[tokyolights2]

What should the government be spending its money on? So in those countries, social services are making up ~25 percent of government spending. But that includes healthcare and jobs programs, which are services that should directly bolster the larger economy by creating a healthy and more mobile workforce.

Meanwhile the US government spends about 35% of our GDP in a good year [1], and it is well known that over half of that goes to social security, medicare, and a smaller amount to housing. [2]

My only point is that it is easy to see that graph you posted and think that things are out of control, but the reality is just that in a post-war, urbanized, liberal society the governments job is to serve the people and sometimes that means spending money on them. I know surely none of us here will ever take adventage of medicare or social security in our old age. We will not be hiring students who went to state-funded schools (ew) or who live in subsidized housing--if they are that poor they can't work for me! But normal pepole actually do sometimes get help from the government and it is fine.

[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-spendi... [2] https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...

[ETH_start]

Government spending as a share of GDP is increasing. The main issue is this, not what the government is spending on.

Increasingly taxing people to subsidize other people, through large government bureaucracies with a monopoly on those tax dollars, leads to slower economic growth. Picketty is ignoring the elephant in the room when trying to identity the cause of European economic sluggishness.

And if you want people's quality of life to improve, reduce their tax burdens and lift regulatory restrictions on their business activities, so that they can serve consumers more effectively by investing more of their time and money creating firms that cater to them.

[tharmas]

Heavily tax speculation and heavily reduce taxes on productive activities.

[lurking15]

> spending _its_ money

They're spending everyone's money. How about we don't enslave people to their government and simply leave us all to spend our own money and resources how we see fit. Don't give me any nonsense about the social contract or democracy. The government has grown beyond any reasonable remit it was granted and is enriching itself or investing in failed programs.

[tokyolights2]

Where do you think that money comes from and what gives it value? Your bank account is full of your governments' money...