Harper Government to crack down on public servants -- again

[overthere]

At one time the cost of benefits to the federal government was around 55% . Every dollar of salary paid had $.55 of employer costs added on. That of course did not include any part of the truly whopping unfunded liability for pension benefits, estimated to be around $300 billion. Future generations will curse both civil service pensioners and our successive governments who have allowed defined benefit pensions for far too long.

Ironically the vast majority of taxpayers have no recourse to plump defined benefit pensions, while paying forever for those who do get them.

[Argus]

You posted an INCORRECT example of the CAF wage for an officer position (the figure you quoted was for a flight-rank captain).

No, I actually didn't. If you check, you'll see the top tier for lieutenant makes $92,880 per year. The very bottom tier for lieutenant, on his very first increment (absent any specialty pay) is just under $60k. Given how top heavy the CAF is it's not difficult to understand how high their average salaries will be. The pay for a captain, incidentally, no flight pay, just your basic captain, is from $74,500 - $98,364. A corporal goes from $56,500 - $73,500 and that is the basic enlisted rank.

Clearly, from the above, the average salary in the military is FAR higher than it is in the civilian public service. And as the RCMP shoot to $82,000 after three years as a basic constable's pay it's clear their salary is also FAR higher than it is in what people think of as the public service. In fact, the basic salary for the RCMP (all ranks), ignoring overtime, and ignoring benefits, is probably over the $114,000 level all by itself.

http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/caf-community-pay/pay-rates.page

[Argus]

Correct. They make about $45,000 per year plus a whopping benefit and pension package.

Are you going to seriously try to make a case that clerks get $45,000 pay and $70,000 in benefits?

Seriously!?

[Argus]

Argus I suggested no such thing. Rather, I was literally spoon-feeding you the reasoning that should have led you to the conclusion that wages and performance/productivity are NOT correlated in a straight line. Not only have I explicitly stated that diminishing returns start to take effect when wages go too high or too low (economics!), I actually gave you a no-brainer illustration of the concept with your oft-mentioned burger-flippers.

The fact that all of this went over your head (the direct explanation of the economics, the tongue-in-cheek mockery of your logic AND the gift-wrapped and painfully simple analogy) is an extremely worrying sign for the type of minds we have employed in the federal public service. Good thing the union had your back!

There's a fairly predictable axiom about internet nerd warriors in that the more they brag and swagger and congratulate themselves about what an amazing job they're doing of destroying their interlocutor, the more likely they're doing an amazing job at self-delusion.

Let us backtrack. I said it was remarkable you didn't seem to understand, self-described economic expert that you claim to be, that higher wages and benefits attract better workers and applicants for a position.

Your response was to call that brain dead, and sneer that at such logic we should pay people hundreds of thousands a year!

So very clearly, you fail to accept one of the most basic tenets of economics, which is that workers are attracted to jobs which pay higher wages.

That, in my eyes, means you understand nothing whatever about economics, just as you clearly undrestand nothing whatever about the public service.

Case in point there. Having been embarrassed on a variety of topics regarding public sector entitlements, you've erected the comic and tragically dumb defence that none of it is relevant because people were talking about sick leave pay 10-15 pages ago on this thread. It doesn't matter that you and I have spent over half a dozen pages arguing whether federal public servants are overpaid, you've decided you can save face by pretending we weren't.

You want the truth? I'm trying to narrow the conversation back to the point because the posts have become too long and I don't enjoy discussing things with you. You clearly have an anti-social personality disorder of some kind and are a generally unpleasant person.

[Argus]

At one time the cost of benefits to the federal government was around 55% .

Really? You have evidence of that?

[overthere]

Are you going to seriously try to make a case that clerks get $45,000 pay and $70,000 in benefits?

Seriously!?

????

I have no idea from whence you pluck these goofy numbers.

What I said is that the benefit package is about 55%, as stated in post 251 above. That's the average cost of employer cost including EI payments, CPP employer contributions, health and dental plans, disability plan premiums, average holiday pay, average sick leave and and many other things. Oh, and the common 37.5 hour work week in the public sector also bumps up that employment cost premium. Every employer has these costs to some degree, public sector employers have them to the largest degree.

So- roughly- if your salary is a modest $50k, it will cost around $77500 in actual costs for employment. It varies quite a bit in the private sector, but one thing never varies- it is less than the feds.

I guess you've never been in business, because costing out labour to determine chargeout rates is a basic element of any business. If you do not know these things, your chance of profitability is near zero. It was also a major part of the consultancy I was once involved with, and that very much included calculating these very things.

