21,995,000 to 12,329,000: Government Employees Outnumber Manufacturing Employees 1.8 to 1

originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: jude11

For quite some time is a well known secret that the US government is the biggest employer in the nation, if the government goes belly up guess what, the nation will come to a stand still.

Now let just think about how many of retirement accounts and government benefits pay offs are within this group.

My husband no only receive retirement from the government as for his years in the military service, but also he works full time for the government too.

what that tells you, is a say so remember, never bite the hands that feed you.

So far the government employment feeds a lot of people.

You say never bite the hand that feeds you?

Considering that government produces nothing in and of itself, who do you think feeds the government that feeds you? People that work in the private sector ... you know the same one that introvert claims isn't big enough and no one seems to care when it continues to shrink.

Government has created the conditions that are shrinking it, and so is very much biting the hand that feeds.

a reply to: ketsuko

you know the same one that introvert claims isn't big enough and no one seems to care when it continues to shrink.

I did not say anything close or even related to that. Do not put words in my mouth or lie to make a point.

That is a very dishonorable tactic.

originally posted by: introvert
a reply to: ketsuko

you know the same one that introvert claims isn't big enough and no one seems to care when it continues to shrink.

I did not say anything close or even related to that. Do not put words in my mouth or lie to make a point.

That is a very dishonorable tactic.

You just called anyone who was anti left a nut bag on another thread! Get off your high horse! Want to talk about dishonorable?

originally posted by: seeker1963

originally posted by: introvert
a reply to: ketsuko

you know the same one that introvert claims isn't big enough and no one seems to care when it continues to shrink.

I did not say anything close or even related to that. Do not put words in my mouth or lie to make a point.

That is a very dishonorable tactic.

You just called anyone who was anti left a nut bag on another thread! Get off your high horse! Want to talk about dishonorable?

No I did not. I said that some of the stuff believed and posted by the anti-Left is nutbag nonsense. I did not say "anyone". Why is reading comprehension such an issue and why must people lie to make a point? Let the facts stand as they are.

I also stand by what I have said in this thread. The numbers are there for people to digest and I refuse to allow people to lie about what I've said or posted.

You have done the same as ketsuko. You either can't read or lie.

originally posted by: seeker1963
a reply to: jude11

Reminds me of that old saying, "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians".

Waiting to be called a racist in 3,,,,2......1

Wait , what ? I am a great bit American Indian(of course we prefer Native American) , as I remember the saying should go "Too many chiefs and not enough braves". Makes for a bad campaign..Peace to you

so we have almost twice as many people working in gov't buying crap than we have working in the private sector making that crap. This wouldn't be so bad if it was the result of advancements in robotics making those manufacturing workers not needed but that isn't exactly what happened was it? na, what actually happened was that the companies decided that moving those jobs to countries that offered them cheaper labor was a great idea!!
so what we have is a massive army working in the gov't, or in low wage service jobs and alot less people working producing the goods we need, while a whole mess of people seem to have disappeared from the workforce. an army of government workers working hard to provide the people with the subsidies they need to live and another army working hard at war to tick off the countries that are providing quite a bit of the crap we buy!!

if the world does finally get sick and tired of our meddling and decide not to trade with us we won't have the cloth to cloth us, the parts we need to keep our machines running, or all those neat gadgets people love that make life easier.
and if the corporate world doesn't start paying more in taxes to support that gov't army, well, those low wages won't be able to support them, just drain the funds more.

this can only end badly......

originally posted by: introvert
a reply to: ketsuko

you know the same one that introvert claims isn't big enough and no one seems to care when it continues to shrink.

I did not say anything close or even related to that. Do not put words in my mouth or lie to make a point.

That is a very dishonorable tactic.

These are your own words from this thread:

By looking at the numbers, it appears that we have more of a problem in the manufacturing sector, than we do with the size of government. Manufacturing declined at a bigger rate than the increase in government.

So explain to me how this is NOT a claim that the manufacturing sector is not big enough.

a reply to: ketsuko

My apologies. I did not read that correctly.

I would agree that the manufacturing sector is not big enough.

a reply to: introvert

I was in no way attempting to make it look you thought government was too big. I think we all know that's not what you're about.

