Blogger Fuel

Winston Churchill was once asked why he got into politics. He said:

Ambition , sheer naked ambition.

So having scaled the political heights, why did he stay in politics? The answer.

Anger, sheer naked anger.

I believe that there is a similar logic in blogging - at least for me. Nothing gets my fingers tapping and typing like some outrage begging to be refuted. Once again, Steve Landsburg is kind enough to provide that fuel. As usual, he is happy enough to throw up any kind of nonsense and pronounce it convincing - provided it fits his prejudices.

The question is, are public sector workers overpaid. I don't wan't to take a stand on that, since I'm pretty sure some are and others aren't. It's his abuse of logic that pisses me off.

Here are his two arguments:

Public-sector quit rates are roughly one-third of their private-sector counterparts. The obvious explanation is that public-sector jobs are generally too cushy to walk away from. It seems to me that it would be hard to account for that factor of three in any other way...

And...

If you cut the pay of an overpaid worker, he’ll generally scream bloody murder. After all, overpaid workers like to stay overpaid. But if you cut the pay of a non-overpaid worker, you haven’t really damaged him. He just quietly leaves and gets a job elsewhere. After all, the ability to find a comparable job elsewhere is pretty much the definition of not being overpaid.

Now how are the Wisconsin public workers reacting to projected pay and/or benefit cuts? As if the rug’s been pulled out from under them, that’s how. Every time a worker says “These cuts will cause me severe pain”, that worker is saying, in effect, “I can’t get anyone else to pay me at the level I’m accustomed to”, or, in briefer words, “I am overpaid!”.

So yes, they’re overpaid. And the louder they get, the surer you can be.

His second argument might make sense in his twisted market of perfect efficiency version of economics, but it is still deeply dishonest, because it completely ignores two key facts (a)that the protesters have agreed to the pay cuts asked of them and (b) they aren't protesting about that - they are protesting the Governor's attempt to take away their collective bargaining rights.

Of course Landsburg doesn't believe in unions, so he finds it more convenient to ignore the fact and spout dishonest nonsense.

His second argument is mostly just dishonest, but the first is a more fundamental assault on the science of economics. It's offensive because it substitutes speculation (that quit rate is a good estimate of overcompensation) for investigation. Here are a few things an honest scientist would have checked: What factors are experimentally correlated with quit rate? What are quit rates in various occupational groups? Do quit rates vary by occupation or education? What are quit rates among college professors, say? How does the government workforce compare in education and demographics with the private work force?

Most obvious to me is the structure of compensation. Certain occupations, including CEOs and military professionals have compensation packages that tend to strongly reward staying around, like retirement packages and benefits contingent on completing some minimum term of service. Most public service employees have compensation packages structured thusly - stick around twenty-five or thirty years and get a nice pension - leave early and get nothing. That a pretty powerful anti-quitting incentive.

You can quibble about the wisdom of structuring compensation thusly, but ignoring the fact of it is either stupid or dishonest.

And yes, I probably am an idiot for continuing to read him.