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Originally Posted by Arts
Fair enough... my main concern is that there is not much value in comparing provincial public sector sizes without also comparing the scope of services provided and other circumstantial factors.
In SK, if the private sector grew faster than the public sector, then the overall GDP likely went up thus the %GDP of public sector should actually go down unless it kept pace, or outpaces overall growth.
If there are concerns about the scope of the public sector, then privatize (which I think is an awful idea for things government should have a natural monopoly on) or if the concern is about efficiency of government providing these services then show the audits (comparing to national average is meaningless in this regard).
But all that matters in terms of sustainable economies, is the total GDP (is it growing? Shrinking? unchanged?) I personally don't think that the size of public sector can pose any harm to economic growth, unless it were a problem with lack of productivity, such as too much administration - however it is not accurate to call public sector workers "bureaucrats" like so many pro-business people tend to do.
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This whole comment is dumb, I'm sorry.
Firstly, to correct your assertion that healthcare workers and teachers contribute to economic production, you're really out on a limb here. They are simply utilizing taxation already awash in the economy. If your argument was that they're contributing to the economic productive capacity of a future generation or that their service allows people to be back at work, then you might have a point. But you weren't making that point. You were implying that money that we can redistribute in an economy is as valuable as somebody who can create value from outside by creating increased aggregate demand and that's simply not true. We have no idea what the value of a teacher is. There's plenty to suggest that might be 'not much' outside of a glorified baby-sitting service given that a teacher is a fixed cost regardless of how far back Manitoba students fall relative to the rest of the country - and they're falling - but they get raises and large pensions at early ages, regardless.
I can fairly clearly see your politics and they're clouding your judgment. You need to quickly disabuse yourself of the notion that money in anybody's hands is money in good hands; that isn't how economies work. Bureaucrats - which I will happily call them, thank you - don't 'reinvest'. They might save (bad), they might retire earlier (bad), they may take an extra vacation (bad), but they definitely aren't building anything. They are 'risk-averse' by the very nature that makes them good government employees. That resources are being diverted into these hands and out of the private, productive economy is bad. The simple transaction here is that money is taken from a small/medium sized business and put in the hands of a government employee who will get a raise because - well, because. And that might be fine if government had a history of being more productive than the private sector, except we know very well that the opposite is true. The bureaucracy keeps growing, creating needless regulation to justify its size, and then continually giving itself raises to ensure it's always more comfortable than the private sector. And this isn't a political statement. That the NDP is currently in power is irrelevant to me. But there are no such thing as natural government monopolies outside of what some professor might tell you. Rigid, unionized bureaucracies are by their very nature too unaccountable and completely at the mercy of an engrained lack of innovation and flexibility otherwise required of large enterprises in order to succeed. That comes along with guaranteeing the middling and unambitious employment for life. I would love to hear the rationale for a natural monopoly on liquor sales.
I always love coming across comments from people who have obviously never spent a day working in the private sector. It's always so obvious because this idea that resources are infinite and that you're entitled to them is always so pervasive. And the contempt is never far behind. It's not unlike the rich-kid who hates his parents for their bourgeois taste but would never consider working a part-time job because that's below them. Your little comment about 'pro-business' couldn't be anymore tone-deaf. We all have to be 'pro-business'. Without business, there's no government (or did you forget how an economy works?). Even in your socialist utopia there's business. This idea that a lazy bureaucrat completely divorced from the consequences of their productivity or total lack thereof is somehow
just as value to our economy as a private sector entrepreneur is something only somebody who thinks like you could leave as a comment and not feel embarrassed about.
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to what Simplicity says but to further simplify his comments, the Manitoba model is not sustainable. Growth must also come from the non-government dependent sector and that growth must be at least as strong as the government sector's over the long term.
And precisely why most whom I know are planning to leave the province after retirement including myself. How in the hell do you sustain having 26.3 per cent of the workforce in the public sector, before some of you answer with ''well Cuba does it"......f me!
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