Let's pick on Robert Reich

federal A recent paper by Cornell political scientist Suzanne Mettler surveyed how many recipients of government benefits don’t really believe they have received any benefits. She found that over 44 percent of Social Security recipients say they “have not used a government social program.” More than half of families receiving government-backed student loans said the same thing, as did 60 percent of those who get the home mortgage interest deduction, 43 percent of unemployment insurance beneficiaries, and almost 30 percent of recipients of Social Security Disability.Reich

His point is that we should appreciate national pension plans and loan plans run by government, but we take them for granted.

Yes, I would like the Democrats to connect the dots on this.  Democrats should inform the voter how much, percentage by percentage, of their commerce runs through DC.  It is not a pleasant message to many voters.

The problem is that all these wage subsidies and transfers are really price and flow controls on the wage channel.  The results are restrictions on the types or labor relationships that are profitable, fewer active job classifications.

So what the federal government does to wages is similar to what Wilson and Davis did to energy flows, restricts a finite set of -iLog(i) options for flow adjustment. The distribution rank drops, more volatile.  Its effect appear as skew, region of the economy where the restrictions especially match local labor conditons do well, like Eric Cantors district in Virginia.  But in farm country, Georgia, we see labor volatility and political interference.

We cover up the problem by periodic bailouts; the bill sent to the middle class.  So, yes, explain the broken system, to the voters.