[Bob Macadoo]

????

I have no idea from whence you pluck these goofy numbers.

His point was you just costed it out at $77500, not $114000.....and as you said the majority of that cost out is common private/public...add in the fact in the private that chargeout also has a profit centre in it as well. Edited September 29, 2014 by Bob Macadoo

[Peter F]

ah, so the cost to the employer is X (either 77,500 or 114000) but the employee's wages and benefits is not X.

[cybercoma]

I love how we look at this like it's a zero sum game. That's sarcasm by the way. The more people we have who earn enough money to go out for dinner, buy clothes, and drive cars, the more consumers we have in the market. The public service creates consumers. Go ahead and read that as "the public service creates demand for goods and services." That's not even considering the goods and services that they use in their day-to-day operations. When there are more people who are better off and able to do leisurely things like eat at local restaurants and shop in local businesses, the more employees those businesses need, and the more money those businesses make. Can we stop perpetuating the myth that paying people more and giving them more benefits is somehow a drain on the economy? It's completely BS. This new conservatism, which attacks the poor and tries to keep them impoverished, is bad for society and is completely unsustainable. Growing inequality is the biggest reason we've yet to pull ourselves out of "turbulent economic times." And let's be frank here, Harper couldn't possibly care less. As long as people are afraid of the economy, they will continue to vote for him because he has marketed himself as the only one to guide the ship through tough economic times. Well the reckoning is coming, as Canadians begin to ask themselves why he hasn't done more to right the ship. Creating less consumer and less demand by slashing public service jobs and benefits does exactly the opposite of recovering the economy.

Edited September 29, 2014 by cybercoma

[Argus]

????

I have no idea from whence you pluck these goofy numbers.consultancy I was once involved with, and that very much included calculating these very things.

The alleged cost of pay and benefits frequently mentioned on this topic is $114,000. Deducting a $45,000 wage from that leaves us with $69,000 in benefits.

Which is goofy indeed.

What I said is that the benefit package is about 55%, as stated in post 251 above.

Yes, you have so stated. I asked for a citation to back that up

[Moonbox]

Let us backtrack. I said it was remarkable you didn't seem to understand, self-described economic expert that you claim to be, that higher wages and benefits attract better workers and applicants for a position.

Your response was to call that brain dead, and sneer that at such logic we should pay people hundreds of thousands a year!

No, my response was that you have a feeble understanding of this concept, and I gave you detailed explanations of why along with examples and illustrations of your juvenile logic.

You see there's this OTHER economic concept that you're lamely struggling with. It states there comes a point in any input/output relationship that further increases in an input factor (ie. wages) no longer provide any net benefit. Beyond that point, increases to that input factor lead to a net loss. This is called the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns and, like I said pages ago, is something that first year ECON students learn.

Since this has already been explained to you several times, however, and since you've been spoon-fed several examples illustrating this basic rule of economics, I can only conclude now that you're trying desperately hard to pretend it's not true because it makes a shamble out of your vapid argument.

So very clearly, you fail to accept one of the most basic tenets of economics, which is that workers are attracted to jobs which pay higher wages.

I accept it, it's just that I actually understand what it means as well as the economic framework and rules it applies under. I understand the logical, factual and endlessly documented limitations of this most basic tenet of economics. You, on the other hand, are just witlessly quoting something you read/heard somewhere and have a hopelessly vague understanding of.

That, in my eyes, means you understand nothing whatever about economics, just as you clearly undrestand nothing whatever about the public service.

Whatever makes you feel better about yourself pal. I can't help but laugh, however, since you so horribly butchered any attempt to discuss economics yourself and resolutely refused to engage in any discussion or defense of your statements after having them debunked. Your only defense has been to repeat it over and over, as if that somehow strengthens your argument.

You want the truth? I'm trying to narrow the conversation back to the point because the posts have become too long and I don't enjoy discussing things with you. You clearly have an anti-social personality disorder of some kind and are a generally unpleasant person.

No, it's pretty clear you're embarrassing yourself now. Your feeble deflection and goal-post moving is an old and tired tactic, but I can't say I'd expect anything more considering your generally junky reasoning. As for unpleasantness, it was you who started very early with the childish personal insults, and as we see here these have continued throughout your posts. While it may be unpleasant for you to have your doddering arguments picked apart and shown for the sad jokes that they are, I'd suggest that insulting people who disagree with you is not going to lead to a pleasant debate.

