Sorry, we're closed.

[Mark Hammer]

I posted this the other day, but I guess I used the wrong header, since it didn't get much traffic. Apologies for the double-threading, but I imagine it pertains to many people here.

The impasse between the Republican and Democrat sides of Congress on the House Appropriations Bill means there is a very real risk that, as of midnight, much of the US Federal Public Service will be "shut down".

There are many other sources of information on this, but my attention was drawn to this advice document provided the US Office of Personnel Management on what to do, and what you can't do, during a possible "government furlough".

Enjoy. http://www.opm.gov/furlough/

[Bill Moore]

Thanks for the post, Mark, some of us might think closing it down is not a bad thing. As it is the "compromise" didn't do anything toward lowering the debt. Maybe we need one more election cycle to get some people with "ganas".
One would also wonder if all this government is really necessary? I think at the state level folks are beginning to understand what happens when you have public service unions. The taxpayers are held hostage to the folks we are hiring! The dems like the arrangement, as they get more money from the unions as they vote to give the unions more money. Basically the taxpayers are paying to keep the dems in office!

[Mark Hammer]

Glad I could provide something of use.

Well, you know we're not going to agree on this one, Bill, right?

In a lot of ways, the public and Governments they often elect when in an anti-government mood, are responsible for increase in size, personnel and costs. And it's not because they WANT "bigger government", but because they simply don't realize the size and cost implications of the things they want.

Case in point. We currently have a Conservative administration, elected by voters who are also persuaded by the "waste" rhetoric, as well as by the "tough on crime" rhetoric. I don't think either of those are necessarily malevolent motives.

But here's the thing. The Government (big G for the legislaters, small g for the public servants like me) says "We're gonna get tough on crime, and impose minimum sentences for thi offense and that one. Do the crime, and you do the time." Okay. The head of the federal correctional services appears before parliamentary committee and says "Well, we're currently double-bunking inmates in many instances. If we were to reduce the turnover, and hence the vacancy rate, by imposing minimum sentences for such and such an offense, we estimate that XX number additional places would have to be created to accommodate the longer average stay. We would need XX additional guards to manage that. Those additional beds would require XX new prisons to be built." And of course, the building of the prisons would require a whack of people to oversee the costing and procurement, as well as produce the reports demonstrating accountability for the money allocated, and folks to read the reports in the other organizations the prison officials report to. And the communities where they would be built would have to agree to it, which would necessitate public consultation, and haggling to and fro, and officials flying around everywhere and hiring public relations consultants to smooth the ruffled community feathers. Not to mention the extra HR people required to staff all those guard positions, and handle pay and benefits inquiries by staff members.

In short order, a simple "Yeah! Throw the buggers in jail and let them rot!" turns into billions and billions of dollars, and a commitment to hire a LOT of people.

Now, to be sure, the unions will fight for the prison guards (at the very to insure that costs are not managed by simply putting the same guards in charge of XX% more inmates), and I'm certainly not going to paint them as entirely innocent in all of this, but I don't think the legislators, or the voters who put them in office, know exactly what they've gotten themselves into. The principles underlying it may well have been admirable, but the details run completely contrary to what folks were expecting.

In short, government expands when people who don't understand how government works burst in through the door and start making demands. It's an awful lot more complicated than most understand, and while it is not TOO complicated to understand, you gotta understand it FIRST before you start making recommendations.

[Bill Moore]

Good point Mark, however, when we started "locking them up, and throwing away the key", in years back, we looked to privately run prisons, here in New Mexico. The unions from the state run institutions were beside themselves! How dare you keep prisoners for the lowest price! They seem to have little problem, that the state doesn't have.
Another alternative comes from "Sherrif Joe" in Phoenix, where he pitched tents, surrounded by fences. No A/C, no TV, no porn, sometimes baloney sandwiches, it is really not a fun place to be, but it is a prison!

[cminor9]

The government shutting down is what it is, but don't think for a minute it's really about the money. This sums it up: The Shutdown And The Deficit : Planet Money : NPR If you feel the need to discredit that, then discredit the numbers and not the source.

All of the politicians, regardless of party, are a bunch of toddlers. Too busy arguing over who is right to actually care about the people who put them there. All of them should be given a pacifier and be made to stand in the corner for a while. Worst of all, if the government were to shut down, they'd still get paid. It's the working people who get screwed, including military families if the shutdown was to last a long time.

