Government Bureaucracy Rampant

From Barry Ritholtz's The Big Picture blog, here is a posting by John Mauldin with a graphic that caught my eye:

Interesting statistic. Want to know where wages are rising? Think federal government workers. The gap between civilian and government workers was less than $13,000 nine years ago, but now
is almost $30,000. Inflation has been 24%, but government wages are up 55%.
According to a recent release from Rasmussen
Reports, a government job remains “the top employment choice in today’s
economic environment.” (chart from Clusterstock)

It used to be the case that public employees were looked down upon as those who couldn't make it in the private sector, so they accepted lower wages but guaranteed jobs with pretty good benefits in lieu of doing better in the private sector. But as the above shows, the private sector workers have been so beaten down, de-unionized, cut back, and stripped of benefits that they now get the short end of the stick, i.e. bad wages and very few benefits. Meanwhile public sector workers get superior salaries and gold-plated benefits. Something is very wrong with this picture.

I think society was healthier when a government job was seen as "public service" and it was expected that you didn't get top dollar in salary and you didn't get gold-plated benefits. Having a private sector that could offer more made the society more dynamic. Now anybody with ambition wants to be a bureaucrat. You would be a fool to want to compete in the private sector when there are no benefits. Only fools and the unemployable are left in the private sector. All the get-ahead, ambitious, smart people are headed for government where you get a guaranteed job for life, lots more vacation time, better benefits, and a guarantee that you won't lose your job unless you are a complete jerk.