Again, however, I don't expect you to have any perspective on your baffling hypocrisy. For someone who's been keen to insult my (according to you) lack of education, your obviously weak critical reasoning skills and resulting tendency to resort to insults and deflection makes it seem very unlikely that you yourself have any.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Moonbox

[Moonbox]

The public service creates consumers. Go ahead and read that as "the public service creates demand for goods and services."

The fault in this logic is easily proven simply by considering what the economy would look like if all of our unemployed or under-employed were given high paying jobs digging holes and filling them back in. Sure, they'd be earning wages, paying taxes and spending their money in the economy, but they're not actually contributing to productivity. Money that the government collects and holds to pay these useless wages would be money removed from actually productive enterprises.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Moonbox

[Moonbox]

Yes, you have so stated. I asked for a citation to back that up

That's rich coming from you, considering you blatantly refused to do so yourself when I asked you to a short awhile ago. Oh the hypocrisy.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Moonbox

[Bob Macadoo]

The fault in this logic is easily proven simply by considering what the economy would look like if all of our unemployed or under-employed were given high paying jobs digging holes and filling them back in. Sure, they'd be earning wages, paying taxes and spending their money in the economy, but they're not actually contributing to productivity. Money that the government collects and holds to pay these useless wages would be money removed from actually productive enterprises.

Depends on what entrepreneurs do with this extra demand.....innovation.......revolution.......export of products......the economy is not a closed system. See post Great Depression.

[cybercoma]

The fault in this logic is easily proven simply by considering what the economy would look like if all of our unemployed or under-employed were given high paying jobs digging holes and filling them back in. Sure, they'd be earning wages, paying taxes and spending their money in the economy, but they're not actually contributing to productivity. Money that the government collects and holds to pay these useless wages would be money removed from actually productive enterprises.

Those enterprises are only productive when there's demand for their goods and services. If all of those people were without work, those "actually productive enterprises" wouldn't be productive at all because they would have less customers. They will simply sit on the money waiting for the market to signal demand. That can't happen if the consumers aren't sitting on the money.

[Smallc]

The government cannot create net demand. The money is coming out of the economy to go back into it, and efficiency is being lost along the way.

[cybercoma]

The government cannot create net demand. The money is coming out of the economy to go back into it, and efficiency is being lost along the way.

The government only creates demands when it buys things. You're right. But you're acting like this is a zero-sum game. It's not.

[Smallc]

The government cannot create net demand.

[cybercoma]

The government cannot create net demand.

It's not the government creating net demand. It's people with jobs and money creating the demand. Businesses grow when more people have money to buy stuff. I'm not sure what part of that you disagree with.

[Smallc]

But there isn't more money. It's the same money that was already in the economy. When government hires people it is as close to zero sum as you can get.

[cybercoma]

You're arguing that wealth can't be created. That's simply not true. The problem right now is that enterprise is sitting on wealth and not moving it around the economy. Everyone prospers the more it moves around. When you have more consumers demanding goods, those companies will hire more employees, build more factories/stores, buy more land, etc. All of these things free up the wealth that's being concentrated at the top, adding more into the economy than just the money paid to the public service employees. The best and fastest way to get money moving around the economy is a healthy middle-class. The more people demanding goods and services the better.

[Smallc]

Wealth can be created but not by government hiring.

[cybercoma]

I guess you're just going to ignore the explanation I just gave about how government hiring does that.

[Smallc]

It doesn't do that. It just money out of the economy that can be used for other things. Your explanation is find, but it's an idea that's panned by most economists.

[Argus]

No, my response was

Exactly as I stated. There's no point lying about it. The posts are still back there.

You see there's this OTHER economic concept that you're lamely struggling with. It states there comes a point in any input/output relationship that further increases in an input factor (ie. wages) no longer provide any net benefit.

That's true. Unfortunately for you no one, including you, has demonstrated, or even shown any evidence that federal public service wages and benefits have risen so high as to have this diminishing returns effect.

Whatever makes you feel better about yourself pal. I can't help but laugh, however, since you so horribly butchered any attempt to discuss economics yourself and resolutely refused to engage in any discussion or defense of your statements after having them debunked.

As I said before, only the least competent of nerdy net warriors brag and swagger about their amazing accomplishments in debate, particularly when their accomplishments are imaginary.

Basically, your argument boils down to "I'm jealous of public servants!"

That's really all you got, bud.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Argus