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Guest Post: Shutting Down But Not Closing Up
Submitted by James E. Miller of The Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada,
At the time of publication, the United States government is shut down. That does not mean the gears of the state have come to a thankful halt. Over three-quarters of Washington’s global hegemony remains fully functional. Tax dollars are still being redistributed. Wars continue to be waged. The public at large is going about its day unbothered by the furlough of tens of thousands of government employees. For once, apathy has paid off. The only poor souls bemoaning the shutdown are the ones sitting at home.
The hysteria over the non-closure has hit peak levels in the royal court media. It’s on the front page of every newspaper and periodical in America, and in major news outlets around the globe. Taken at face value, one gets the impression that out-of-work bureaucrats are starving like dogs in the street. But reality tends to be far from what’s editorialized. One half of the chamber of thieves passed a funding bill to ensure all government workers are back-paid. The other, more judicious, half will not think twice before sending the measure to the President’s desk. Like that, the painful and impoverishing hiccup in operation will become a fully-funded vacation.
In the meantime, the ticks deprived of taxpayer blood are still whining at the top of their lungs. In an interview with a Washington Post reporter, an unnamed military contractor bemoans the current furlough and displays incredible angst over his time off. He is perturbed by the constant crisis-to-crisis governing. It’s all too much uncertainty for his soft, subsidized, and overworked being. In between crying through his tax-fattened lips, the anonymous complainer lets the secret out of the bag: “I thought that ‘hey, government will always be here.’ I mean, I’m not that naive, but you think it’s pretty stable.”
It’s often forgotten that government is not outside all the constraints of normal industry. Public sector employees should plan for bad times like everyone else. Civil servants treat their position like Christmas Morning – a guarantee where mommy and daddy will have presents under the tree. The state provides society’s most unproductive members with a venue for making a living by predation. Why worry about pleasing fickle consumers when you can just shake them down to pay your rent? Of course, it’s a bit more nuanced than that. The bureaucrat in one of the many departments of trivial spending relies on tax collectors for his paycheck. Not only does he live off theft, but he is far too cowardly to perform the dirty deed of robbing his fellow man. The days go by, stuffed in a concrete monochrome building, with the hope of only climbing the ladder of officialdom. This is a comfortable living for someone whose life goal is to exist nonchalantly as a parasite.
The ongoing shutdown provides a valuable lesson for the average person outside of the state. For the everyday man, government is an abstract concept of pure force. Once in a while, it tosses him a bone to chew on. For the most part, Leviathan keeps to demanding ransom in the name of “national glory,” exceptionalism, or some other trite phrase. Even the slowest of folks doesn’t truly buy that their vote counts for anything. The Oppenheimer distinction between the economic means and political means is apparent to anyone who subsists through their own labor. Everyone else believes they are adding something to society for the greater good, when in fact they act as a subtraction.
A closing of government services, absent those in charge of property protection, brings little attention to those minding themselves and their business. The sufferers are, of course, the minority who find themselves unneeded for the time being. In a separate Washington Post article, the plight of the unneeded bureaucrat is center stage. For a paper that survives by printing government idolatry, the editors likely have their hands full gathering scoops on a demoralized workforce. With nearly a million freeloaders out of the job, there is bound to be some seething resentment. One of these aimless paper-pushers told the Post that his mood was pivoting from “resignation to anger.” A lack of income left him and his fellow leeches feeling like “pawns” caught up by some exogenous power.
A furloughed employee of the welfare-enabling, cronyist Department of Housing and Urban Development complained that she “used to be really proud to work for the federal government.” It’s a humorous assertion considering her agency specializes in penning up ne’er-do-wellers in shoddy apartment complexes. How any respectable person could take pride in bribing easy voters while paying kickbacks to contractors, I have no idea.
All this fear making its way into the media is demonstrative of just how entrenched the state is within contemporary society and the difficulty of scaling it back, if even by the smallest of millimeters. Throwing a bunch of desktop laborers to the curb elicits a loud enough peep. Taking away expected benefits is a whole different story. Like a mother rodent hissing and clawing to protect its young, the feeders at the government trough will react abrasively if the flow of money is challenged. Vitriolic rhetoric, street theater, pandering to emotion, and the occasional bout of violence are all sickly creatures that come forth when the mere prospect of making a chink in the state’s bulky armor is floated. With enough cacophony, the public will fold. It’s a game of banging spoons – and the political class specializes in trumpeting its own necessity.
