the new economic misery index

[hindsight2020]

Originally Posted by floridasandy

as people are taxed and regulated, they are going to move and it is an inevitability. (which actually addresses point 3 of the post)

3. Internecine Conflict Between Protected Fiefdoms will intensify. As Federal and local government tax revenues continue plummeting, "tax the rich" schemes will proliferate and promptly backfire. The truly wealthy--THE 1/10 of 1% WHO OWN SOME 2/3 OF THE PRODUCTIVE ASSETS OF THE NATION--will buy exemptions or loopholes from their corrupt and venal Congressperson for a mere $100,000 or so. (Even a million is cheap when you're saving $100 million.)

That leaves the working "rich," those professionals and business owners who have a choice. They can always opt out and just shut down, move to another state or country or cut their business or hours down to subsistence level.

The more "raise taxes" schemes which are passed into law, the faster tax revenues will drop. Most lower income households pay no tax at all except the 7% FICA/Social Security tax. The "rich" pay almost all the income taxes, and as they opt out tax revenues have nowhere to go but down.

Stunned that their revenue-enhancement plans have backfired, the various protected fiefdoms (fire departments, cop shops, city hall, school districts, transit districts, universities, "Defense" a.k.a. Global Empire, brought to you by Military-Industrial Complex, Inc., with special guest, Blackwater Associates, Sickcare/Medicare/Medicaid, and so on) will start jockeying to be first in line for the dwindling tax swag.

Fire departments will start mailing out flyers pleading for extra property taxes lest they have to close a station or three (anything other than take a pay cut or slash their lavish pension/medical bennies) and Police chiefs will exit their chauffeured vehicles a block from the "town meeting" (so they can appear to walk in with appropriate humility) where they will plead for "more cops on the street." (Never mind the PD retirees drawing $100K per year in cash and bennies.)

The revolving door between "Defense" corporations and the Pentagon will spin even faster as lobbyists sprout like evil weeds, hawking new costly ways to "fight" GWOT (global war on terrorism). "Either pay us now or the nation will be at risk." Yeah, right. Like a $300 million fighter jet has anything to do with GWOT, or "Homeland Security" has anything to do with, well, homeland security.

Go ahead and nail another "terrorist leader" in the Yemeni wastelands with a high-tech drone missile; did anyone look at the demographics of the region, which is exploding with literally millions of young men devoid of goals and gainful employment? Are high-tech weaponry toys anything other than profit machines for Protected Fiefdoms? Go ask the captains and commanders on the ground before you answer; don't take the word of some overpaid pundit/PR hack/government factotum.

Sadly for the Protected Fiefdoms, there simply won't be enough money to fund all their fat jobs, fat pensions, fat benefits, fat expense accounts, fat contracts, etc. (The Chinese have simply stopped buying more U.S. Treasuries, by the way; the "pusher" is getting tired of providing endless credit to the junkie, who will soon be experiencing the dread tremors of agonizing withdrawal from credit dependency.)

Scathing commentary. As a US servicemember and an aspiring civil servant I completely acknowledge and agree with your assessment of the existence of rent seeking in the public sector. My only exception to your commentary is that you seem too public job biased. The public sector is not the only employment sector to suffer from rent seeking. Off the top of my head private healthcare, the education racket, and financial services are private industries that make a mafioso look like a beggar. So let's keep the scope of these "protected fiefdoms" wide and objective.

The only reason why public work is highlighted today is because they have always enjoyed stability, after all that is the reason people like me desire such positions. In the mid 90s it wasn't cool to be a civil servant, when aggregate salaries were exploding in the private sector and public work was viewed as underachievement. The reality is that private employment in this country has always suffered from "gold rush" dynamics and people are too greedy and short-sighted to account for it and lived their lives without the recognition that out of all days of the year, some days we are bound to see rain..... Now that the bubble has popped public servants and their steady churn are viewed as the devil only because it fares better (for the time being) than private employment and private employees can't stand it when the slow and steady tortoise is ahead of the hare, it highlights the hare's own inadequacies and people don't like being fronted.

So the point is noted, but let's dial down the 'cop and fireman' witch-hunt; nobody's innocent here, we're ALL rent-seekers in Shawshank prison (aka America)......

As to the rest of your post, spot on.

[floridasandy]

i am surprised that you saw that as mostly a cop and fireman witch hunt post, as i think the point is to show why all of this cannot continue. the private sector takes its lumps first (unless the government bails out their favorite top tier in the private sector, as we have witnessed) and THEN the public sector takes it lumps. it is inevitable that, in the destruction of regular jobs in the private sector, there will be future destruction in the public sector as a direct result.

remember that government chose to protect the wealth in the top tier with the bailout, and the middle/lower classes of BOTH public and private will now suffer.