If I may, I’d like to take a crack at this:

“Fourth, why is it more profitable to work in the government than to work in the private sector? His fourth and last point is that the statistics show that the average wage/compensation of a public worker is much higher than that found in the private sector. He concludes that public servants are simply over paid.”

As a retired “public worker” it has not been my experience that, at least in the technical fields, we made more than the public sector, but quite the opposite.

Had I worked in private industry, I would have made more, and I would have been treated better by management who actually knew what I did. It isn’t like that in my government, where the bosses were clueless and yet made technical decisions based on their limited to non-existant knowledge of what the right thing to to is, or should have been.

In essence, we were limited by the knowledge/stupidity of our bosses.

We had to carry out their stupid decisions and we had to take the wrap for THEIR failures.

The lack of respect for out knowledge and abilities was the order of the day.

That said, the benefits were great, compared to private industry so I guess that the benefits were what kept us around despite the mental abuse of the job.

If it weren’t for the bennies, I’d have walked (and earned more) long ago.

To sum my career up, it sucked to work for the government.

Actually, any system that lumps workers of different abilities (and drives) together into one pay grade sucks if you can really do the work.

As for the rest of your post, I agree with what you’re saying and there HAS to be a better way,

As for our manufacturing ability; too little for too much and now it’s way too late to bring it back.

While we are innovating, third-world countries are capitalizing on our successes and profiting from them.

Intellectual property is about all that we have left and it is probably the hardest to protect…

Oh, before I forget, the unskilled labor in government is way overpaid, usually making slightly less than the skilled trades; and that’s where it pays to work for the government vs. private industry.