Dissent over cutting government benefits is not limited to the United States. The recent mass outrage in Greece by the youth and organized labor was caused in large part by the threat of state benefit cuts. In Quebec, students engaged in wide-scale protests over a proposition by the provincial government to raise university tuition. These actions were not some new phenomenon. The irritable cry of losing a “gimme gimme” benefit is learned in the toddler stage, and reemerges in adulthood for those conditioned to think life simply hands you resources.
The United States government is not going away anytime soon. Soon enough, even the defenders of a limited state in Congress will capitulate and reopen the empty agencies. Bureaucrats will return from vacation to resume tormenting the men and women forced to fund their lavish lifestyles. The fact that these public servants were considered “non-essential” is waived away as some semantic tomfoolery. All government positions lack essentialness for societal function. But to be explicitly labeled “non-essential” is horribly degrading and emasculating (for those bequeathed with the Y chromosome). Yet there is no fuss. The government worker, in his heart of hearts, knows he brings nothing to the table. As economist Shawn Ritenour writes,
Pretty soon, these mid-to-low-level bureaucrats get trapped. They hate their jobs, because they see that rarely does effort or ability count for anything. They find themselves out of the political loop and, hence, cut off from the best route to promotion. They are stuck. They despise their jobs, yet it is too costly for them to leave and forge their way in the private sector.
The same government workers kicked out of their day-job will go crawling back once given the green light. Being called the equivalent of worthless will be of no consideration. The paycheck is paramount to their dignity. They have my sympathy, but there would be more to share if the state didn’t thrive off the fat of the rubes.
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Obama and the Libs said the world would come to an end.
Ha! Hardly...
FUCK YOU YELLEN YOU STUPID WHORE
Come on, that's just sexist. He's not stupid.
Stupid fucking whore...fixed it
And all the while the multi-national corporations and banks that Jimmy Miller worships continue to feed unabated at the public trough, and scream more loudly than anyone that the debt ceiling must be raised lest their feeding be threatened. But surely these same nice folks will behave themselves just as soon as we hand them "daddy's" keys.
Everything government touches turns to crap. Ringo Starr
It's really quite obvious that government has touched your brain.
It's really quite obvious that the oligarchs have washed yours.
Dear Stupid Person,
All this shit that is happening is because of the EXISTENCE OF GOVERNMENT.
If it didn't exist, IT WOULDN'T BE HAPPENING.
Your brain is wired to want government. You and your fucking ilk are responsible for ALL OF THIS.
Enron CEO: I don't like governments either, considering that I'm invested in and own a few power companies..I'd really just like to get government out of the way and be able to charge what I like...Basically fuck the shit out of them parasite customers..Fuck the government!
"Ass"ocracy thats a better name...The ass you want to rape will probably be your own ...dummy.
I don't like this government either...It sucks...But I also don't want to screwed by some mega corporation...
But since this government is letting that happen anyway....So maybe not "Fuck the government" but "Fuck these politicians". Because rreally it's the politicians that make "The People" available for screwing.
Free paid vacation... yeah, feel really sorry for them. Leeches.
F the govt parasites! Doug Casey's group said the only thing creating any growth or wealth in the USA is fracking.
F U anti-frackers here on ZH. You know who you are - most of you Fk's are closet case Obammy lovers!
Oh - and Casey's people on health said if you need an operation over the age of 45 - under Obamacare when fully implemented - it will go to a panel to decide if you will get it or not. I am sure we will all be flagged in the NSA database for health care services or slow or rapid death depending on how sick you are.
My guess is - If you do not support the police state - you will get no healthcare. Yeah it is that bad so save me the f***king red team blue team shit - you CS'ers who voted for it.
Are you afraid of dying Freddie? I'm not.
There are two kinds of people around these days: the productive few who save, invest or speculate successfully and end up being forced to pay in more than they take out...and those masses who spend all their income, save next-to-nothing or simply live on entitlements and take out much more in services and funds than they pay in.
The thing about "democracy" is that every voter thinks he gets more out of it than he pays in. Most probably DO - but the ones who do the lion's share of the paying are probably getting pretty tired of it.
Remind me again how speculating successfully makes one productive. Or are we admitting that the whole productive-class meme is just code for "makes a lot of money."
Successful capital formation! That's personally productive, and equivalent to SAVING...
The large majority of the truly wealthy who "speculate successfully" inherited their wealth. And in many instances they speculate by doing things like shorting the market on inside information and/or market manipulation. Others make money by doing things like telling their clients to sell while they buy from said clients at the "other desk." Do they count as productive too?