Doesn't the government employees total include the military? And does it also include law enforcement or not?

Also, most modern manufacturing factories also have automation, which further decreases the amount of employees. Worker productivity is at all time highs, so there's no need to higher millions of new workers in the manufacturing field. Especially since American companies have no problem outsourcing most of the work to cheaper labor pools.

In other words, this means nothing. If we had more government employees than manufacturing, defense, services, mining, and energy jobs combined, then it may have some meaning. But even then it wouldn't really matter.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Actually, it does.

You cannot tax robots, and no matter how productive each individual worker may be, he or she only makes one salary or set of taxable wages.

Government and by extension government employees draw their own wages, benefits, etc., directly from the money taxed out of the private sector.

This is why it should be very worrying that not only are there more government employees than private sector ones, but that the average government employee also tends to make about a 1/3 more than his or her private sector counterpart. You can only tax the private sector for so long before it cannot produce or keep up with the demands of the government.

In a sense, you could view the government as a tumor. A small one doesn't do much to harm the body, but as it grows and demands more and more resources, the cancer will eventually kill the host body.

originally posted by: ketsuko
You say never bite the hand that feeds you?

Considering that government produces nothing in and of itself, who do you think feeds the government that feeds you? People that work in the private sector ... you know the same one that introvert claims isn't big enough and no one seems to care when it continues to shrink.

So someone is biting the hand of the government which is in turn biting the hand of the ..... private sector. You say here the private sector is shrinking, or are you only referring to the manufacturing sector? And of course it doesn't make sense to bite the hand which feeds you.

Government has created the conditions that are shrinking it, and so is very much biting the hand that feeds.

You seem to be saying government jobs are shrinking? Those employed in government is 7% of the population, according to Introvert. It was 5% in 1941. That means it's increasing, not shrinking.

a reply to: jude11

21,995,000 to 12,329,000: Government Employees Outnumber Manufacturing Employees 1.8 to 1. Well let's not sugar coat it...DOUBLE is the correct term to use here.

Long live service industry...

a reply to: introvert

This topic of lost of manufacturing jobs and its history has been discussed many times, for a few years here in ATS, the government no only hired directly but it also uses contracting agencies, even if the companies are private they pay the employees with the money that is awarded by the government.

So the numbers could actually be higher.

US is the largest employer in the world, no only in the US with a work force as today of 3.2 million, followed by the peoples liberation army of China

I do agree with introvert. It is more of a manufacturer problem. Sure our government is captured leading to legislation being created to make it very easy for large businesses to outsourse jobs to much cheaper labor markets. Import tax for example is lower than it should be to help level the field.

Automation has also hedged the stats.

Velocity of money is probably what is paying all those government checks. Manufacturing is not the only industry out there.

a reply to: ketsuko

I see it as a vicious cycle, government uses tax dollars to pay employees that goes around and buy crap that the US brings from oversea due to trade agreements to collect taxes again from the money it pays to the employees to pay employees again and so on and on.

Sadly is more money been leached out than coming in and the comment about never bite the hands than feed you is actually a sarcastic comment.

a reply to: jonnywhite

"It" refers back the manufacturing sector.

a reply to: Terminal1

Actually most of our manufacturing base has been lost in just a short time, when US expanded the trade agreements, while this was supposed to be beneficial and a good thing for competition, it didn't took long for most of the manufacturing to go away along with the jobs.

a reply to: marg6043
So the government is hiring private sector contractors to do work rather than hiring from the public sector? And this doesn't get counted in the official estimate for public sector employees?

Introvert says 7% of the population works in the public sector. It was 5% in 1941. If we counted private contractors being hired by government agencies, would the numbers still look similar for each?

EDIT: Want to add the job market is big in these right now:
1) Retail and food sector jobs (restaurants/bars/etc)
2) Serices like accounting/engineering/law
3) Health Care (obviously)

a reply to: jonnywhite

This practice started to get common place back during the Bush days and Rumsfeld agenda of privatizing the military, after 9/11 most of the military bases in the US are majority contracting companies running the show.