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From: marks@Cascade.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: The WSJ on Reaganomics
Message-ID: <1640@Cascade.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 1-Dec-84 00:55:34 EST
Article-I.D.: Cascade.1640
Posted: Sat Dec  1 00:55:34 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 04:38:51 EST
References: <652@loral.UUCP> <1208@dciem.UUCP> <123@talcott.UUCP> <369@whuxl.UUCP> <144@talcott.UUCP>
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 26

> There are three factors that increase the cost of labor:
> 
> 1)  The "labor tax" which we call income tax.
> 2)  Unions
> 3)  Government employment
> 
> The first two increase the unemployment rate, while the third decreases it.
> I think that the first two factors outweigh the third.
> ---
> 			Greg Kuperberg
> 		     harvard!talcott!gjk

It's not clear that (3) above decreases unemployment, either.  Government
employees are hired and paid using taxpayers' dollars, dollars that might
conceivably have gone to hire someone from the private sector.  Money is
taken from potential employers, run through the bureaucratic meat-grinder,
and then is used to hire government employees with automatic cost-of-living
allowances and generous pensions.  The amount of employment created in the
public sector is probably offset by the amount of unemployment created in
the private sector.

----------
Stuart Marks, Computer Systems Lab, Stanford University
    {ucbvax,decvax}!decwrl!glacier!marks, marks@su-cascade.ARPA

"You can't fight in here; this is the War Room!"  --  President Muffley