For the services provided they are still to high.
Hey now
somebody has to pay for those guys playing cards, er, changing the oil in the snowplows, down at the county shops
You have mentioned the guys down at the shop a couple of times. Something you would like to share?
Have I? I daresay you pay more attention to my posts than I do, which is, on the one hand, gratifying, and on the other a bit stress inducing. I shall have to endeavor to do better.
To answer your question, it is a personal euphemism I have adopted to describe the very much manifest trend of incompetent, lazy, public sector employees slopping away at the public trough.
It does not take too many interactions with state functionaries to realize that many are working where they are because they simply can't cut it in a competitive work environment, or really any job where outcomes matter.
From the global; I still remember a radio interview with a bemused Human Genome Project scientist, having been badly outplayed by the private Celera Genomics effort, declaring that he and his colleagues had all figured that they would retire on the project, to the local; where in my municipality the public utility has been reduced to removing our smart meters and going back to meter readers because they have been so badly legally outmaneuvered by private ISPs that they rent bandwidth to that they have lost access to the fiber optic network THAT WE BUILT AT PUBLIC EXPENSE FOR THAT VERY PURPOSE.
Hairy, I share many of your progressive values, but this sort of thing deeply offends me. I work for a living. I have endured years of misery, privation and risk while these freeloaders have marched in place, marking time till their bloated public pensions absent any threat of accountability. They are not contributing according to their ability, and are taking beyond their need.
Worse, all too often these parasites are in positions to exercise power over actual producers. I tell you what; being told by some flabby, slack jawed bureaucrat in what manner I might utilize my own property or when and where I might be allowed to work is very nearly enough to set me to mixing petrol bombs in the basement.
Is that sufficient sharing for now?