I think he's referring to speculators who invest in businesses and enable new discoveries and products and industries. Those people are productive because they enable the production.
Fine, then he can call out the vast majority of speculators who do no such thing and acknowledge that they are the opposite of productive even though they account for most of the wealth in this country and the world. Waiting.
I don't dispute your point, but the IRS doesn't tax corporate raiders differently from corporation builders. They all pay the same tax, subject (of course) to how creative their accountants are. So how to differentiate the two entities in the eyes of the government?
LTER, First off, I don't think you're a bot. I don't even consider you a troll. Sometimes, you find the right road, and the community rewards you with greenies. I know the feeling;) Speculation is a wonderful thing in a free society. However, in a society who merely "believes" they are free, while being manipulated inside a completely closed paradigm where a small group has seized control of all the inputs- the term "speculation" takes on an entirely different meaning. Think Muppets.
Your obsession with objectivism is unhealthy, methinks. It's not the devil you percieve it to be.
Follow her for a while and you will see that Lola builds rapport for her own agenda. There's a definite pattern. She'll give you 3/4 accepted truth and eventually deliver her 1/4 poison.
Her? I wasn't considering gender. Maybe I should be more polite? *snicker*
I get your polnt though. The old adage "Every good lie has to have a fair amount of truth in it", comes to mind.
The productive few cannot include most of the people on Wall Street they are the worst of the parisitic element of this society...They make nothing and provide fraud as some sort of "service".
If people thing that a country can actually work very well without a middle class, you've got another thing coming.
Well said.
Why are most federal employees. Black or women ???
In my state, most state employees are black women, 2 birds/1 stone.
It used to be called the EEO office in my day. Staffed entirely by GS11 and GS12 blacks, its sole purpose was to make sure that a disproportionate amount of black people worked for the federal government. Over time any competant white person got fired for speaking out or fed up watching incompetent black parasites move up the latter. The final straw happend in 2008 when one of their tribes made it all the way to the white house. What is happening now was ordained back then. Women were a little later to the party, but have managed to clean up almost as well.
more like closing down but not shutting up
Wow you really don't like government workers do you! A really non-objective article. Nobody minds getting their SS checks, or medicare or other benefits, but paying somebody to actually do govt work oh thats just so awful like the CIA, FBI, US Marshalls, they are all scumbags huh. Such a crappy crappy article. Looks like a high school research paper gone bad.
I was kind of with you until you said that the CIA, FBI, US Marshalls are not scumbags. Maybe 50 years ago that was true.
Wow you really don't like government workers do you! A really non-objective article. Nobody minds getting their SS checks, or medicare or other benefits, but paying somebody to actually do govt work oh thats just so awful like the CIA, FBI, US Marshalls, they are all scumbags huh. Such a crappy crappy article. Looks like a high school research paper gone bad.
Wow you really don't like government workers do you! A really non-objective article. Nobody minds getting their SS checks, or medicare or other benefits, but paying somebody to actually do govt work oh thats just so awful like the CIA, FBI, US Marshalls, they are all scumbags huh. Such a crappy crappy article. Looks like a high school research paper gone bad.
Your thoughts were so much more salient the THIRD TIME you posted them!
I'm happy to be able to award you three red pills for the same post.
I feel special
Ha, thanks. Only meant to post it once. I guess just like the DOL this AM with the computer glitch on the jobless claims. The author should try some government work for awhile. He might find out some new reality that it might actually be enjoyable and fullfilling and more interesting than be a fun loveable Walmart slug, or working for an insurance company doing the same thing over and over again for low wages.
What I find difficult is the black and white comparison that Government is inherenhtly bad and private industry is inherently good. Like those monopolies Apple and Microsoft create are always for the greater good. Maybe we should let GS run the government, maybe that is the ticket.
The government shutdown is the prelude to the unraveling of the U.S. This country just is not working anymore. It's time to break the U.S. into smaller countries that share their own cultures. Splitting the country without bloodshed would be best, but better to just do it than drag out this decay and ossification. The cultures that exist in various parts of the country would be better off without trying to stuff everyone into the current federal mold. If your region wants a system like the ACA, great, it's yours. If your region doesn't want it, fine, do whatever it is that you think is best (like maybe letting people make that choice - but that would be my personal bias).