As I see it, there are two political parties that you can affiliate yourself with: the people who are delusional and naive enough to think that ANY elected officials care about them, and those who know better. Everything else is just semantics. Meanwhile, people are so busy arguing about meaningless labels (democrat, republican, tea party, libertarian) that they aren't paying attention to the fact they are ALL being bamboozled.

[Mark Hammer]

Well, my point wasn't to debate prisons. Rather, it was merely a timely example from our own experience here to illustrate that, all too often, the very increases in the size and cost of government that so many object to, arises from the very things they want, but don't realize how it will necessarily result in increased cost and personnel.

It doesn't have to be about prisons. It can be about things citizens and legislators insist on to "cut costs" of education, for example. It can be about things we do to make airports and air travel safe but inexpensive (yeah, those two words go together real well). It can be about cutbacks to publicly-funded mass transit that end up requiring more staff to repair the roads that now age faster because of the additional traffic, and more cops and emergency ward staff to deal with the fender-benders and more serious accidents arising from everybody driving rather than wait an extra 20 minutes for the bus to work (so that the city saves money on unionized bus-driver salaries).

Voters and legislators (and yes, sadly, bureaucrats too) too often don't think broadly enough and don't get the connections between things, and the consequences over there for something you did over here that you thought would be simple and neat, and most of all, cheap. Thinking about the ecology of the natural environment appears to come easier to us over the past 40 years (though waning in recent years), but thinking about the social ecology of government and public services seems to slip our grasp.

DO NOT mistake my comments as a wholesale declaration that (little g) government ALWAYS has to be bigger and more expensive. It probably can be smaller and more efficient....just not by doing the sorts of things that so many people think ought to cut size and costs.

[Bill Moore]

cminor9, I think the problem is that the politicians are worried about who put them there, so they try to give away the store to get elected. I have some confidence in some of the so called T.E.A. party reps, as many say they don't intend to run for re-election. They want to try to get something done about the policies of the country, and then go home. This happened in 1994, and many were disgusted that they couldn't get anything done.
That of course was the intent of the founders, for someone to take a turn, and then go back to their life. We unfortunately allowed them to vote themselves salaries, and perks, and now we are in the shape we are in!
Mark, I don't mean to denigrate the public sector jobs, but they seem to be out of control. Just as the IRS was elated at the Obamacare provisions that would hire almost 50K more agents to ensure that you are paying your share, a few years back the BATFE was lobbying for more gun control laws that they could enforce. More laws mean more entry level employees, who need more supervisors, so everybody advances upward with the costs of running the agency!
I still try to be optimistic in spite of the news!

[Mark Hammer]

One of the ongoing ironies that escapes many fiscal conservatives is that whenever people get their knickers in a knot about "waste", that tends to be accompanied by all manner of mechanisms and personnel to increase "accountability" of spending. That translates into more people spending more time preparing more reports and justifications for spending, all of which is to be read and assessed by yet another army of people. And all in the name of reducing waste. It seems counterintuitive, but governments are often less likely to waste money the less they care about how its spent.

I have to spend about 3hrs today filling out time sheets for the past fiscal year, for those weeks when I left a few holes. Do I know what I did during the 2nd week of May last year so that I can say I spent 10hrs on this and 12hrs on that? No. So, like all the other people who fill these things out, I have to make something up for the accounting people upstairs to spend a great many more hours adding up so that they can work out costing for things that simply don't happen the way they think. Now THAT's waste.

[big_teee]

What Concerns me, Yes I am a Baby Boomer, & Retired, and just signed up for my Social Security.
I know the Right Wingers wants to yank my Social Security and Medicare out from under me, and Privatize, and put Medicare on Insurance.
It's too late for me to change this late in life. And besides I paid in all these years so others could draw their Medicare and SS.
I feel I am entitled to my Share of the Pie now, at this stage in my life.
Don't go changing the Game Rules when I just stepped into the Batters Box in the Bottom of the 9th Inning!
Oh yes, I'm not alone, there are millions and millions of us Boomers either just retired or getting ready to.
Peace,
Rock On!
Terry

[Bill Moore]

I believe the plan outlined by Paul Ryan calls for no changes to folks 55 and older. The prez of course would like us to believe otherwise. Medicare was defunded under the passing of the "Health care" plan.
If something is not done to get the system solvent, it won't matter how old you are, there's no money! SS was supposed to be a supplimental retirement plan for folks in the 30's, (who by the way weren't supposed to live long enough to collect). Congress has robbed the account year after year, until there's nothing left.

