Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.6.2.17 $; site ea.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!mhuxn!houxm!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!ea!mwm From: mwm@ea.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: The WSJ on Reaganomics Message-ID: <22400054@ea.UUCP> Date: Sat, 1-Dec-84 22:20:00 EST Article-I.D.: ea.22400054 Posted: Sat Dec 1 22:20:00 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 09:06:50 EST References: <421@hogpd.UUCP> Lines: 31 Nf-ID: #R:hogpd:-42100:ea:22400054:000:1486 Nf-From: ea!mwm Dec 1 21:20:00 1984 /***** ea:net.politics / dciem!mmt / 11:38 am Nov 27, 1984 */ > That's something of a non-sequitur, isn't it? I don't see how you can > go from the incentive-nulling effects of a 95+% tax rate to the notion > that Government spending is a net cost on the economy. The two ideas > are totally unrelated. Oops, you're right. It isn't a cost. However, the government spending in question (transfer payments) causes the incentive nulling, which means that there is less produce in the economy later. > Do you really believe that only *producers* contribute to the economy? > Why does the private sector then include so many people in advertising, > management, entertainment (very highly paid, too), restaurants, etc. etc. Lets see, if somebody doesn't produce, then they can't be adding wealth to the economy, so yeah, I do believe that only producers contribute to the economy. Entertainment *is* wealth, so entertainers are productive. Similarly for restaurants. I can't explain advertisers :-). > Why do you pick on the civil service as the only anti-productive group > of paid workers? I think that the reason has to be religious, because > it sure isn't based in logic. I was picking on civil servants because that was the topic under discussion. Any large bureaucracy has such parasites. Civil servants are particularly vile because they are paid money that was taken from others at gunpoint, and generally can't be fired. Besides which, there are a *lot* of them.