1. This government doesn't understand small government, despite electioneering on it.
The most frightening statistic I learned last year was this (and this before the recession really started to bite, with the private sector layoffs resulting from it): In New Zealand there were 1.75 million people working in the wealth-creating private sector. 1.75 million people having to pay the tax, alongside corporates, to pay for the livelihoods of 1.75 million wealth-destroying bureaucrats in the State sector, beneficiaries and retirees.
That's one for one, and that's a huge Nanny State. Put another way, there were 1.75 million private sector wealth creators having to carry a population of 4.13 million.
Quite apart from the philosophical issues surrounding freedom of the individual, and his or her woebegone pursuit of happiness in a State of this size, mathematically this state of affairs is simply not possible, hence even at that stage, the country was having to borrow a quarter of billion dollars per week (and guess who has to pay the interest and principle tab on that).
So can libertarians and freedom lovers take any heart from Bill English's comments this week on restraining the public sector? No, of course not: Bill's speech is as slippery as temporarily signing yourself out of your own Family Trust in order to gain an advantage at the cost of the taxpayer.
His comments as reported in the NBR
"Restraint on the public sector has not even started properly yet, Finance Minister Bill English told MPs today. Appearing before Parliament's finance and expenditure select committee, Mr English said government departments had been told before Christmas what sort of increase in their baseline budget they would get in the 2010 Budget. That is earlier than usual: such moves are usually made early in the new year. And most are getting a nil increase he told MPs, although 'three or four are getting some extra.' He did not say which."
Pathetic. There is no reduction of the State even envisaged in this gutless proclamation. It's past the time we needed such 'restraint', this merely means, at best, containment from Nanny's continued growth, keeping her at her current revoltingly obese size, and not even that: some departments are still to get more!
It's way too late for containment, the size of Nanny State must be slashed, and ruthlessly: small government, that's what National stands for, and we have the opposite of that. Bill English should be announcing on 20 May that one in three bureaucrats must go find a real job, with a commitment to further reductions after that. And that the number of government departments, DHB's, and all rest will be reduced from over sixty five to at the most seven. Seven Bill says, why, that's impossible! Sorry Bill, Switzerland, with a population bigger than New Zealand, has just seven government departments. So in the May budget, lets aim for that. Think of the tax cuts we could have on such a reduction, and no need to increase GST, or attack mom and dad's investment in property.
Chances of this happening?
Nil. We're still ruled by the socialist B Team.
2. A sensible approach to Cap-and-Trade
Don't do it. From The New York Times
"Citing financial worries, the State of Arizona has backed out of a broad regional effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the West through a cap-and-trade system.Note those last words: "would cripple Arizona's economy."
In an executive order issued last week, Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, said a cap-and-trade system which would impose mandatory caps on emissions and allow pollution credits to be traded among companies would cripple Arizona's economy."
And yet New Zealand's ETS is still legislated to start July 1 this year, with no political will to change it, despite the Warmists' argument melting quicker than the polar ice cap, which is not melting at all. So on top of GST increases, add increased energy charges to your personal budgets. For a country where households are much more indebted as a percentage of disposable income than the United States this government is set to make the lives of hard working individuals in New Zealand even more uncomfortable.
37 comments:
Unfortunately i don't believe that this lot are any better than the last crowd Keeping the state noses in everything just suits their purpose
On another note, Helen Clark is calling for "climate change" to be the forefront of development despite all of the evidence that it is a hoax.
Will we never rid our selves of this woman?
Mark, excellent post.
Watch out for Redbaiter, he may spam your post, since he knows that Peter is away.
That 1.75m statistic is terrifying - every productive individual is carrying his own personal parasite!
Can you point me to the source of these figures?
Stevew.
I originally got that statistic from one of Bernard Hickey's posts on http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog (Correction, it was either Hickey, or one of his guest posters.)
Note it appeared twice, first very early in 2009 (from memory) where it was reported as 1.85 million working to 1.75 million bureaucrats, beneficiaries, etc. Then it was reported much later in the year again, but as the 1 for 1 figure. Either way, it stands out doesn't it.
My problem is I cut and pasted the figure to my personal diary - because it was so memorable - but I did not copy the link with it. I've just tried searching the site, but the search function is not very refined and it came up with a load of posts I'd have to wade through unless I can figure out a better way to query it.
I've not got the time at the moment but if I get a chance soon I will.
