Dingbat mendacity

In normal times, I like to watch MSNBC, FOX and CNN news, hopefully to get a balanced view of current events. I find I can no longer watch FOX, because I can’t stand the distortions, false innuendos and outright lies they promulgate.

In the past week, I have been told about a vast conspiracy concerning President Obama’s birthplace; I have heard sly references to the “death squads” who are going to call Grandma and Grandpa in for a conference to determine if they will be allowed to live any longer; the pundits have discussed Obama’s wars; the so-called historians have pontificated about the failure of Obama’s TARP program; and they are crying great crocodile tears all about how the Administration has brought us to financial ruin.

Do you suppose the dingbats are really that stupid? Can they not read? Have they not been paying attention for the past 7-8 years? Yet they say these things with great sincerity, as if that will somehow make it true. Think about it! The “birther” and “deather” conspiracies were disproved a long time back. The wars were started under the previous administration. The first TARP program will before the last Presidential Election. The present financial crisis originated 5-6 years ago because some major financial institutions did some really stupid things.

We hear a constant bleating of the dingbat’s mantras: you know, No more taxes; smaller government; reduction of expenditures; change the Constitution; and so forth. These might all be fine sentiments, but no one has bothered to explain exactly how we are supposed to do this. It’s as if we are just supposed to vote for any dingbats, and all these things will just miraculously happen. Sorry but neither life nor government works that way.

This all reminds me of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. There, the ruling pigs had to come up with something simple the sheep could remember and repeat, over and over. In that case, it was “four legs good, two legs bad.” For the current crop of dingbats, I would propose: “Ideology over Reality” except I doubt many of them would understand it. Too many seem to suffer from a bad case of “facto prohibito” which loosely translates as “don’t confuse me with facts.”

JOBS

Much has been trumpeted recently about jobs. The dingbats constantly yell that we must do something to stimulate (that’s a dirty word) job creation. The problem is that I don’t think they really understand what they say. So, let’s have a short lesson in Economics 101.

There are only two classes of jobs. Private industry, which we will call P, and Government, we call G. There is a third group, the unemployed, we call U. These three then make up the total work force, or WF. So we have a simple formula: P+G+U=WF.

This simple formula applies whether we are talking about a city, county, state or nation. It will always be in equilibrium.

WF will constantly change. It will increase as people reach employable age, or graduate from college, etc., and will decrease as people die or retire. No matter, P, G and U must change to stay in balance. Ideally we would like our formula to look like this:

P + G + U = WF. Private industry is hiring; government employment is shrinking, and unemployment is low. But we’re not there.

Private industry is not hiring. Why? There are several reasons. One, we become more efficient and automated so that fewer workers are required; Two, many of our jobs have been outsourced to other countries; and Three, we run into a paradox. Industry will not expand (and hire) until there is a demand for its products. With so many unemployed, there is little demand simply because people do not have the money to spend.

Now the dingbats want to cut government programs. So, if we suddenly decrease G, by canceling programs or departments, then P must expand hiring or U will increase to maintain the balance. The same holds true if industry, P, lays off workers. Either G or U must expand.

Another erroneous assumption is that we can realize immediate savings by an immediate reduction in the size of government. This doesn’t wash. Suppose we decide to do away with the EPA (the dingbats really hate this entity) and lay off 30,000 workers. Surely this will generate immediate savings. No! First, these are probably all covered under Civil Service. This would be a RIF (Reduction in Force) so they would be entitled to severance pay. Then, they are eligible for unemployment benefits. They will pay less income tax. They will generate less sales tax, since they cannot afford to buy much. In the short run, where are the savings? Yes, there are great savings to be realized by reformation of government, but they must be the result of a slow, gradual and planned reduction so not to overload the ranks of the unemployed.

To be truthful, since we are in a recession, our formula probably looks more like this:

P + G + U = WF. Industry is not hiring, so unemployment is rising. Government employment has stayed relatively stable, but will soon decrease. When that happens, we will see: P + G + U = WF. And that is the formula for a depression.

Our last full depression was greatly alleviated by government stimulus programs, but only fully corrected by WWII. Is that the dingbats’ final solution?