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From: dlo@drutx.UUCP (OlsonDL)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Unemployment shifting
Message-ID: <1291@drutx.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Sep-86 12:15:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: drutx.1291
Posted: Fri Sep 12 12:15:24 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Sep-86 05:27:45 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 49

[]

>    From me (tim sevener): 
>> >This is patent nonsense.
>> 
>> >[some stuff about government jobs]
>> 
>> >But to say the government provides no jobs is absolutely ridiculous!
>> >             tim sevener  whuxn!orb
>> 
>> I never said it doesn't provide jobs; just that they must come at the
>> expense of other jobs.  Do you think they are free?  Dammit Tim, where
>> the hell do you think wealth/jobs come from?  Do you think they fall out
>> of the sky?
>> 
>> David Olson

>So when the United States suffered a 33% unemployment rate during the
>Great Depression, you are going to tell me that the WPA projects, the
>Civilian Conservation Corps, and other such projects *cost jobs*???
>What jobs?
>If Pres. Roosevelt and the Congress had not provided money to put

Provided???  Are you saying that the Pres and Congress are the *source*
of this wealth?   Where did they get it?  Did they generate it themselves?

Since government produces no wealth of its own, what wealth it has comes
from the private sector via taxes.

Suppose it requires 1 unit of wealth to provide/maintain 1 job.  So, for
10 jobs it would require 10 units -- not 9, not 9.826, but 10.  Let's
say that XYZ Widget Company produces 10 units for 10 jobs.  To provide 1
government job, government takes 1 unit as a tax from XYZ, and sure enough
1 government job is "created" (BTW, this is an at-best scenario, since for
this to happen, government would have to be 100% efficient).  Oh but wait,
XYZ now has only 9 units -- 1 less unit for 1 less job.  "Sorry buddy.  I
can no longer afford to pay for 10 jobs, only 9.  You're out!"

>these people to work, they would have still been *unemployed*.

Unemployment was shifted from one person to another.
 
>tim sevener  whuxn!orb

David Olson
..!ihnp4!drutx!dlo

"Government is that fiction by which people believe they can live at
someone else's expense."  -- Frederic Bastiat