[Mark Hammer]

Pension and retirement have an interesting history, and a much briefer one than many realize.

The first pension given simply for being a citizen, rather than a former railroad manager or military officer was given out in Germany in 1889. It was simply a nod from the government for a "lifetime of service to the fatherland" and not intended as a replacement for earned wages, and not any sort of comment on capacity to work whatsoever. It was Bismarck's election promise, and his advisors told him that if he set the payout to start at age 70, he could afford to make good on the promise. By the late 1890s, the age had worked its way down to 65 (again, because it was financially feasible). You couldn't get elected in Europe without offering a pension. You certainly couldn't get elected offering one later than age 65, and couldn't afford to provide one earlier than 65, so 65 became the default pensionable age. Again, there was no expectation whatsoever that it would replace earned wages, and no assumptuion that recipients would withdraw from the labour force.

Approaching the war years, and with the growth of the labour union movement and the Henry Ford style assembly line, unions started offering up mandatory retirement as a bargaining chip in negotiations. It worked for everybody. Wages were based on seniority, so employers liked the idea of turfing older workers and bringing in young ones, because it cost less. Unions liked anything that would get them greater membership. And while the intervening century has demonstrated empiriaclly that older workers often have higher quality output, fewer sick days and accidents, etc., the factory of that era was predicated on quick reaction time, and, as a guy with a doctorate in the area, I can say with conviction, that slowed reaction time is one of the few things that is demonstrably true and universal about age.

Of course, as more and more employers started invoking mandatory retirement, it became incumbent on governments to start upping pension. Indeed, the name "social security" that was adopted in the U.S. (though not everywhere) was a reflection of the attempt to protect people whomight otherwise be working for a living from being thrown into abject poverty by the unwillingness of employers to hire them. At that point, pension started becoming linked to the presumption that it would signify withdrawal from the labour force. However, as many hostorians note, for a great many of pensionable age, well up into the middle of the last century, it was assumed you would work for the brunt of your income past pensionable age. The idea that 65 became some kind of demarcation of your working and non-working life, and that people could look forward to voluntary complete withdrawal from the labour force really only goes back to the 1950s or so.

We tend to overlook a few salient and relevant facts about pensions and retirement. It emerged during a time when people had:
1) more children to look after them in later life,
2) many more working years behind them at pensionable age,
3) the brunt of their major life-stage expenditures (house, car, kids, etc.) well behind them for 2 decades or more by pênsionable age, permitting greater savings in anticipation of retirement,
4) lower expectations of longevity,
5) lower health expectations, or at least expectations about what health issues were salvageable or not,
6) significantly lower consumer expectations (if your grandparents went on one trip "to the old country" during the course of their whole retirement, that was normal; 3 cruises a year was not),
7) fewer societal challenges to wealth accumulation (e.g., lower divorce rate, fewer single parents, greater employment stability).

We also forget/overlook tht most of the world doesn ot "have" retirement, and that it emerges out of an eclipse-like alignment of a number of factors whose alignment has been slipping over the past 2 decades. Personally, I give retirement as we know it now, about another 15-20 years, tops, before it fades away. Part of that is because:
a) the older labour force will continue to be needed,
b) the sort of lifestyle that many aspire to in later life requires money to feed the beast,
c) many occupations (though certainly not all) do not require robust physical activity and health, or a full-time job to engage in,
d) the pension-fund ROI it would take to support people who expect to have 25 working years followed by 25 retirement years would result in far too much social upheaval and perpetual movement of jobs from this cheap place to that even cheaper one.

Pension will continue to exist, simply because it is too hard to eliminate at this point, but its new emerging role will be to dissociate occupational choice from fiscal necessity. That is, people will use pension to subsidize choice in their second/3rd career phase, and continue to work, but do so on their own terms in the sorts of work they enjoy and can manage, rather than what they HAVE to do to make ends meet.

To some extent, post-secondary education needs to be geared towards preparing people for life-log careers. It won't be long before we enter an era when people who work past pensionable age will be normal, rather than "that poor bastard".

Personally, I'm adapting to it. I'm of an age when most of my coworkers and age-mates are retiring. Having entered the workforce later than them, I'll be here til my last day in earth (unless that's a long weekend). I'm fine with that.

