I will write now about how much I appreciate the job the people working for the government manage to successfully accomplish. Those people are doing an amazing job in keeping this country <insert the name of your country here> united, many light years away from disintegrating. I’m referring here to all the government paid jobs, from the garbage collectors or bus drivers to the policemen, firemen or all the other unionized jobs and eventually to the politicians, ministers and, of course, presidents.

Slow down!Why do all this people sustain such a fantasy? Maybe because, just like priests, working for a living kind of thing, or competing with others in the free market by improving their knowledge, skills, or by hard working, is interfering with their level of laziness.

Making fun of government is one of the most honorable things men can do, as the government is the biggest force initiator ever invented by humankind.

Now, the problem I have is that I saw on TV this commercial from the government of Canada, for three times in 20 minutes… the add called “Infrastructure”, available at http://www.actionplan.gc.ca/eng/feature.asp?pageId=104 (it can also be downloaded from here).
The transcript is like this:

Canada’s economic action plan is working to create jobs all across the country. Together we’re improving bridges, roads and public transit. We are repairing arenas, buildings and making water cleaner. The signs are all around us. Together we are creating jobs and helping Canada’s economy emerge stronger. To learn how you can benefit visit actionplan.gc.ca. A message from the government of Canada.

So, besides that the content is a low level one, the add says the government creates jobs. I can talk a lot about how job creation works, but to be short I would just say that the government destroys jobs from the private sector in order to “create” what it advertises as “jobs”. Anyway, why would they create commercials about the jobs they “create”? Who’s the competition here? Are they thinking that during an economic recession the private companies would put together a commercial advertising the number of jobs they created? Why would they do something like this? Why are they spending money on broadcasting commercials like this on TV every 5 minutes or so? Well, we all know the answer deep inside (don’t we?), but what’s amazing is that when someone spits this into your face so many times a day, many of us don’t even ask the obvious question (e.g. “Why are they doing this?”).

So, to help with searching for the answer, my question is: can the government create jobs as long as the government is not a business, but it only survives through taxation?

If your own thinking leads you to a “Yes” answer, then probably you can unblock yourself by asking the following: If the government can create jobs, why is it not creating jobs for everybody?

I read a very honest comment on Garth Turner’s blog, which I will take the liberty to copy here:

I’m a gov’t worker and can tell you that the people I work with actually believe that their jobs are important and that they work hard. They’re nice folks, but they are none-the-less delusional.

Yeah, it’s tough working for the gov’t: flex days, jumbo pay, jumbo benefits, pension — and to think — most of us didn’t have to even finish high school to get this free ride!!

When I got my job with the gov’t years back after slogging it out in the private sector, I felt like I had won the 6/49. I knew I never had to worry about working a real job again. And to this day, I pinch myself … it’s a dream come true.

To all of you folks in the private sector — thank you so much and please continue to pay your tax dollars so that I can continue to enjoy my dream-job. If you start to feel sorry for yourself or start to resent us gov’t workers — stop. Instead send out your resume to the gov’t and you might just luck out and win the lottery like I did. Last month 46,000 new lottery winners/gov’t workers joined the workforce. Ain’t it great to be Canadian?

Sincerely,
Useless feeder/gov’t worker

PS Gimme, gimme, gimme

Refreshing, right? :-) Actually the government is a lottery, a huge one. We all buy tickets when we get our salaries, do our grocery shopping or file our tax returns. What’s different with this lottery is that the winners are already decided. The government workers are paid by the lottery winners to be lazy and to use violence when the lottery winners are questioned or when one doesn’t acquire his/her tickets. Government workers are not the lottery winners, they just believe they are.

Going back to useless commercials from the government, here is a remix (after some other add) that helps us getting the real message: