29 May 2009

The Puerto Rican Way

Today Our government downsized some 7,800+ employees, the vast majority of them temporary workers in the Department of Education; the rest were a small blend from other agencies.

Big. Fat. Hairy. Deal.

Yes, yes I know these are ex-workers who now face a higher degree of uncertainty in their lives. My response to that is: Boo. Hoo.

And before you fire a "But what if it happened to you?" at Me, I can fire first: I would never work as a government employee. I'm too damn smart. So there.

The fact remains that 7,800-something employees is but 10%--or maybe less--of the fat that needs to be trimmed from the government overbloat, a reckless excess that dates back to the late 1960s and has continued unabated until today. Maybe. Because unless it continues and gets into the 30,000-50,000 jobs cut range, today's cut will merely be another small bump down the long road to collapse.

Our pathetic excuse for a government has created, as Jenius Friend Kevin Shockey points out, the closest thing to a socialized democracy there is in the U.S. of part of A. Some 23% of all Our workers are directly employed by the government and some 24% more are indirectly employed. Toss in the hordes that do nothing else but sponge off of welfare and you can say that 60-70% of Our adults are purely government wards.

The situation is worse because the increase in goverment jobs came at the expense of Our economic growth, superficially bolstering income statistics and consumer spending while true economic growth and its motors (industry, business, entrepreneurism, research) were treated like venereal diseases.

And lest We ignore this point, both major parties and every lamebrain governor We've ever had, male or female, has contributed to the problem, all of them ignoring the obvious economic consequences of shoving 20 employees where 6 will do in favor of buying votes with cronyism. It's "the Puerto Rican way." And that's why I wouldn't work for the government: I'm too damn smart to accept "the Puerto Rican way."

So in the same spirit that "the Puerto Rican way" accepted with gritted teeth the "jobs lost when government changed parties," now We have to accept "jobs lost because the damn party is over." The free ride should have ended long ago, so if you're one of the 7,800+ that got dumped, boo freaking hoo. You never should have been there in the first place.

So maybe now you can stay within "the Puerto Rican way" and clamp onto welfare as your sole support. Then you can sit back and stare at your 45" plasma TV as the rest of the offal hits the ceiling fan.

If We're lucky.

The Jenius Has Spoken.

1 comment:

The Insider said...

The Puerto Rican way: I recently co-hosted a 3-hour meeting where shocking info confirmed by multiple sources was laid out about animal abuses occurring in the West. Really bad stuff.

At the end, strategies were being discussed. One Puerto Rican man, an ex cop who seemed to volunteer himself for everything, welcomed by one of the higher ups, pointed out that we couldn't do anything immediately. We had to go really "slow". We could not tell anyone outside, and we had to wait until the "right time" to confront the suspected parties.

I said "Slow? You know I really hate to hear that word, especially here in Puerto Rico."

He responded that "Slow" wasn't really what he meant. It was some other word he was searching for in English. I kindly offered "methodical" as a suggestion. He didn't confirm, and never provided me with a replacement term.

So far things have been going "slow", the other Puerto Rican way.