"Government workers have incomes --30% higher and benefits 50% more costly on average than those received by equivalent private-sector workers"

Ayn Rand told a story over 50 years ago that forewarned us what would happen in America if we allowed politicians to run amok. That story is called "Atlas Shrugged" and it is amazing in its parallels with today's events. If you haven't read it - you should.

...This shift of wealth from the productive private sector to the unproductive public sector is stickier today than it was in "Atlas Shrugged" because government is now a union shop, with pay having little to do with performance. Unionized government cannot be downsized easily, and its employees have effectively become the country's most powerful entitlement special-interest group.

Thus, government-run schools controlled by the teachers unions can fail decade after decade without consequence or substantive reform. The government takeover of the health care industry — aka "ObamaCare" — was a high priority not because it was good for the majority of Americans, but because the ruling elite want to expand unionization, entitlement and dependency.

The media chase scandal and sensationalism but largely ignore the most consequential story of our time: the Obama administration's drive to shift wealth and power from the productive private sector to the nonproductive public sector. Rand calls this appropriation of wealth by the government nothing less than looting.

For her, the primary source of social good is in ingenuity and hard work that produce wealth in the form of invention and technological breakthrough. Crony capitalism and forced redistribution of wealth by faceless government bureaucrats is anything but virtuous.

Rand warns us that government policies that engender entitlement and cause business owners to go on strike and withhold their capital are detrimental to the economy. What compounds this problem today is that an out-of-control profligate government that enlarges dependence also sets us up for a greater economic crisis than the last one.

Fortunately, the catalyst for course correction is around the corner. Ironically, President Obama can be thanked for making this midterm election an overdue referendum on liberalism. Average Americans are now more informed and engaged than they have been in generations, and they are highly motivated to vote... READ at Investor's Business Daily- "Atlas Shrugged: The CliffNotes Today".

The Government Workers Paradise vs The Private Sector Hell

Ayn Rand had some wise insights into statism versus freedom. For example this gem:

"The degree of statism in a country's political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is entitled to what; there is no way to determine the justice of anyone's claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore, reverts to the tribal concept of : one's wishes are limited only by the power of one's gang."

It turns out there really is growing inequality in America. It's the 45% premium in pay and benefits that government workers receive over the poor saps who create wealth in the private economy.

And the gap is growing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), from 1998 to 2008 public employee compensation grew by 28.6%, compared with 19.3% for private workers. In the recession year of 2009, with almost no inflation and record budget deficits, more than half the states awarded pay raises to their employees. Even as deficits in state capitals widen and are forcing cuts in services, few politicians are willing to eliminate these pay inequities that enrich the few who wield political power.

Let's walk through the math. In 2008 almost half of all state and local government expenditures, or an estimated $1.1 trillion, went toward the pay and benefits of public workers. According to the BLS, in 2009 the average state or local public employee received $39.66 in total compensation per hour versus $27.42 for private workers. This means that for every $1 in pay and benefits a private employee earned, a state or local government worker received $1.45.

The BLS study breaks down where that 45% premium comes from. It turns out that public employees earn salaries that are about one-third higher on average than what is provided to private workers per hour worked. But the real windfall for government workers is in benefits. Those are 70% higher than what standard private employers offer...Read at WSJ "The Government Pay Boom".

America is Practicing Statism NOT Capitalism

• “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” — Thomas Jefferson

Our Founding Fathers were an honest, frugal and smart group of men who laid the foundations for the vision that they hoped for America. I wonder what Thomas Jefferson would say if he were alive today and saw the enormous power grab of our politicians and our Presidents (I'm thinking of Mr. Bush and of course Mr. Obama).

Americans must ask themselves why is America plunging into statism (government control of the economy). The statist road of modern times was first paved in the early 20th century by Hitler, Mussolini and the Soviet Union. These regimes used paving stones made of the ethics of self-sacrifice. As these butchers asked for more and more sacrifice in the name of others, the country, the leader, the future - the deaths grew. Selfishness is bad they said; selflessness is good. Why? Why is sacrificing for others or for the planet or for your country considered the good? No one has ever given any answer to that question and Mr. Obama as well has never explained why we must hock the lives of our children and our grandchildren on the alter of what he envisions as sacrificing for the good of our economy for the good of America.

Why must we sacrifice? Why must the government print money out of thin air with nothing to back it up in order to "save" companies that he chooses, build bridges, schools etc. WHEN A POLITICIAN TELLS YOU TO FORE GO, GIVE UP, SACRIFICE, DENY YOURSELF, we should boot him out of office NOT applaud him.

What people need to do in order to live a productive and creative life is to be selfish. And it's a funny thing because every baby is born innately selfish. He is hungry and he cries for food. She is tired and sleeps regardless if you like it or not. He wants to play and learn things and asks a multitude of questions to satisfy his curiosity. She wants to have nice things and toys and later a nice house and a good job and will work hard to achieve a level of success that bring rewards and joy to her life. Why does a person do all this hard work, expend all the effort to grow and achieve? Because human beings are selfish which means concern with one's own interests. If we did not think and consider our "self" we would die. Every hour of every day one must survive by ones wits. And the best political system devised to let people live their lives to the best the their own ability is CAPITALISM.

This does not mean one tramples on others. That is for criminals or people not sure of their own abilities. A selfish person seeks good relationships with family, friends, co-workers because we want companionship, love and good-will. Politicians do not create, produce or DO anything except cause woe and mayhem and this is because they set themselves up as the GOD of the economy, of our children's education, and soon our medical needs. Why? Why do we think and they think they know more than the market place? Why?

When a politician asks for your sacrifice run the other direction and boot them out of office.

Madoff is Kid Stuff compared to Government Plunder

• "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
  (Henry Ford, founder Ford Motor Co.)


• "Whereas we are being taxed on multiple levels, multiple times, from our single source of income, and from one single source, the government. Such a shame really, during the founding of this country they would not put up with such a tax as a tea tax, yet look at what the American people put up with today." (Rothchild Brothers of London, 1863).

Here is Ayn Rand writing about inflation and the proper role of government more than 30 years ago. And we still haven't learned our lesson as we watch our government grow and grow and grow to a behemoth life sucking monster.

• Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government; by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people's savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments.
  
• ...in regard to social issues, "inflation" does not mean growth, enlargement or expansion, it means and "undue"-or improper or fraudulent-expansion. The expansion of a country's currency (which, incidentally, cannot be perpetrated by private citizens, only by the government) consists in palming off, as values, a stream of paper backed by nothing but promises (or hot air) and getting actual values, the citizens' goods or services, in return-until the country's wealth is drained. A similar activity, in private performance, is the passing of checks on a non-existent bank account. But, in private performance, this is regarded as a crime-and most people understand why such an activity cannot last for long.

• Today, people are beginning to understand that the government's account is overdrawn, that a piece of paper is not the equivalent of a gold coin, or an automobile, or a loaf of bread-and that if you attempt to falsify monetary values, you do not achieve abundance, you merely debase the currency and go bankrupt. ("Moral Inflation," in The Ayn Rand Letter, III, 12, 1 ) (Also see AynRand.org)