Remember the tax system includes corporates, trusts, special partnerships, non-resident entities paying tax on NZ operations, etc, that all pay tax, thus it is not that 1 worker has to pay for 1 non worker, exactly, but the 1 for 1 figure, for me, sums up nicely part of NZ's problem (and all up, all taxation is nowhere near meeting the black hole of State expenditure, hence the public borrowing program).
By the way, from John Key's 'Keynotes' newsletter of Friday:
We’ll maintain Working For Families and compensate low to middle income earners if there is any increase in GST.
That sounds not so much like a 'step change' as a foot trip.
Let's see: GST up, benefits will be raised to cover the GST so whose paying the extra GST? Oh, of course, you and me. With the increase in ACC, the upcoming attack on property, the always increasing excise taxes, I'm thinking the income tax cut isn't going to mean lower tax overall for me.
Stevew
Here's more detail to my post above on source of that statistic. As I said, the first (of the two times) the statistic came up I copied to my personal diary, and as that is a Word document, it is much easier to search that document. After doing so I found where I posted the first (1.85 million) post. It was earlier than I said above, but tallies with my actual post in that this was before the actual recession started biting.
I copied the relevant portion of Hickey's post on 19 November, 2008. Here it goes:
[From 1999 to today] both local and central governments grew consistently and faster than the rest of the economy [as did] the number of people receiving benefits, Working for Families payments and/or working for local and central governments...
This means that now we have 1.85 million people working and paying taxes to 1.75 million who receive benefits or work for the government. This near 1 to 1 ratio compares with a near 1.5 workers to 1 beneficiary in 1999.
Better still, when I copied and pasted that, Word has actually embedded the original link: here it is:
http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2008/10/28/opinion-why-we-need-a-crisis-and-a-not-so-secret-agenda/
(Just copy and paste the url to your browswer, I can't me bothered making the clicky.)
Indeed, my diary has embedded two links (clever Mr Gates). The above post had it's own precedents in a post on interest.co.nz from October 25, 2008, made by David Chaston. Also worth looking at:
http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2008/10/25/benefit-claims-rising/
Thanks Mark. Of course, there are problems with the 1 to 1 comparison, but as a headline message it's very powerful. Any politician would certainly be happy to use it! (though only if it suited his agenda, of course, which is why we never hear it on the TV news).
Your statistics are bogus because they didn't include children who are neither wealth creators nor bludgers.
I think you need to go back to the start and rewrite the piece using actual facts rather than manipulted figures.
Someone who finished high school statistics can see you were way off.
Bad use of stats like that colours the whole rest of your artice. Sad.
Oh dear. Sally said:
Your statistics are bogus because they didn't include children who are neither wealth creators nor bludgers.
Huh? I said the private sector is the only sector of the economy that creates wealth. Every forced appropriation and transfer from the private sector to the public sector destroys wealth, and of course, individual freedom.
Dispute that.
I said statistics show for every one person in the private sector working and paying tax, there is now in New Zealand one bureaucrat, beneficiary or retiree to match them, and this is an appalling stat.
I said above be careful of the one for one statistic regarding paying for the State, as other entities pay tax also, but our government is borrowing a quarter of a billion dollars per week, because the State is so huge, the tax take can't fund it anymore, and this doesn't water down the powerful symbolism of an out of control State (big S for slap) encapsulated in the one for one pairing. (The school children you speak of are in the statistic of the 4.13 million population that the tax take must support: I will speak to their plight, at the end of this post.)
I gave the source for my one to one statistic, here:
http://www.interest.co.nz/ratesblog/index.php/2008/10/28/opinion-why-we-need-a-crisis-and-a-not-so-secret-agenda/
It's irrefutable, but please, give the grounds for your refutation of it, and the correct statistic? Actually I would love for Dave Chaston to do an update of that eighteen month old statistic, after the last year that has seen another 52,000 jobs lost from the private sector (from memory) while the only sector in which employment grew was, you guessed it, the State. Nanny's minions. Reason would say it would be now even worse.
Sally then ended by saying:
Someone who finished high school statistics can see you were way off.
No. You have some problems with basic reading and comprehension. So, back to those poor school students you mentioned, I suggest you spend this Sunday pondering why our State education system has served you so badly. Per my original statement, transfers from the private to public sectors represents the destruction of wealth, and given the state of our education sector, this includes young minds.
