Essential Bastiat

Do you ever get sick of people saying that the government creates jobs? Because you know that it's just not true?

Well, all of this was addressed decades (centuries even) ago by Frédéric Bastiat. If you haven't read his stuff before, you should. Here is a good start. From the Library of Economics and Liberty:

"Bastiat: Selected Essays, Chapter 1, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen"
http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html

He explains the difference between the seen and the unseen in economic analysis. The Broken Window Fallacy is also a classic. Too much great information to even summarize here. Here is Bastiat on the seen and unseen:

"There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen."

"Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil."

Bastiat makes a great point about the army creating jobs via the military. He asks, "If, all things considered, there is a national profit in increasing the size of the army, why not call the whole male population of the country to the colors?" We know why: Because anything the government provides must be taken first from others. And if it takes too much, there won't be enough to go around to fund the government.