Monday, September 30, 2013

One Simple Graph Explains It All

From Legal Insurrection

This is a disequilibrium situation seeking correction. The pressure is palpable.

32 comments:

john said...

Seems low to me. The fed benefits, that is. I am looking primarily at the right hand side of this graph.

I once did a side-by-side, comparing my billing rate to that of a Fed professional of some grade, with his assistance. When I included sick and other days off, vacation, etc. with the retirement and health, the benefits side approached 40% of his pay. This did not include various educational benefits and other percs. When I showed him that his theoretical billing rate exceeded mine, significantly, he didn't, and still doesn't, believe my calcs.

My experience is that Fed employees, more than state, local and county workers, tend to be nearly oblivious of their financial good fortune. They think that plum is part of their thumb.

rcocean said...

Economics for dummies in one easy graph.

rcocean said...

I could sit down with the raw data and produce a graph that would show just the opposite in about result.

It just depends on what data you cherry pick.

Dumb.

rcocean said...

How many Fed workers? 2 million, how many private sector workers? > 100 million.

rcocean said...

How much of Fed budget goes to Fed Salaries? 6 percent.

chickelit said...

I love it: one commenter says it's an understatement, another says it's completely wrong.

chickelit said...

My heart goes out to those poor, poor undervalued and underpaid Federal workers, rcocean.

When I was an active research chemist, the top of the pay scale was at the national labs.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

And in keeping with the broad ramifications of a shutdown, I think it's important that everybody understands the federal government is America's largest employer.

An interesting choice of interpretation of what we are facing, when you consider that a business would never be allowed to run the way the US federal government has.

To say the federal government is an 'employer' is, if I may, part and parcel of the deficient run, the defunct fantasy that is the sham perpetrated in the name of good government.

Which is not saying much considering how poorly large businesses have been allowed to run and prosper over the last few decades.

In other words... I have nothing to say, zilch, zero, nada.

Titus said...

Update on Troop please.

thanks dolls.

tits.

chickelit said...

The disparity is kind of like the situation at the state level in Wisconsin and why the state employees failed to garner much sympathy and support from voters in that state. They had simply overreached.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I just wanted to use the word defunct in a sentence.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Trooper is taking tests. that what the last post said.

chickelit said...

Titus said...
Update on Troop please.

He's posting video of himself half naked in his hospital gown & cracking jokes.

john said...

El Pollo Raylan said...

He's posting video of himself half naked in his hospital gown & cracking jokes.


I don't want to look. Seeing Roy Scheider was bad enough.

chickelit said...

How many Fed workers? 2 million, how many private sector workers? > 100 million.

If we had a single private employer that employed around 2 % of the workforce and they paid significantly higher wages and benefits, we'd say "great."

It's the different nature of the animal, the monopolistic nature of government which makes it subject to such criticism and analysis. Surely you must see this unless you believe that government must pay significantly higher than the private sector to attract the "best" people.

Known Unknown said...

The U.S. Government is the largest corporation in the world.

Phil 314 said...

As a physician who's worked for the feds and for private employers this looks right.

bagoh20 said...

I know very few private sector workers with a pension, or free health care, which is almost universal with public sector, that alone makes the differences more that what the chart shows.

bagoh20 said...

The other thing to remember is that the people in half those graph bars support the others. Yea, the lower paid ones do the supporting,... out of fairness, and threat of incarceration.

chickelit said...

Another point getting lost is that once upon a time, private sector workers did considerably better than public sector workers; private companies unionized well before state and federal workers did. Public sector unions only "caught up" later on.

Private sector wages and benefits have now receded to the point that the public sector wages look exposed and conspicuously higher.

The question is, how to restore parity. Certainly, further milking middle class employees in the private sector is the worst idea. Liberals will say there is an endless supply of Romney-type booty buried off shore to plunder.

Chip Ahoy said...

Did you say he is half naked in his hospital gown joking about his crack?

Revenant said...

The question is, how to restore parity.

Dust off the D&D set. Find your ten-sided dice.

Roll 1d10. Tell all federal employees whose SSNs end in the number rolled that they have six months to find another job.

Repeat until budget balances or nobody works for the federal government. Win/win. :)

bagoh20 said...

A would suggest doing things like getting McDonald's to take over the DMV, and the school lunch program. Apple and , and Boeing jointly take over public education, I'll handle the justice Department (I have some scores to settle). Stuff like that.

bagoh20 said...

The graph is Federal workers only - but all public sector workers exceed 25 million. Which means every 4-5 private sector workers has to support one public sector worker, as well as 1-2 people on public assistance of some kind. Too many takers - not enough makers.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

What's the temperature of the Earth supposed to be again?

Well, well, well, look at all those raisins in the pudding!!!

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

He's posting video of himself half naked in his hospital gown & cracking jokes.

Funny as a heart attack, I'm sure.

There's probably a joke to be made about Trooper getting a hospital visit from three ghosts.

Methadras said...

rcocean said...

How many Fed workers? 2 million, how many private sector workers? > 100 million.


The federal government is the single largest employer in the country. Those 100 million are spread out across the country. There is a distinction here in the concentration of workers by one employer who can for the most part dictate the contents of their contracts with almost no resistance if any at all, while the rest of us get no concession. Disparity and inequity. This is the public sector/government way, while proselytizing equity of outcome for the rest of us and using our tax dollars to manipulate those outcomes. Your comparative is bullshit and doesn't hold water.

Methadras said...

Revenant said...

The question is, how to restore parity.

Dust off the D&D set. Find your ten-sided dice.

Roll 1d10. Tell all federal employees whose SSNs end in the number rolled that they have six months to find another job.

Repeat until budget balances or nobody works for the federal government. Win/win. :)


HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Fuck the D10, D20. Hell better yet 2D10.

Icepick said...

When I was an active research chemist, the top of the pay scale was at the national labs.

Yeah, but the real money is in meth.

rcocean said...

"Your comparative is bullshit and doesn't hold water."

I don't even know what the hell your trying to say, or how it related to my point.

Are asserting that Federal Employees have leverage? Because they don't. They can't strike. Like most, you seem to confuse Federal workers with State and local unions that DO strike and get absurd concessions because they donate to the Democrats who control the local/state government.

But don't let logic and facts get in your way, they haven't so far.

rcocean said...

Do even have to tell you that national Reps have controller all or part of the US Government for the last 30 years? Or that they don't particularly like Federal workers?

This is entirely different from say New York City or Chicago or even California which has had a Democrat Legislature for 30 years or longer.

Methadras said...

rcocean said...

I don't even know what the hell your trying to say, or how it related to my point.


That's cause your a moron.

Are asserting that Federal Employees have leverage? Because they don't. They can't strike.

I never mentioned they couldn't strike because I know they can't, nitwit. The only action they have is either en masse resignations or work-to-rule. Smokescreen much?

Like most, you seem to confuse Federal workers with State and local unions that DO strike and get absurd concessions because they donate to the Democrats who control the local/state government.

Duh, derpy.

But don't let logic and facts get in your way, they haven't so far.

Logic and facts don't get in my way because that's what I use to great effect, when ass clenchers like you throw up strawman nonsense to hide their idiocy. Try harder to be less of a douche nozzle.