Now that is the fact that is truly, as you said, sad.
Sally.......you just got ripped a new one!
It's funny how you can work yourself up in to a frenzy over numbers when you can barely understand what they mean.
The ratio 1:1 for private workers supporting beuracrats ,beneficiaries and retirees is a joke.
Firstly, were there no public hospitals, schools or other government run services these would have to be supplied privately. So rather than being "SUPPORTED" by the private sector these people are merely taking the job of a private person. Which is not the same thing. Doctors are not considered to be bludging when they do work for both the private and public hospitals. They are just doing their jobs.
Secondly, By far the largest number in that group is Retirees who have paid into taxes on the EXPLICIT guarantee of superannuation. Much the same as a private super scheme is run. If you wanna cancel their benefits you gotta refund their taxes first. They are simply collecting their due on many years of payments made into their "retirement fund". If they were told there was to be no Govty super then they would have paid money into private plans instead and pushed for lower taxes.
Finally, You quote that 1.75 million support a population of 4.1 million. This is blatantly false because if the 1.75 excludes all those educators, policemen and doctors working for government-run organisations then they are also supporting the population because they pay taxes too and their jobs are productive also because their services would still needto be provided in a private economy anyway.
You have no grasp of statistics because you use them without any decent appreciation for the realities those numbers represent.
Sad.
Finally, You quote that 1.75 million support a population of 4.1 million. This is blatantly false because if the 1.75 excludes all those educators, policemen and doctors working for government-run organisations then they are also supporting the population because they pay taxes too
As I said: utter incomprehension from you Sally.
Yes, employees of 'government-run organisations' have a tax nominally deducted, though only in a process that is a complete bureaucratic inefficiency. All these State groups you mention, where are their net wages paid from? The only sector of an economy that creates wealth, is the private sector, it is only the taxes from this sector that pays the State wage bill, benefits, etc. The whole kit an caboodle. The 'taxes' paid by civil servants and beneficiaries is just a money go round, ludicrous: society might as well try and diminish at least one transfer cost, and just pay them net of tax.
The government sector creates nothing that is not built on the taxes of the private sector (or borrowing). It's a black and white issue, there are no gray areas here.
So the one for one statistic is true, read the original source. And with that, it's now a week day, and I have to work, to pay the taxes to pay the state workers, beneficiaries and retirees.
Your assertion that only the private sector can create wealth is obviously false. It is a pity that you cannot comprehend such basic things.
Imagine a society in which there are no privae industries = socialism. Is any wealth created? Are any things produced? Does anybody eat do any people get treated in hospitals, get their cars fixed or go to a restaurant?
Actually the answer is yes. And since all these activities are what constitutes "Wealth" then it is entirely possible for government-run activities to create wealth.
So you are wrong.
Of course no-body is arguing that government-run activities are more efficient or effective than private ones but that was not your assertion. You simply stated that since it was run by government it creates no wealth. Which is obviously wrong.
You got bamboozled by your own statistics!
Imagine a society in which there are no privae industries = socialism. Is any wealth created? Are any things produced? Does anybody eat do any people get treated in hospitals, get their cars fixed or go to a restaurant?
If you are talking about government control of property and the means of production (vis a vis Chavez, Castro, Mao, Stalin, et al), no, for a while they might be able to extract minerals inefficiently, or manufacture particularly awful cars, but over the long term they don't create wealth (indeed, without freedom and private property there is no wealth - see my final comments below), in the long term such systems have only proven efficient at enslaving, and often, murdering, their own populaces.
Of course no-body is arguing that government-run activities are more efficient or effective than private ones
To run the argument you are using, that's exactly what you are arguing. And if you're not arguing for that - and really, you're contradicting yourself for a the sake of a rationalism, which gets us nowhere - then you do recognise that the State does not create wealth - again, per my previous paragraph, you cannot have 'wealth' under such a State, because by definition for the State to own the means of production, you have to destroy the notion of private property and ownership, as Mr Chavez is doing - thus there are no individuals for 'wealth' to attach to.
So state you position clearly.
I assume from the line you are taking that you support the Nanny State interfering in peoples lives: yes?
That you support a planned/mixed economy, not a free one: yes? (Recognising, as Reagan pointed out, that all planned economies rely on planned (slave) societies).
If that is the case, then you are wasting your time on this thread. I do not want to be slave to a system as you - I have to assume - do.
