Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[kandrathe]

Compared to what? A society with no government? Surely not. As Pete rightly says, the question is where government intervention ceases to be beneficial, and instead becomes meddling. The first dollars spent on defense, policing and laws are surely worth spending - societies without that are hellholes. The question is - where after that do you stop?

Yes, we need a limited set of government to protect individuals rights.

You are a rational employer, paying "extra" to buy "extras" - a quality employee who will remain loyal. So you are in no sense paying higher wages than necessary, you are paying the wages necessary to secure the quality of employee you want, and prevent poaching.

Yes, this is the one. As an employer, I remove as many distractions and detractors from a person's job as are in my control, while creating opportunities for growth in the areas that would be in the best interest of the company for person to grow (and within their areas of interest).

Again, you fixate on one side of the price equation, and not the other. Supply is one half - what the employer decides they want to pay. Demand is the other - what the employee is willing to work for. Employers are concerned about the gross pay, because that's what comes out of their pockets. But employees are concerned about the net pay, because that's what ends up in their bank account. A lower-tax environment means employees take home more of their paycheque. They should, therefore, be willing to accept less gross income to produce the same net income.

They should, but they don't. I've negotiated salaries and raises for 20 years, and no one ever looked at it from a "take home pay" perspective. They look at it from their research in what the position's gross salary rate is (even if that is in a different region with a higher cost of living). They do measure a couple of other factors, with benefits being a close 2nd, and the third from my perspective is their vision of what the job entails. That last one includes, things like how much stress there would be, how many hours they work, the intensity of the position, the opportunity for growth in their areas of interest, contribution to the greater good, and other "fun" factors.

Now, if government and private business are exact substitutes, and people buy the exact same services they previously paid for with tax dollars, they're going to demand net income to match their new expenses, which should raise wages right back up to where they were.

My experience in working with both private sector, and government employees has been that private sector employees are much more productive, and in some cases twice as productive as government workers.

The question is, then, is the government providing bargains, or not? That is a very difficult question. In some sectors, surely. In others, surely not. Where that balance lies, we'll need a lot of evidence to know.

Reason Foundation article; Comparing Private Sector and Government Worker Salaries"...according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) National Compensation Survey, private-sector employees worked an average of 2,050 hours in 2008, 12 percent more than the 1,825 hours worked by the average public-sector employee."

"Even on an hour-for-hour basis, one would expect private sector workers to be more productive due to the lack of competitive forces in government. Private sector businesses face constant pressures of competition to innovate and improve their goods and services, lest they lose business to their competitors. Government agencies, by contrast, are typically monopolies protected by law, and thus are not subject to such competitive incentives and pressures."

If I were your benevolent dictator, with the budget in my libertarian hands, I would be able to easily trim about 1/2 of the jobs from my States budget, and 2/3rds of the Federal budget. That is not to say, overnight, nor to say those jobs would be removed from the economy. They would just be done better, and more efficiently by private sector interests with government management, and reduce spending and waste tremendously. Better services, and lower taxes. Vote for me!