re: #446 zombie

Exactly. The total productivity of a country is its total output divided by its population. When you have people that choose not to work, they do not add to the numerator but add to the denominator. The productivity of the country declines. The standard of living in a country is more or less tied to its productivity. Government programs do not increase productivity. They remove money from one sector and give it to another. I am sure some bean counter someplace will say that building the bullet train to nowhere is an addition to GDP, but in the final analysis it isn’t. The money that was removed from people would have been spent in other places and had as large an impact.