You should be posting on Frogblog or those sites that advocate the sacrifice of the individual and freedom, on the bloodied barbaric altar of the common good.
Actually Mr Hubbard I support a free-market individual society. However I do not use bobus manipulated statistics to back it up.
If you are asserting that there is no wealth created by government-run activities you need to really go and re-do you education.
Just because the wealth (i.e. goods and services) are created by people under the control or influence of government does not mean that their actions are not valuable to all of us.
Doctors, educators and scientists who have been paid by government but have healed alot of sick people, educated thousands of people to degree level and discovered new processes and made inventions.
You are bogussly claiming that just because the person who pays their salary is no private that their work has absolutely no value to anyone? Because value to other people is what is the basis of wealth creation.
You are so so wrong and you still cannot see it. Sad.
You need to re-do 5th form economics and maths. And do English again while you are at it for good measure.
Do you seriously not understand the glaring central contradiction in your posts?
Hint:
Actually Mr Hubbard I support a free-market individual society.
And:
Doctors, educators and scientists who have been paid by government but have healed alot of sick people, educated thousands of people to degree level and discovered new processes and made inventions.
You don't believe in a free market because you don't know what one is. None of these functions you mention should be controlled by the State. The fact they are explains why we have a die while you wait state healthcare system, and our schools turn our illiterates. And why we are not a free country.
Get it.
If the State owns everything, runs everything, including health, education, the means of production, then the concept of wealth is a monomer. It has no meaning. You know only the freedom of the slave Sally.
And you very definitely do not advocate a free market, or any form of free society. None at all. Read your posts, then ask yourself what is your purpose in posting them.
Mr Hubbard. It seems you just evaded the issue without adressing the point that regardless of who controls the worker, they produce value and hence wealth when they make or do something that is valued in society.
Why cant you just accept that your use of statistics is poor and misleading. Because the fact is that 1.75 million people do not support the remainder of the population. It is 1.75 million + those who work under the control of the state.
I am not saying that they SHOULD be working for the state. But your accusation that none of their work has value in a free society is so false as to be laughable.
The fact that you cannot handle simple statistics does not automatically mean that someone who points out this sad fact to you is automatically. You let the libertarian team down in the same way the AGW scientists let their team down. You would be better to understand issues properly before just rolling out the numbers because the statements you put with them are bogus.
... regardless of who controls the worker, they produce value and hence wealth ...
Pretty cold blooded stuff, isn't it. Is there any knowledge of 'living a free life' in that sentence. No. If the workers life is 'controlled' can they be said to produce wealth? How, they can't own that wealth.
Your thinking, as dangerous and shocking as it is given the death toll from totalitarianism over the 20th century, is I suspect prevalent amongst many who think they believe a free society (or even know what one would be). As I said, all our State school minions understand is the freedom of the slave. The more I argue the case of freedom, the more I come up with this contradictory nonsense. And your contradictions are huge Sally. Anyway, this thread allows me to understand, more, why I'll never see or live in a free society in my life time. It is why it is more likely I will see totalitarianism again instead, because tyrannies of the majority are sanctioning it all over again - if you don't believe me, look at Europe, the police state powers being granted the Inland Revenue in Greece, the increasing propensity of police to crack down brutally on all forms of protest, how across Europe and the US huge parts of the private sector have been nationalised on this financial crisis, just as Hayek said would happen in his Road to Serfdom ...
It is pointless carrying this argument on with you, whom, for the sake of pride, or some insane motivation I can't guess at, would argue yourself, and unfortunately me, into the Gulag (all over again) ...
No, actually one thing, for the record, given your continued effort to distort what I have said.
Quoting the man on Interest.co.nz who first stated the relevant statistic:
[From 1999 to today] both local and central governments grew consistently and faster than the rest of the economy [as did] the number of people receiving benefits, Working for Families payments and/or working for local and central governments...
This means that now we have 1.85 million people working and paying taxes to 1.75 million who receive benefits or work for the government. This near 1 to 1 ratio compares with a near 1.5 workers to 1 beneficiary in 1999.
See my relevant post.
Then, as rightfully qualified by me on this thread:
"Remember the tax system includes corporates, trusts, special partnerships, non-resident entities paying tax on NZ operations, etc, that all pay tax, thus it is not that 1 worker has to pay for 1 non worker, exactly."
