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A Tale of Two Countries
theodp writes "Over at TechCrunch, Jon Bischke is troubled by the growing divide between Silicon Valley and unemployed America. While people who spend most of their days within a few blocks of tech start-up epicenters are enjoying a boom/bubble, the number of unemployed now eclipses 14 million nationwide, labor under-utilization is 16.2%, and the mean duration of unemployment has spiked to 40 weeks. 'Which bring us to an important question,' writes Bischke. 'Should Silicon Valley (and other tech clusters throughout the country) care? After all, as long as people in Nebraska or the Central Valley of California have enough money to buy virtual tractors to tend their crops in Farmville, should the tech community be worried about whether those same people are getting paid to do work in the real world? Is what's best for Silicon Valley also good for America?'"
OK, this one of the new "Big Lies" that is repeated enough that it might become accepted -- 'that public sector workers don't produce anything, only the private sector does'. Total BS. Examples: When a scientist employed by the Naval Research Laboratories invents a better laser, is something of value produced -- yes. When an employee of the city picks up your garbage, is a service of value performed -- yes. When a SEAL puts a bullet through the head of bin Laden, is a service of value performed -- yes. All examples of public employees producing valuable goods and services. The purveyors of this line of BS need to read some economics and learn the definition of "production". And I've known lots of persons employed in the private sector who produced absolutely nothing of value. If you want to, you could try to make some deranged argument that the private sector could always perform a service cheaper or better than the public sector, which is at least coherent, if not correct.
If compassion isn't enough to make you support unemployment, think about it this way: The most dangerous people are those with nothing to lose. When a man has to put a gun to your head to pay his rent I doubt you'll be lecturing him on how he could have avoided the whole situation if only he had saved.