Productive Members of Society?

[BigMatt]

I was thinking the other day about the people in the United States that actually produce something. There aren't many of us.

People Employed in the US:102,109,850 (2009)
Federal Government Workers: 15,000,000
State Government Workers: 4,586,544

Remainder: 85,523,306

There are only 85M people in the US actually working and adding to the GDP. That includes the people working for "private entities" that are kept operational by federal and state money. That is a big problem. Its like the workers in the US have a 400# monkey on their backs.

That doesn't include people working here are sending the money they make back home. That would be a negative in this equation.

 

[Fletch]

You forgot one additional key number, the total population of the USA: ~300 million, simple math tells us roughly 200 million are unemployed, either because they're children or retired or on some form of assistance. So every one of the 85 million is carrying 2.5 people on their backs.

 

[BigMatt]

That's exactly right. I took it for granted that you know there are 300M people in the US.

 

[Son of Liberty]

Im not sure those statistics include self employed people. Seems unthinkable to believe 85 mil are not working. However, like stated eairler there are other factors in the equation, age, retirement etc.

 

[Fletch]

Seems unthinkable to believe 85 mil are not working.

I think you misread; the point of the OP is that only 85 million ARE working in the private sector, and another 20 million (ish) are working for the government, while the remaining 200 million (ish) are unemployed. Stupid lazy 3-year-olds.

 

[Lobo]

I think you misread; the point of the OP is that only 85 million ARE working in the private sector, and another 20 million (ish) are working for the government, while the remaining 200 million (ish) are unemployed. Stupid lazy 3-year-olds.

Not sure where all these numbers came from, but I'm quite sure that we don't have 200 million unemployed out of 300 million. You know what they say, there are lies, damned lies, then statistics.

 

[Fletch]

Not sure where all these numbers came from, but I'm quite sure that we don't have 200 million unemployed out of 300 million. You know what they say, there are lies, damned lies, then statistics.

I don't think 200 million is all that much of a stretch. 60 million of them are children under the age of 15. Another 20 million are between 15 and 19, and a lot of teenagers work in "under the table" jobs or not at all. That gets a reasonable expectation of 70 million, IMO.

There's another 50 million or so that are over 60 and probably retired or close to it. My parents' old employer boots people out with early retirement packages starting around age 55.

So now we're at 120 million (ish), easy. After that you start having to look at the disabled, and whether the figures quoted are full-time laborers or if it includes part-timers, an oft-overlooked distinction. It's possible 200 million is high, but it's probably not that high.

 

[downzero]

There are only 85M people in the US actually working and adding to the GDP.

This is factually false if data in your post are correct.

The suggestion that government workers do not add meaningful goods and services to our economy is preposterous and factually inaccurate.

The "unemployed" does not include anyone who is not in the work force, so stating that we have 200 million "unemployed" is also a statement that is ignorant of the proper definition of the word.

Wow, maybe economics is hard.....

 

[Fletch]

The "unemployed" does not include anyone who is not in the work force, so stating that we have 200 million "unemployed" is also a statement that is ignorant of the proper definition of the word.

Or perhaps meant to be funny, e.g. "lazy 3-year-olds".

Wow, maybe economics is hard.....

And maybe economists lack a sense of humor.

Now as for the first part... where X is the stolen productivity of the private sector (confiscated through taxes and unsound currency), and G is the administrative cost of government, the most that government workers can be said to add to the GDP is X minus G. Having been a government worker, I would personally also subtract I, which is the cost of the missing incentive to be productive as a result of the profit motive, or in other words the additional productivity that a given worker would have were he employed in the private sector instead of as a leech.

You may of course feel free to dismiss all this as a product of my anti-government bias.

 

[downzero]

I hate the government as much or more than you do, but I'm not trying to redefine GDP to suit my purposes.

 

[Fletch]

I hate the government as much or more than you do, but I'm not trying to redefine GDP to suit my purposes.

Remember that Austrians generally don't have a lot of use for the stats. Some of the good ones can use them to debate empiricists, but I never claimed to be a good one.

 

[ocsdor]

What I want to know is: what are all of you slaves doing sitting around on this forum complaining about how you are being shafted?

Get back to work!

 

[downzero]

Remember that Austrians generally don't have a lot of use for the stats. Some of the good ones can use them to debate empiricists, but I never claimed to be a good one.