To paraphrase Tom Cruise, "It never ends well. That's why it ends". The reciprocal is it won't end until it gets that bad. It sure seems like it is that bad, but either our perceptions are in error, or, more likely, the epiphany has not achieved critical mass. Then again, humans under duress do not always respond with actions that result in the most favorable outcome. Read "Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds". Beyond the individual asset bubbles, it is also one of the classic studies in irrational mass behavior.
Website Offers Furloughed Employees Free Vibrators During Government Shutdownhttp://www.ibtimes.com/website-offers-furloughed-employees-free-vibrator...
The government shutdown might be killing the vibes of furloughed Federal employees, but one website hopes to change that. Vibrators.com, a website that bills itself as “the easiest way to find the perfect vibrator,” is offering its merchandise free of charge to any nonessential government workers.
“Are you a federal employee that has been deemed non-essential? Do you have a little too much time on your hands and nothing to do? Is the recent government shutdown to blame?” the company asks in an announcement on their website. “As vibrator enthusiasts, we want everyone to experience the pleasure that a nice vibrator can bring to partners and individuals. Besides, we know you have some free time, why not try something new?”
The company is right about one thing: According to the Washington Post, at least 450,000 federal employees remained on furlough Monday as the government shutdown entered its second week. In a rare move on Saturday, the House voted unanimously to approve back pay for furloughed employees once the shutdown ends.
But in the meantime -- while supplies last -- the company is offering eligible applicants a “free vibe,” which typically retails for $9.99, for as long as the government shutdown continues. Features include complimentary shipping conducted with the “utmost privacy and discretion.”
For when they are not fucking the American people?
To the person from Staten Island, N.Y., who has tried to order 6 free vibrators, please go away. We don't give vibrators to greedy people. Besides, what were you going to do with 6 identical vibrators? Don't answer that...
My bet is the gov will find a way to "never let this happen again". They will enact some sort of permanent continuing resolution. No more shut downs. Now if they could just find a false flag to get it in motion...
No, the answer is to ask yourself why we have all these continuing resolutions anyway...
We have them because Harry Reid and the Democrat-controlled Senate have refused to produce a (required by law) budget for many years now.
I think that is the Tea Party republicans that don't want the Fed government to have a real budget. I think you have that the other way around. You mean Ted Cruz really wants a budget?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/death-benefits-fallen-resume-we...
Charity steps up to cover death benefits for families of fallen
Obama was not aware the death payments would stop during shutdown, his spokesman says
BY DAN FRIEDMAN AND JOSEPH STRAW / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/death-benefits-fallen-resume-we...
Why do I think of Ascariasis when I read articles like this?
http://listverse.com/2010/01/13/top-10-most-horrific-parasite-infections/
http://i1.wp.com/listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/ascaris-31.jpg
I hate to tell the person who wrote this POS, that whether he likes it or not, the government has some agencies that actually do something....The effect of the shutdown just hasn't been felt yet..But will be soon, because people are showing up for work and not getting paid...Eventually their money runs out and they get pissed and shit happens...Some of these so called useless jobs involve air travel...Like the FAA...
So we'll see what happens with this very commercially intertwined pseudo government agency...
Just remember who is running this shutdown show..It's those Koch (Cock) brothers..and they will collapse the US to get their fucking way...
And about leaches, just remember, to the elite all you workers are leaches, everyone of you....To them no one deserves to be paid fairly, that's why they offshored all the jobs to China and India...
If you were born poor, sorry maybe the land of the Ponz is not the place to be anymore...
You make valid points, Nick. But how about the privately-owned airlines provide their own traffic control (FAA) and security (TSA)?
For that matter, how 'bout the oil companies and miners provide their own research efforts and security as well?
I know that you may respond that these critical resources would be more expensive without .gov subsidy. But would they, really? We're going ass over teakettle into debt- largely because of the policies you defend. Debt carries interest, and nobody in their right mind would claim that .gov is efficient in any way.
Yours is the buy-now-pay-later plan. Your progeny will just love it!
Then again, policies like these are almost impossible to exit. Like my Dad used to say, "Once you fuck a goat, you really can't un-fuck it".
On the FAA , you idea is akin to a person (Airline) driving their car (airplane) under rules that others on the road may or may not follow or abide by...In other words if airlines provided their own ATC...There would be a bit more chaos in the air...Just a bit..Of course in your plan each airline would have their own airport also ...right?....
I don't disagree, that government is bloated...But this thing, this debt ceiling issue/government is a fabricated issue..
If there is government they'll be government workers...Sorry..
if you want to blame someone, blame the Central Bankers, they, not some government worker are causing all this shit...
