10 Random Things That You Should Know About D.C.!
(2010-01-14 at 18:52:46 )

10 Random Things That You Should Know About D.C. by Vedran Vuk

You can read just about every policy and economics article in the past
decade and still not get the complete picture of D.C. Some experiences
can only be appreciated from the ground level by living in the
metropolitan area itself. The point of this list is not to hit you with
a bunch of statistics but just to give some day-to-day observations
lending a closer look at our nations capital.

10. If scraping ice off your windshield in the morning takes 15 minutes,
you will be late for work in D.C. The delay of scraping, the slow traffic,
and the accidents will make your commute complete torture. However,
should the ice scraping take 20 minutes, you will be in the office early
that is if you are privately employed. No government employee with
countless days off will scrape ice for twenty minutes and commute in that
weather. Today, they are all staying inside. Your drive will resemble a
Saturday morning.

9. Speaking of traffic, D.C. is commonly listed in the top 10 worst
cities for traffic. Though government bureaucrats can plan our cities and
communities, they obviously fail on their own infrastructure design. Also,
it does not help that D.C. drivers are some of the meanest and most
cutthroat motorists on American roads. But, that is what you expected
from selfless caring public servants, right?

8. Taking a leisurely stroll through downtown D.C., you will not find the
most impressive buildings donning the names of gargantuan corporations.
Instead, you will likely see labor unions flaunting their excess cash.
Big Labor is one of the biggest lobbyists in town. Labor unions are
serving American workers - one posh K Street building at a time.

7. Conservatives and libertarians have long criticized government by
saying, If government can solve poverty, start with D.C. and then try the
rest of the country. This saying is unfair. It is far too ambitious.
Government should first solve poverty in the two-block area around the
White House. Then, maybe we will see about the rest of D.C. Yes, that is
correct. There are homeless people panhandling and living in Macpherson
Square just two blocks from the White House. Apparently, Michelle Obama
does not mind dining right on Macpherson Square. Just so you know that
the Obamas are fully aware of this fact.

6. In other ways, the D.C. poverty has an over-hyped reputation. Yes,
Southeast D.C. is a mess, but your average federal government employee
will never see the bad part of town. Unlike many cities where traveling
through a bad neighborhood is a necessity of daily living, D.C. commuters
rarely witness any poverty. They commute from some of the richest
counties in America to government buildings surrounded with cameras and
constant police surveillance. Government employees live in an
impenetrable economic bubble where they will never have to witness the
consequences of their actions.

5. Many people have asked me, How would we survive without all those
government agencies? My answer is a question too, Have you ever lived
through December? Because Federal Employees receive so many days off, D.C.
is practically a ghost town for 2 weeks around Christmas. The remaining
agencies are running on near skeleton crews. So, what is it like to live
without government bureaucrats watching over everything? Kind of like
late December.

4. Your Congressman is a great guy – compared to the people who work
under him. Talentless and unskilled political science majors are willing
to do anything to get ahead. Commonly, we imagine them selling their
souls on K Street for big lobbying cash. But, actually political science
majors are willing to sell their souls for about 35K or 25K plus a fancy
title on the Hill. Further, these morally vacuous know-nothings fill
every D.C. workplace creating a surplus of cutthroats and office
backstabbers unmatched by other industries. And if politics is too rough,
you can always get one of those nice six-figure federal government
payroll checks.

3. From the top 10 richest counties in the United States, 5 are located
in the D.C. metro area. The top 3 on the list are Loudon County VA,
Fairfax County VA, and Howard County MD. Many have said that America has
transformed from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. But now,
we have a new transformation at hand. With all the wealth in D.C., we are
apparently switching from a service economy to a Propaganda and
Doublespeak Economy.

2. Working in D.C. guarantees fulfilling some morally questionable order.
Whether you are a free market conservative who supported the bank
bailouts or a liberal pushing the Employee Free Choice Act, at some point
you have knowingly done something wrong. In college, we are taught that
the other side of a debate just has a different perspective, but they
actually do mean good. No-sometimes the other side is actually just evil.
But, in the city where the ends always justify the means, that is okay.

1. There are no public servants in D.C. There are only those served by
the public.

At Best, People Come To Do Good And Stay To Do Well For Themselves.

January 13, 2010

Vedran Vuk has a bachelor degree of economics from Loyola University of
New Orleans, and was a 2006 Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute. He has
contributed two chapters to the first-ever Ron Paul biography, Ron Paul:
A Life of Ideas. He currently lives and works in the D.C. area.

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