Enslaving the American People, Feds Get Rich, Rich, Rich

How do people reconcile this in their minds? How do Americans reconcile the fact that federal employees earn an average of $30,000 more than the private sector employee? Or that close to 350,000 federal employees earn more than $100,000?

They are bankrupting this nation while stuffing their faces on the backs of Americans. This is the poisonous fruit of the left's utopian dream of big government.

Ayn Rand saw it all:

Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals—that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government—that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen’s protection against the government.

America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to “the common good,” but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance—and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.

The goal of the “liberals”—as it emerges from the record of the past decades—was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus, statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot—by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli. (The goal of the “conservative” was only to retard that process.)

USATODAY has an interesting analysis that shows that federal salaries have actually increased through this recession while 7.3 million private sector jobs have gone POOOF! Now the average federal worker's salary is $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.

So I ask, did the percentage of $100,000 salaries in your industry increase in the last two years? Did most workers in your industry get an automatic pay bump based on longevity or the fact that your boss got a raise?

For feds, more get 6-figure salaries

The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.

Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.

Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.

The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.

"There's no way to justify this to the American people. It's ridiculous," says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a first-term lawmaker who is on the House's federal workforce subcommittee.

Comments

[11B40]

Greetings:

In his "The Road to Serfdom", F.A. Hayek also addressed the problem of the growth of the bureaucracy as the socialists became more politically powerful in Germany. He asserted that government sinecures became preferable to job opportunities in the private sector of the economy.

Everyday, it seems, several articles bring the good professor to mind.

[Shoshana]

Exactly the same as the UK. This guarantees the overlords the elections.

Obamadinejad has copied the uk international socialists.

In UK we are heading fast back to medeival times(when islamofascism appeared) where the poor are kept poor,(tho now with benefits, drugs and booze), the rich live on another planet, and the serfs labour for their muslimised masters.

[Mongol gone jamin, adios!]

If the useless hacks in congress were paid minimum wage, all the greedy bastards would flee like monkeys from a lion.

Problems solved!

[MAC]

Term limits withNO retirement! Serving in Congress is an HONOR, not a gravey train for life!

[James]

IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES UNTIL THE MASSIVE TAX REVOLT.

THEY CAN'T RECKLESSLY SPEND OUR MONEY IF WE REFUSE TO GIVE IT TO THEM.

HEY CONGRESS, GET A GRIP,YOU WORK FOR US.

[fightforfreedom]

One positive note in all this: When the bloated, stinking mess of the federal government finally collapses of it’s own weight, these “public servants” will find themselves with no job AND no pension. I suspect, however, we will be suffering, along with them, our existence in a new dark age.

[poetcomic1]

They feel your pain. They care.

[Charles]

While the government is filled with bureaucrats and "feather merchants" there are some positions where the pay is not aligned correctly with responsibility. For example, consider a Major General who commands an Army division with about 15,000 men. A division is the smallest unit that can operate anywhere independently. There are 10 of them in the Army. The pay of a Major General is about $153,000 per year (2009 pay scale.) When compared with others in our society with similar responsibility, this is a pittance.

[Sarastro]

Have just re-read Saul K. Padover's excellent biography of Thomas Jefferson. The main concern of his whole life was: The people must be protected from the government. And all the laws he set in motion were aimed at this principle. He changed the laws of Virginia to break up the power of the landed gentry and was able to do away with the law of primogeniture, with the argument that all chilren should equally share in the wealth of their parents; this meant that the huge plantations were then broken up into smaller areas, which contributed to democracy as opposed to aristocracy. He was the first to install education for all children, not only those of rich parents. Although he was of the landed aristocracy himself, he believed in the virtue of the common man and his first principle was: opportunity, every child should have an opportunity to better himself, without being forever bound to one class. For this he suffered bitterly, with old friends like Thomas Paine and Alexander Hamilton becoming his bitter enemies. He called them and their friends "monarchists", which would be the samer as "fascists" today.
Most of his life he was without money, and had to borrow $1oo. to go to Philadelphia to become Washington's Secretary of State. And late in life, he was without funds and was forced to sell his beloved books to the government, which was the beginning of the Library of Congress. He really did offer his life, his fortune and his sacred honor for his country --- for us. Not like the bloodsuckers in Washington today.

[Achilles]

Charles you are quite correct. Another example: A fry cook for one of the civilian contractors hired to run the dining facility at a combat outpost in Afghanistan is paid approximately $85,000 per year. An E-3, combat soldier (my son, by the way) who exposes himself to enemy fire almost every day gets, with all benefits and special pay thrown in, about $25,000 per year. In other words, the guy who cooks the warrior's omelet is making more than three times as much as the man who puts his life on the line.

Now just imagine what we are paying the contractors so that they can afford to pay their fry cooks $85,000 per year. And where do you think the contractors spend their money come election time? Probably on the politicians who helped them land the contracts in the first place.

All of this is financed by the U.S. taxpayer. Money is borrowed from China or Saudi Arabia, or just run off the printing press (with consequent inflation) to finance these contracts. These loans are then repaid, with interest, by the taxpayer. The bankers skim their commissions off the top for "faciliating" each of these transactions.

It is the greatest transfer of wealth in history; manipulated and run by greedy totalitarians who want nothing less than to enslave the entire world. To paraphrase an old country song the "elites" get the gold mine and we, my friends, get the shaft.

Refuse to participate in forging your own chains. Find a way to stop paying any taxes. Figure out how to disappear and make a living in an underground economy. Learn the skills to become self-sufficient and learn how to barter and trade for goods and services in ways that do not require you to use either credit or paper money. Educate others about the truth of our unconstitutional government. Prepare yourself for violent resistance. Buy weapons and learn how to use them. Stock up on ammunition. The parasites will not like it once enough of us have figured out how to starve them and they will resort to force.

[seeteufel]

I have posted this article on several blogs since it first appeared, it does not seem to raise to outrage it raised in me when I first saw it. As you can see, the biggest increase in the $150+ plus, from 2,000 to 10,000 is in the defense department and only as a result of "cost saving", phasing out the "inefficient" soldiers for civilian "experts". All of course the result of having the finest senate and house that money can buy. On a related note, I have just heard that the economy has deteriorated to such an extent that Exxon has had to lay off 25 senators.

[sağlık]

Thanks for the constructive feedback :) regarding the Overworld limitations and linearity, I only felt it limited in the sense that you aren't truely able to 'explore' fully in the way that could in other Zelda games - remember the underground caverns you could once find? - and quite frankly I miss that and it is basically linear in the sense that your destination is already chosen, yes you are still exploring and in a wonderful new way but this Overworld 'Transport' also highlights the limitations of what Nintendo can do with a 3D Zelda game on the DS but what they 'have' achieved is still impressive and I do acknowledge that fully.