do you think wealth/jobs come from? Do you think they fall out > >> of the sky? > >> > >> David Olson > > >So when the United States suffered a 33% unemployment rate during the > >Great Depression, you are going to tell me that the WPA projects, the > >Civilian Conservation Corps, and other such projects *cost jobs*??? > >What jobs? > >If Pres. Roosevelt and the Congress had not provided money to put > > Provided??? Are you saying that the Pres and Congress are the *source* > of this wealth? Where did they get it? Did they generate it themselves? > > Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes > from the private sector via taxes. > > David Olson Again, David, I think you should read Keynes or some books which explain Keynesian theory. The problem is with the savings and investment rate. During Depressions savings is stuck in a trap. There is no point in the private sector making investments because there is already overproduction which cannot be bought because 33% of the people are unemployed and have no money to buy the goods which might be produced with more investment. In fact not only is there no demand for *new* investment, those investments already made are notoriously underutilized. As I mentioned previously, the rate at which potential industrial capacity was utilized during the Great Depression was between 50 and 70%. The government by providing employment in some ways is *forcing* investments in such things as dams, roads, schools, conservation projects and so on. But in so doing that 33% of the people previously doing *nothing* are now actually working *productively* creating power plants, roads and so forth. Meanwhile they now have money in their pockets with which to buy goods, which they could not do while unemployed. Their purchase of goods then means greater utilization of factories previously idle. Which in turn means more people work to make money to buy more goods. The fundamental point is that unemployment is *unproductive*! tim sevener whuxn!orb
lazarus@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Andrew J &) (09/15/86)
In article <1291@drutx.UUCP> dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL) writes: >> = sevener >>So when the United States suffered a 33% unemployment rate during the >>Great Depression, you are going to tell me that the WPA projects, the >>Civilian Conservation Corps, and other such projects *cost jobs*??? >Provided??? Are you saying that the Pres and Congress are the *source* >of this wealth? Where did they get it? Did they generate it themselves? May be -- they used deficit spending! > >Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes >from the private sector via taxes. This assumes what you wish to prove. > >Suppose it requires 1 unit of wealth to provide/maintain 1 job. So, for What is the logic behind this model for jobs creation and maintenance? (Other than the fact it 'proves' what you believe.) >10 jobs it would require 10 units -- not 9, not 9.826, but 10. Unlikely even in your simplistic model. Have you heard about economies of scale? (Or, conversely, the law of diminishing returns?) This might explain why even inefficient govt. can generate more jobs than it allegedly takes away. [...] >Unemployment was shifted from one person to another. > Somehow unemployment was reduced with public works, not only in the US but Germany, Italy, etc. Did they do it with mirrors? andy
dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL) (09/16/86)
[] >In article <1291@drutx.UUCP>, dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL) writes: >> Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes >> from the private sector via taxes. >> >> Suppose it requires 1 unit of wealth to provide/maintain 1 job. So, for >> 10 jobs it would require 10 units -- not 9, not 9.826, but 10. Let's >> say that XYZ Widget Company produces 10 units for 10 jobs. To provide 1 >> government job, government takes 1 unit as a tax from XYZ, and sure enough >> 1 government job is "created" (BTW, this is an at-best scenario, since for >> this to happen, government would have to be 100% efficient). Oh but wait, >> XYZ now has only 9 units -- 1 less unit for 1 less job. "Sorry buddy. I >> can no longer afford to pay for 10 jobs, only 9. You're out!" > Assume for the sake of argument that there are, say, 150 million tax paying >entities in the US. Assume further that some 500,000 of them are "corporate" >entities >Let us further assume that the US government determines that it is desireable >to generate 500,000 juobs (most probably training postions). If it requires wealth to provide/maintain a job, then taking away that wealth (say, through taxes) will destroy that job. Since government generates no wealth of its own, if it were to generate 500,000 jobs, it could only do it by destroying AT LEAST 500,000 OTHER jobs (to provide the cost of the jobs + the cost of the bureaucracy). >Each taxed >entity will be paying 1/30 of the real cost of providing these jobs. Thus, >at *MOST*, XYZ Widget Co. pays 1/30 of one unit. So what? If each entity provides 1/30 of the cost of 1 job, then 30 of them will provide for 1 job. Right? That still means that out of those 30, 1 job will have been lost for each job "created" by government. If not them directly, then it will be someone else who is connected. Somebody *will* lose in the process. > The 