[You've never acknowledged this Sally, as it doesn't fit your 'advocacy of slavery' agenda.]
But then the point I was making, and that in your yearning to support the Nanny State, you have refused any comprehension of:
"I said above be careful of the one for one statistic regarding paying for the State, as other entities pay tax also, but our government is borrowing a quarter of a billion dollars per week, because the State is so huge, the tax take can't fund it anymore, and this doesn't water down the powerful symbolism of an out of control State encapsulated in the one for one pairing."
But then, per my post directly above, this is all by the by now. The chilling issues shown on this thread, as much as that statistic, is the mindset your posts are written from, in your inability to grasp that for 'wealth' to have meaning, the individual must be free, must own their life.
By your logic Mr Hubbard all the slaves that tilled the fields and made free white men rich did not create a single bit of wealth for their masters since they were not working as free men.
Were government health and education passed back to the private sector (which I advocate) are you saying that more private teachers and doctors would not have to be employed? You are crazy of course they would have to be. The reason is because they would be needed to work (i.e. create value in exchange for a salary) to replace the value that was previously created by those in the public sector.
You are saying that a public operation is not valuable because we are forced to pay for them. Sorry but you are wrong because if people did not value the service given by hospitals they would not go there. But plenty of taxpayers attend hospitals - this would be sort of against your theory of public hospital providing no value to the community.
it is like someone saying that a government ownsed and run airline cannot provide a service that people want. Well, Air New Zealand competes in a free market and no-one is forced to use it but many people do who neither pay taxes in New Zealand nor live here. Are you saying those people who buy services from NZ Schools, hospitals and other government run businesses in the open market are acting against their own best interests?
Or could it be that you are actually wrong and that despite your illogical attempts to argue otherwise, even government-run businesses can create value and wealth in a community.
I agree that they cannot do so as well as private ones...but that is not what you said. You said they create none...which is patently false.
Your logic is undeniably false and you cannot accept it.
Sad.
By your logic Mr Hubbard all the slaves that tilled the fields and made free white men rich did not create a single bit of wealth for their masters since they were not working as free men.
No Sally , their masters (like our government officials today) got plenty rich. But did they (the slaves) create any wealth for themselves?
I am not interested in creating wealth for others, as I do not want others to create it for me, I want to create it for myself, and keep the proceeds.
I am not interested in creating "Wealth for the community" as you so euphemistically put it.
Spot on Dolf.
Sally has such a bad grasp of logic and drawing reasoned conclusions on reasoned analysis that I'm thinking she must be a school teacher in the State school system, or a student.
She's simply preaching tyranny, for reasons of misplaced pride or something equally absurd. I'm over arguing nonsense with her.
But yes, if there is no possibility of ownership, you cannot own your life or the product of your efforts, then, Sally, you have created no wealth that you can lose, and thus no wealth. That's the problem with living under tyranny.
I mean really, read and think of the rubbish you are arguing woman.
Bloody hell.
Sally, it seems that according to your logic, if someone robbed your neighbour's home and gave the money to the local hospital, wealth would've been created.
Wealth is only created when free men exchange goods and services with one another, because otherwise they wouldn't have made the transaction. Both parties must believe that they're better off having made the transaction. Resources aren't infinite, and wealth isn't created out of thin air; there is always some sort of trade-off involved.
RE the slaves comment: Frederic Bastiat talked about the seen and the unseen. Perhaps you should consider the wealth that was never created as a result of slavery. It far outweighs any wealth that was, and everyone - including slaveowners - were far poorer as a result.
Sorry Callum but your logic is faulty. Actually your exam,ple is only the same as mine if the person who robbed the money actually applied labour or capital and produced some additional product.
You are focussed on the fact that the people who are working are being paid with money yhat was forcibly taken from others. Of course this is not right or just however just because the buyer was forced to pay that does not mean that the worker did not actually make something.
No-one can deny that USA is a wealthier country than Ethiopia. But neither country is truly free. However the USa obviously has much more material wealth in terms of infrastructure, living standards etc. SOME of those things have been provided under government-run organisations using "stolen" money BUT you still include them as part of USA's wealth.
You seem to have a mental block when it comes to separating wealth (which is measured in terms of material living standards) versus free exchange. These two concepts are mutually exclusive and wealth can be created by someone who is working for government because the outcome of their work has a value EVEN in a free society.