[big_teee]

Mark:
I've read your post's before and that one is very well put.
There are lots of varibles.
If you are healthy and can work all your life that's great.
A Politician and and a stock broker, etc. can work a lot longer than people that physically work hard.
I installed Phone Equipment. for 42 years, and crawled, beat banged around working hard all my life, and I'm wore slap dab out.
Back injuries, bad knees, Shoulders, Tendonitis, etc.
The reason behind medicare and Social Security was because of our poor elderly that couldn't sustain life.
In the 20s and 30s Life was very hard for older hard working wore out Americans.
My generation, the Boomers have paid more than any, to support the last couple of aging American Generations.
It's now Our Turn. Like I said don't go changing the rules now.
I do think they should up what each American Pays into Medicare, and Social Security, but not Abolish it!
My In-laws are in their 80s and if they didn't both have a small SS check, they would have no money at all.
Same for Medicare.
I know these are all just Opinions.
When I was in my younger years, I had a different outlook on it all.
So if you are young and everything looks rosey, Things can change quicker than you think.
We seem to have Plenty of Money to Feed the War Machine, and invade & Police, countries all over the world.
That seems to be very acceptable to most Americans, but we can't help our Poor, Sick Ederly in this Country!
Give Me a Break!
Like I said these are strictly Opinions, And that Is Mine!
Peace,
Rock ON!
Terry

[NorCalTuna]

"We seem to have Plenty of Money to Feed the War Machine, and invade & Police, countries all over the world.
That seems to be very acceptable to most Americans, but we can't help our Poor, Sick Ederly in this Country!
Give Me a Break!"

Absolutely. Why is this off the table? Some ordinance- guided rockets, particularly- are more than a million dollars each, thats 30 33K pensions. Arlo and tom paxton had it right 30 years ago:

YouTube - I'm Changing My Name to Chrysler (Arlo Guthrie)

[Bill Moore]

I think we've blown the budget trying to help everybody, not just the original intention of FDR. My grandparents thought the world of him, and when they quit farming for a living, they started drawing less than $200 a month in SS. When I used to go visit, I'd leave money in the cookie tin, just to make sure they had some. They raised 5 acres of garden right up to the summer before grandpaw died, so they had plenty to eat, and sold most to the local restaurants. They also gave a lot away, "for those who weren't blessed like them".
Just last week, my high school buddy called to tell me that he went to get help to replace the heater in his old trailer, and they are going to put him in a new trailer! This fellow had way too much fun back in the day, has hep., been through 2 courses of interferon. He's younger than me, but we all have been supporting him for over 20 years now.
We could have made better use of the money they took from us all these years, but that wasn't an option, maybe it will be for my grandkids.

[Mark Hammer]

Thanks for the nod.

Indeed, much research aligns well with your contention. There's sort of a fork in the road at pensionable age. I'll offer up 2 of my brother-inlaws as illustrations. The one was a stationary engineer, working in a steel plant, working with heating systems from what I gather. The other was an electrical engineer who provided consultation and support for hydroelectric systems for Westinghouse, and eventually Siemens when Siemens bought out that division. The stationary engineer had a much more physical job, and had health problems with his legs, partly as a result (though I imagine choosing his grandparents unwisely was part of it too). Once he was eligible for pension, that was it. He gone from the labour force, never to return, nor drop by his old workplace just to say hi. The other one "retired", and draws his pension, but continues to consult for the clients of Westinghouse's legacy technology that Siemens didn't feel like supporting any longer. He probably works about half the hours he used to, and spends a good chunk of the remaining time travelling with my sister-in-law. They enjoy travelling, as does my other brother-in-law, but have more expensive tastes than the former factory worker, and pretty much need to keep working to support them.

The long and the short of it is that "professionals" are increasingly remaining in the workforce past pensionable age, occasionally taking reduced pension from their primary occupation to embark on second careers, where nonprofessionals tend to withdraw fully from the labour force once they reach the point where maximum pension kicks in. My sense is that the difference arises partly from health, but also because the employment opportunities for professionals can make significant differences in their standard of living, whereas blue collar workers would not garner as much economic advantage by remaining in the workforce. In short, not worth the aggravation. Professionals and skilled workers have enough income opportunity available to them, even on a reduced schedule, that they forfeit too much in giving it up. If it was 50 years ago, and they were dovetailed with that standard of living and consumer expectations, they might pack it in, but not any more.

While she tends to focus more on blue collar workers, and much less on white collar public sector workers like myself, or professionals, this book is just about as insightful and informative a read in the area as you're likely to find.
The Evolution of Retirement: An American Economic History, 1880-1990, Costa