GDP isn't a statistic. A statistic is defined as:

: a single term or datum in a collection of statistics
2
a : a quantity (as the mean of a sample) that is computed from a sample; specifically : estimate 3b b : a random variable that takes on the possible values of a statistic

GDP is not a calculation based on any sample. It is just a sum. Unless that's too empirical for you.

 

[Fletch]

GDP isn't a statistic. A statistic is defined as:


GDP is not a calculation based on any sample. It is just a sum. Unless that's too empirical for you.

It's clear you care a lot more about this than I do, so I'll leave you to it. Namaste.

 

[downzero]

It's clear you care a lot more about this than I do, so I'll leave you to it. Namaste.

Well here's an illustration.

Say you have 6 numbers , and their values are 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, and 6.

The mean of those numbers is called a "parameter," because it includes data about all of them. In this case, the mean is 4.

Say I were to take a random sample of those numbers somehow, and I ended up with 2, 4, and 6. The mean of these numbers is still 4. This is a bad example because the population is small and the sample is even smaller, but in this case, you can see how it works. As samples get larger, the sample mean approaches the true mean, and using some fancy math, we can show how a truly random sample of the proper size actually does give us the mean (in other words, the statistic is equal to the parameter, so long as the constraining assumptions of the proof hold). In this case, that's not necessary because we have all of the numbers. We know that 4=4. We expect that when we take a sample, the same thing will happen. In this instance, due to the size of the sample, it's just a coincidence, because I just picked random numbers out of my head, but that's exactly what happened.

The sum of the numbers is not a statistic. The sum of the numbers is 24. It doesn't involve any fancy math. A second grade kid could sum these numbers and get 24. Taking a sample of the numbers wouldn't tell us anything and wouldn't estimate anything. The only useful sum is the parameter--the expression that includes ALL of the numbers.

GDP is a sum that includes all the value of all of the goods and services our economy produces. It doesn't involve taking a sample or extrapolation. It's literally a sum of numbers. The only thing different than this example is that the numbers are so big, and there are so many of them, that you can't do it by hand.

There's no fancy math involved in adding numbers. The result isn't a statistic. It's just an expression of the answer one gets from adding all of the numbers.

GDP is one of those.

 

[Fletch]

There's no fancy math involved in adding numbers. The result isn't a statistic. It's just an expression of the answer one gets from adding all of the numbers.

GDP is one of those.

Thanks for all that. Allow me to illustrate my POV:

I'm rolling up a new Barbarian character for a friend's Dungeons & Dragons game. We're using the 4D6, best 3, arrange as you like method. I roll a 2, 4, 4, and 6. I drop the 2 and add the rest for a 14. A few more rolls and I have 12, 13, 16, 7, and 17. I arrange them thusly:

Str 17
Dex 14
Con 16
Int 12
Wis 7
Cha 13

And I call these his "stats", despite the fact that I used no fancy math other than addition to arrive at the numbers.

Hopefully this serves to illustrate just how seriously I'm taking this entire thread.

 

[downzero]

Hopefully this serves to illustrate just how seriously I'm taking this entire thread.

Actually it just serves to point out how irrelevant Austrian Economics is, other than being right some of the time, entirely by accident.

 

[Fletch]

Actually it just serves to point out how irrelevant Austrian Economics is, other than being right some of the time, entirely by accident.

I don't follow your reasoning... A person who doesn't care about the thread, and is taking the entire discussion as an opportunity for flippant humor, somehow "proves" Austrian economics is irrelevant...



I realize some folks are giving you a hard time elsewhere on the board, but that's no reason to take it out on me. So once again, namaste.

 

[Eddie]

Thanks for all that. Allow me to illustrate my POV:

I'm rolling up a new Barbarian character for a friend's Dungeons & Dragons game. We're using the 4D6, best 3, arrange as you like method. I roll a 2, 4, 4, and 6. I drop the 2 and add the rest for a 14. A few more rolls and I have 12, 13, 16, 7, and 17. I arrange them thusly:

Str 17
Dex 14
Con 16
Int 12
Wis 7
Cha 13

And I call these his "stats", despite the fact that I used no fancy math other than addition to arrive at the numbers.

Hopefully this serves to illustrate just how seriously I'm taking this entire thread.

Aw come on Fletch! You used the 17 for Strength instead of Dex? This only goes to prove you know nothing of Economics and that the GURPS rules are superior to D and D.

 

[Fletch]

Aw come on Fletch! You used the 17 for Strength instead of Dex? This only goes to prove you know nothing of Economics and that the GURPS rules are superior to D and D.

I'd rather play GURPS, but my friends are lame.