Quote:It is a pretty simple problem. People view government jobs as equal to private sector jobs. Realistically, it takes X amount (probably about 8 to 10) private sector jobs to provide the funding for one government job. Then also, the government needs to spend money on actual products and services, which require more private sector jobs to fund. In these down turns, people actually consume more services thus propelling government spending even higher, and requiring more people to actually manage the demand for services.
You think the problem is simple because you think most government jobs are useless.
But of course they are not, and many private sector jobs could be turned in to government jobs, the same as it is also possible the other way around.
What would be the advantage of a privately owned insurance company compared to a state runned one? Even if there would be more effective labour in a private one (something which I don't believe in) you would just be paying people salary that otherwise wouldn't have job and would need unemployment benefits.
The disadvantages of private insurance companies to me seem bigger; possible involvement of foreign entities in a basic need for the people, spending on extreme salaries for CEO's, spending on commercials, dealing with people's health as if it has a monetary value etc. etc. Plus that having private companies arranging things like health insurance, electricity, water requires a lot of government work for checking if things go as they should go.
We have also all seen that big banks are so big that they have almost equal power as a government. People need banks (you can't get your salary in cash and hide it under your pillow), people pay for banks services and we all know that banks make lots of money. I don't see your problems with government if you must realize that companies have probably much more power over many people.
It would be great if you could decide yourself for what to pay (like you suggested before, paying for firemen and policemen together with the other people from your neighboorhood), however, this is much to complicated for most people, and people tend not to agree on many things....I would like to see the yearly meeting which decides how much to pay to the private firebrigade this year).
ps. did you read what Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs said? He found that banks are doing Gods work. For God's work he made 53 miljon dollars in 2006 for example. There is enough money to go around, you just have a problem dividing it a bit normally.