Governor Scott Walker just sealed his own fate

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@Ring

I’ve always considered Time Magazine to be at least slightly left of center, so I was pretty amazed to read this weeks editorial.

…TIME contributor Amanda Ripley takes a deeper look at this idea and observes that pretty much every job in America has increased standards of productivity over the past 20 years — except those in the public sector.

That’s a really disingenuous point for anyone who knows about Baumol’s Cost Disease. From the Wikipedia page:

Baumol’s cost disease is often used to describe the lack of growth in productivity in public services such as public hospitals and state colleges. Since many public administration activities are heavily labor-intensive there is little growth in productivity over time because productivity gains come essentially from a better capital technology.

Not that Ms. Ripley is necessarily aware of Baumol’s work; I have no idea. But if not, someone should make her aware of it.