'libertarian' also conveniently ignores that possibility that such a >jobs program does not necessarily have to result in an increase in taxation. >[ some stuff about cutting defense spending ] >But 'libertarians' don't want to >discuss this point, because then they can only fall back on their BS argument >that any form of taxation is thievery. I'll discuss it. You are spouting nonsense. First of all, that taxation = thievery is not the issue. Secondly, no matter what government spends the money on, taxing the wealth away destroys jobs in the private sector. If X jobs were destroyed from a tax policy that funded one program in the first place, even if you were 100% efficient, you will not get those same X jobs + 1 by using that money to fund a jobs program instead. If Y jobs are funded instead, you merely shift unemployment around. At best, you gain nothing. >tom keller David Olson ..!ihnp4!drutx!dlo "Government is that fiction by which people believe they can live at someone else's expense." -- Frederic Bastiat
nrh@inmet.UUCP (09/20/86)
>/* Written 4:38 pm Sep 15, 1986 by lazarus@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU in inmet:talk.pol.misc */ >/* ---------- "Re: Unemployment shifting" ---------- */ >In article <1291@drutx.UUCP> dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL) writes: >>> = sevener >>>So when the United States suffered a 33% unemployment rate during the >>>Great Depression, you are going to tell me that the WPA projects, the >>>Civilian Conservation Corps, and other such projects *cost jobs*??? > >>Provided??? Are you saying that the Pres and Congress are the *source* >>of this wealth? Where did they get it? Did they generate it themselves? > >May be -- they used deficit spending! No -- if they could "generate" wealth, they wouldn't need to owe it (except short term). I suggest, in all good will and fellow-feeling, you talk with someone who knows a fair amount about economics before you talk more about this issue. >> >>Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes >>from the private sector via taxes. >This assumes what you wish to prove. >> >>Suppose it requires 1 unit of wealth to provide/maintain 1 job. So, for >What is the logic behind this model for jobs creation and >maintenance? (Other than the fact it 'proves' what you believe.) The logic is that a job consists of an agreement by an employer to pay an employee. The payment comes from somewhere: where? The employer. Why does he do it? Because the VALUE to him of having the work done exceeds its cost. But he can only agree to pay if he has the money to pay. Hiring someone is thus a form of "investment" (used in the non-technical sense); one invests in a job hoping for the performance of the job to generate the payoff. The money you invest is the measured in the "units of wealth to provide/maintain 1 job" mentioned above. >>10 jobs it would require 10 units -- not 9, not 9.826, but 10. >Unlikely even in your simplistic model. Have you heard about >economies of scale? (Or, conversely, the law of diminishing returns?) >This might explain why even inefficient govt. can generate more >jobs than it allegedly takes away. >[...] Err... It's quite true that 10 jobs might cost only 9 units. The problem is that you are looking at one level of organization (ultimate cost to employer) and he is looking at another (payment cost per employee). Stipulating that the two are not equal, it can go the other way too. Just for example, suppose that if you employ over a certain number of people, you start having to file certain reports to the government, so if you employ M employees at a cost of C each, the cost of adding one more worker can be (M+1)*C' where C' is the cost INCLUDING the new cost of paying for government form-filling. Since C' is typically greater than C 10 jobs might cost 11 units. If the government were uniformly more efficient at employing resources than private industry, you might have a case, but I think even most economically well-informed socialists will agree that it is not (their argument, as I understand it, is that the government is likely to be more humane). >>Unemployment was shifted from one person to another. >> >Somehow unemployment was reduced with public works, not only in the US >but Germany, Italy, etc. Did they do it with mirrors? Establish this proposition with controlled experiments, please. Hint: you can't. There's no question that SOME folks got hired -- but no way to measure how many therefore DIDN'T get hired (by the people taxed, or ripped off in other ways, so that their marginal benefit from hiring someone was now lower than the marginal benefit of keeping the dollars involved). Do public works projects really decrease unemployment? Certainly in one sense they do -- in the USSR it is illegal to have no job, and therefore there is *no* unemployment. Decreasing unemployment REGARDLESS OF COST by government use of resources means re-channelling money from the sources of wealth (people who were paid) to an agency which got the money only because it could forcibly take it from others. This last doesn't GUARANTEE the money will be used badly; but that governments resort to this tactic means they couldn't make the money in any easier way. I think it was Heinlein who said: "There are the Makers, the Takers, and the Fakers, no fourth catagory."
