For the fourth day in a row, the federal government is shut down because of snow. This causes me mixed feelings. Because federal workers already are so vastly overpaid, part of me is irritated that they are getting what are, for all intents and purposes, extra vacation days. On the other hand, isn’t it better […]
read more...Here’s another depressing column about how government workers are getting showered with high pay and lavish benefits while people in the productive sector of the economy are bearing the economic pain of financing a bloated welfare state: …government unionized workers often have gold-plated health benefits packages that are among the most expensive in America. Several years […]
read more...Paul Light of New York University has a column in the Washington Post that acknowledges an ongoing pattern of incompetence by the federal government. He admits that the bureaucracy is too big. He notes that bureaucratic success is unrelated to merit and that it is well nigh impossible to fire incompetent staff. And he also […]
read more...I’m going to have to stop this series soon because it is getting too depressing. This Wall Street Journal column contains more surprising data, including the fact that pension costs for California bureaucrats jumped by 2000 percent in just one decade (revenues rose by 24 percent in the same period). The most shocking factoid, though, […]
read more...Proponents of sound science and economic growth certainly have many reasons to be happy. The global-warming crowd has been exposed as a bunch of fraudsters, the Copenhagen “climate change” summit collapsed in failure, and there now appears to be no chance that the US Senate will pass legislation to cripple the American economy. But while […]
read more...I’d say only a government would be stupid enough to sign a contract that obligates them to pay somebody more than $100K each year for doing nothing, though it’s possible the corporate bureaucrats at the auto companies may have done something equally stupid in their deals with the UAW. But the real lessons to be […]
read more...I’m just back from a swing through Canada, giving speeches for the Fraser Institute to audiences in Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. I’ve been talking about the size of government and the future of capitalism. As you might imagine, several people have asked about the battle in America over government-run healthcare and how the system in […]
read more...While speaking in Canada last week, I authored a column in the Financial Post. I hope the entire piece is worth reading, but here are a few of the highlights: The Obama Administration claimed that spending more money would keep the unemployment rate below 8% in the United States, yet it climbed to 10%. The […]
read more...As I noted a few days ago, Paulson’s bailout was the worst possible way to do a bad thing. To the extent that the government had to inject money into the financial system, I explained, it would have been far better to use the “FDIC Resolution” approach, which at least addresses the moral hazard issue […]
read more...This may not be as dumbfounding as being told not to advertise for reliable people in England, but I certainly was shocked to see that nearly one-in-five federal bureaucrats is paid more than $100,000 – and that doesn’t even include overtime and bonuses! Or how about the fact that number of bureaucrats making more than […]
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