So the statistics are bogus because much of the wealth of NZ is produced by government workers and these were not included in the stat.
Back to Stats 101 for you.
Sally, you're still missing the point.
Wealth is finite - therefore, everyone has to use it in the way that they believe best suits their needs and desires. So the public sector only creates wealth insofar as people would pay for its services without them being subsidized by the taxpayer.
All other money taken from the taxpayer, represents lost wealth, because the taxpayers would've used it in a way that benefited them more than if it went into the public sector.
"You seem to have a mental block when it comes to separating wealth (which is measured in terms of material living standards) versus free exchange."
Actually, the idea of wealth rests entirely on mutual exchange. Wealth is only wealth when people want it.
If I spend one trillion dollars building a private city with state-of-the-art transport and communications systems and no one buys into it, I have not created wealth. I have lost one trillion dollars (and that's just the beginning).
But according to you, I've created wealth. In fact, according to your logic, just the existence of new resources means I've created wealth.
Sorry Callum, that is why I specifically used examples of where our publicly provided services are currently being purhcased on the open market.
If you think that people would not be prepared anything for the education, health and transport services provided by government-run organisations. No-one is claiming that they are doing a better job than private firms would but you would be a fool to say that no-one would be willing to pay for our university education or healthcare because overses people currently are so they DO get value.
The analogy of a city in the middle of no-where is a good example of zero wealth or value. You have proved my point exactly. The fact is that the services provided with taxpayer money is valued by people as evidenced every day. Maybe you think we lose money by funding them and there are better ways but that still does not mean that SOME value is created.
Mr Hubbard contends that the health, education and transport and infrastructure services provided with taxpayer dollars are as useful as a city in the middle of nowhere that not one person would pay $1 for. That is obviously false.
"Sorry Callum, that is why I specifically used examples of where our publicly provided services are currently being purhcased on the open market."
They purchase government services because you don't have to pay twice for them. If full price had to be paid, I doubt many people would choose government over private services.
"The fact is that the services provided with taxpayer money is valued by people as evidenced every day. Maybe you think we lose money by funding them and there are better ways but that still does not mean that SOME value is created."
Certainly, Sally, some value is created. But far more value is destroyed for the reasons posted on the above post; thus, the net effect is negative. That's what I'm saying.
Even if service was of a high quality, that would have no import on the fact that more wealth is destroyed than created due to the expropriation of taxes. Indeed, if government services were of a high quality, why would they need to be funded from taxes? Wouldn't people be willing to pay full price?
I agree with you Callum. You make good sense. Government run services do destroy value. On that point I agree.
But to say that only those in private emplyment support all those who work for the government is simply not true. Because Were none of those services run by government then those who now work for the taxpayer would perform similar funtions in private emplyment (eg in schools, hospitals transport companies etc) so the number of 1.75million supporting the rest of the country is misleading.
That is what Mr Hubbard doesn't understand. He is dangerous with statistics in hand.
Callum, you are fighting the noble fight well, but did you read this post:
http://pc.blogspot.com/2010/02/reason-is-not-automatic.html
And as NZ's youngest freedom fighter, let me counsel you to be wise, when it comes time, in marriage: some woman are daft as ;)
It seems that Mr Hubbard has sadly shown his true colours.
Yes, 'F' for freedom Sally. That's my colour. Don't ever excuse tyranny or slavery as you have.
And you still have never read my posts.
Your second to last post:
so the number of 1.75million supporting the rest of the country is misleading.
I've dealt with this over and over, why don't you get it? Why can't you get it? For example, read my comment at 2/15/2010 05:07:00 PM.
I've never argued with someone so obstinately dumb as you have argued on this thread. Try reading what people write.
The end.
Directly quoting from your OP:
"Put another way, there were 1.75 million private sector wealth creators having to carry a population of 4.13 million."
Which as has been clearly explained to you is patently false due to the fact that if no government health, education or transport existed then those who now work for the taxpayer would perform similar functions in private employment. So those 1.75 million are not "Carrying the 4 million as you put it. It is more like 1.75 + those who work for valued government services.
You have no grasp of statistics.
Read my comment at 2/15/2010
05:07:00 PM! And my posts before that in the thread.
There is nothing wrong with pride, Sally, unless it's misplaced.
Yes Mr Hubbard. You should heed your own words and own your mistakes instead of making a mess of them.
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