nrh@inmet.UUCP (09/24/86)
Oh please! Wingate: RUN -- do not walk -- to an economics text. >/* Written 1:41 am Sep 14, 1986 by mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP in inmet:talk.pol.misc */ >David Olson writes: > >>Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes >>from the private sector via taxes. > >This is false reasoning. If we are measuring wealth in terms of money, >deficit governments certainly spend moeny which they didn't collect in taxes. I think it was Richard Carnes who said that to measure wealth in units of money was not to measure it at all. In a certain sense, you can't measure wealth in terms of money -- you measure money in terms of wealth. Were you correct, Charles, the US government could have done an unlimited amount of stuff simply by running the printing presses. It could, for example, make wealthy every man, woman, and child on Earth -- and at a trivial cost! In fact, at ZERO cost, because you would print money to buy the printing presses and paper you need to print more money and so... But let's examine this little cornucopia, which I doubt even Charles believes can really be used in this way... If I say "a villa in France", you get a picture of wealth. If I say "10,000 lira", you may draw a blank unless you find what that quantity will buy. Inflationary governments certainly spend "money" -- but that doesn't mean they've created "wealth". Charles has not responded to Olson's point at all, really >... >But suppose the government simply prints a 1 unit bill? Obviously, wealth >then *does* get created out of thin air. This really doesn't seem to me to >be a valid way of looking at the problem. No -- wealth just got TAXED out of the people who held dollars and was delivered almost intact to the first person the government gives the bill to. The taxing mechanism is subtle, but it works. It's even a little indirect to really be a taxing mechanism. If people kept their accounts in gold ounces (or some such) the machinations of governments wouldn't affect them this way -- as we shall see... > >>Unemployment was shifted from one person to another. > >I do not think so. No new taxes were raised to pay for these projects after >all. Oh? What about the loss of wealth experienced by those who owned bills at the time of printing? THEIR wealth is now worth much less. To see why this is so, consider a limit case. Acting as the government, you give me a salary, measured in dollars, to two civil servants. One buys gold bars with his money, the other holds onto it by stuffing it into a mattress. There are 10^12 dollars extant at the time of payment. Now, to pay for a war, you print another 10^20 dollars, doing nothing else. Supply of dollars goes up -- but the amount of wealth reflected by the dollars has not changed (perhaps it has even gone down because of the war). You will find, as those in old Germany, Rome, and France, that suddenly the civil servant who kept his dollars is now MUCH worse off (all other things equal) than the one who bought gold. In "The Penniless Billionaires", Max Shapiro recounts the story of a widow who, unexpectedly kept from administering the money that would have kept her comfortable for the rest of her life, found on her return that the face value of the money was no longer sufficient to buy a postage stamp. Now go find an economics teacher, Charles -- please!
mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (10/07/86)
When is inmet going to fix its references line bug? >I think it was Richard Carnes who said that to measure wealth in units >of money was not to measure it at all. In a certain sense, you can't >measure wealth in terms of money -- you measure money in terms of >wealth. OK, no problem with this. >Were you correct, Charles, the US government could have done an >unlimited amount of stuff simply by running the printing >presses. It could, for example, make wealthy every man, woman, >and child on Earth -- and at a trivial cost! In fact, at ZERO cost, >because you would print money to buy the printing presses and paper >you need to print more money and so... >But let's examine this little cornucopia, which I doubt even Charles >believes can really be used in this way... >If I say "a villa in France", you get a picture of wealth. If I >say "10,000 lira", you may draw a blank unless you find what that >quantity will buy. OK, now let's get back to the original point. Let us suppose that you think that putting in some basic capital resources in those mountains would be a good idea. You decide to start with a dam to provide power. Concrete and the like will have to paid for, but labor is easy-- just run the printing press. So you now have some capital, some real wealth. In what sense is it stolen from anyone? >No -- wealth just got TAXED out of the people who held dollars and was >delivered almost intact to the first person the government gives the >bill to. The taxing mechanism is subtle, but it works. >It's even a little indirect to really be a taxing mechanism. If people >kept their accounts in gold ounces (or some such) the machinations >of governments wouldn't affect them this way -- as we shall see... Of course it would, if the government owned a gold mine. >>>Unemployment was shifted from one person to another. >>I do not think so. No new taxes were raised to pay for these projects after >>all. >Oh? What about the loss of wealth experienced by those who owned bills >at the time of printing? THEIR wealth is now worth much less. There seems to be an assumption here of automatic inflation. If the problem is that there is a chronic *shortage* of money to pay for the goods, then it is hard to see how this is so, especially since wages (which are prices too) are sticky. (And if there weren't such a chronic shortage, there would be no pressure for the government to "do something", after all.) >To see why this is