Government workers are just like everybody else, they were just someone looking for a job, and took the job....Sorry, if you are young, and your choice is starving or taking a government job, you take the job...
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/10/the-possible-outcomes-of-shutdown.html
BTW I'm not defending any policy or spending money you don't have....I think you only deserve what you earn...
The big picture...Money is being spent on shit by our government and we don't have any idea how any of this stuff is actually occurring or why...
The NSA data center came into being on who's say so? Yea, I don't know either...I just know we are on the hook for it...
Does the DHS need all those bullets to keep people under control during Martial Law? I'm paying for that to..
They want you to bitch about the workers, not the million dollar drones, not the wars, not the spying ...They the situation that they themselves are causing...
Every country in the World is in massive debt, it's bullshit, The debt isn't real but we will be trading that debt for our sovereignty
and a NWO..
Funny thing about businesses, they can creatively solve problems without .gov. Don't worry about air traffic. Shut it all the fuck down. Starve the beast. Repeat after me "There isn't a damn thing .gov does that can't be done better and cheaper by someone else." The NSA datacenter can't open because of recurring arc-flashes. Those things reach about 36,000°F, and take out about $100K of infrastructure each. Another bullshit .gov contract. You don't get the drones, the wars, the spying unless you have the critical mass of people to 'support' it. And now you see (if you turn the damn tv off) that half of them are non-essential. Critical mass and inertia is what has allowed all this bullshit to proliferate. Shut it all the fuck down. Tomorrow. Today it is still half open. And a government half open is worse than a woman half pregnant.
What business' are you reffering? The ones in bed with government? I'm sorry it's "people" that solve issues...
Some people have business' some people have to work for someone else..Some people work in government, others don't.
The attack on the working class is constant both private and public....In the end you'll realize that attacking your own customers or potential customer is BAD business.
Unless your business is stealing.
You're off on a tangent, Nick. I'm not arguing that all this is the fault of .gov workers. Most are ignorant of their culpabilty- or more accurately, display cognitive dissonance in their rationalization "I'm just doing my job!"
Someone wiser than me said: "Don't hate the players, hate the game". I'm good with that.
That's fine....I just think that, this system of ours is broken...as far as workers go, without workers or people in jobs..the system as we know it falls apart...
Now you're nibblin' at the crux of the biscuit, Nick! Attaboy! "The system as we know it" must fall apart. It's the only way we'll ever be (as JFK put it), as we were meant to be- free and independent.
Pre-Cog Breaking News: President Obama and John Boehner have reached a settlement and have agreed on an austerity budget for the United States. Which will be a great hardship for the United States populace...The IMF has insisted on this after the United States technically defaulted on it's debt obligations...
Which caused the stock market crash of 2013...
Mr. Miller, I applaud 99.9% of your tirade here. It's that sympathy part I disagree with. I've been tellin' anyone who stood still long enough that this system is unsustainable since I was fourteen. I'm now fifty-six. I'm certainly not the lad I once was, but this system is still unsustainable. And, I'm either mute, or the people are deaf.
Was it Friedman who said, "The markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent"? I dunno, but I, personally have been wrong for 42 years now.
I'm 70 and what you've said so well is directly akin to my thoughts!
Thanks
No. Thank YOU kenezen! If Nixon hadn't abolished the draft, I'd be typing this from Canada. I have wanted NO PART of any of this imperialistic, hubristic bullshit- EVER! It's as if I was born on a hellbound train and can't quite make it to the exit door.
Just tell me, this "James E. Miller", doesn't have an grasp on the situation!
Very good read Sir
National Parks are closed. Businesses on Federal land are closed. Base PX's are closed. Veterans are gtting a short stick as usual. . Last time I checked libertarians liked business and nothing against setting aside park land aside from their usual disdain of anything done by the State. Moreover, the Federal government chooses to maximize the hassle for everyone knowing the public is really just another name for a government mule.
Aug 12, 2007 - Uploaded by stealyourboognishBill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys- Muleskinner Blues The Mall, Wash., DC 1- 18-93.
Here's one problem....634,320,919 to build a website...
http://weaselzippers.us/2013/10/09/gross-u-s-taxpayers-shelled-out-63432...
Work in any Federal Office for a day and then tell me what you think of the government. Ever been to a post office?
What is hilarious, is that most big business, Wall Street, all the big boys are on this government tit themselves...It's Fascism for Gods sake...
Workers both private and public are just dealing with it...If someone thinks big business and government together is going to be good for people as a whole..you let me know.