so, consider a limit case. Acting as the government, >you give me a salary, measured in dollars, to two civil servants. >One buys gold bars with his money, the other holds onto it by >stuffing it into a mattress. There are 10^12 dollars extant at the >time of payment. >Now, to pay for a war, you print another 10^20 dollars, doing nothing >else. Supply of dollars goes up -- but the amount of wealth reflected >by the dollars has not changed (perhaps it has even gone down because >of the war). You will find, as those in old Germany, Rome, >and France, that suddenly the civil servant who kept his dollars >is now MUCH worse off (all other things equal) than the one who >bought gold. Of course, if the government starts minting lots of gold coins then this all goes out the window. And we are still stuck with the paradox of the last 40 years. Inflation may indeed be inevitable, but if so, it is better than the alternative. And lest I be mistaken for some hopeless deficit spender, let me remark that the current situation is pretty absurd. We have gotten to the point where the current level of debt is not only making it hard to run the government, but is probably starting to muck up the economy. C. Wingate
lazarus@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Andrew J &) (10/11/86)
In article <117200087@inmet> nrh@inmet.UUCP writes: > >>/* Written 4:38 pm Sep 15, 1986 by lazarus@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU in inmet:talk.pol.misc */ >I suggest, in all good will and fellow-feeling, >you talk with someone who knows a fair amount about economics before >you talk more about this issue. > This is a suggestion from someone who believed job creation was a simple linear function of "wealth" units. (Please see further remarks below). >>>Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes >>>from the private sector via taxes. >>This assumes what you wish to prove. >>> >>>Suppose it requires 1 unit of wealth to provide/maintain 1 job. So, for >>What is the logic behind this model for jobs creation and >>maintenance? (Other than the fact it 'proves' what you believe.) > >[...]. The money you invest is the >measured in the "units of wealth to provide/maintain 1 job" mentioned >above. > Do you really believe that to create one new position of nuclear engineer, teacher, and janitor all require the same one unit of wealth? >>>10 jobs it would require 10 units -- not 9, not 9.826, but 10. >>Unlikely even in your simplistic model. Have you heard about >>economies of scale? (Or, conversely, the law of diminishing returns?) >>This might explain why even inefficient govt. can generate more >>jobs than it allegedly takes away. >>[...] > >Err... It's quite true that 10 jobs might cost only 9 units. The >problem is that you are looking at one level of organization (ultimate >cost to employer) and he is looking at another (payment cost per >employee). Stipulating that the two are not equal, it can go the >other way too. Just for example, suppose that if you employ over a >certain number of people, you start having to file certain reports to >the government, so if you employ M employees at a cost of C each, the >cost of adding one more worker can be (M+1)*C' where C' is the cost >INCLUDING the new cost of paying for government form-filling. >Since C' is typically greater than C 10 jobs might cost 11 units. > I actually agree with you (2nd version) that jobs created as a function of "wealth" is going to be non-linear. I even agree that it seems true that in certain situations the marginal cost would be greater than one wealth-unit. I do wonder why you seek to blame this phenomenon on government forms -- a more likely explanation is the increase comes at the point where large additional capital expenditures become necessary. For example, an factory owner could triple his workforce by running three shifts/day instead of one. After that, he would have to build a new plant (very expensive). And I still speculate that a large-scale job creation program might create more jobs than it takes away, especially in the short term. One way would be shifting from jobs which take a great deal of wealth to create (e.g. Vice-president with extensive education) to jobs which require little wealth. Also, job creation is not the ultimate goal of even a well-run business. According to libertarian dogma, profit is, although one empirical study after another refutes this (large corps. are risk-averse). What do we do with a corporation deciding between a manual assembly line (many jobs created) and an automated one (fewer jobs, different qualifications)? Certainly these do not create the same number of jobs regardless of which turns out to be the better choice. Government might decide that widespread unemployment is a sufficiently dangerous social phenomenon that reducing the wealth of corporations (who mostly spend it on take- overs, huge management salaries, etc. not job creation) to prevent rebellion is a good idea. > >Do public works projects really decrease unemployment? Certainly >in one sense they do -- in the USSR it is illegal to have no job, and >therefore there is *no* unemployment. Decreasing unemployment >REGARDLESS OF COST by government use of resources means re-channelling >money from the sources of wealth (people who were paid) to an agency >which got the money only because it could forcibly take it from others. > >This last doesn't GUARANTEE the money will be used badly; but that >governments resort to this tactic means they couldn't make the money >in any easier way. I thought your view was all taxes were forcible takings, not just Soviet-style. > >I think it was Heinlein who said: "There are the Makers, the Takers, >and the Fakers, no fourth catagory." I think it was Cain who said "Am I my brother's keeper?" please see next posting for further observations on govt and wealth creation. andy .