[robomartin]

Well, as you indicated, this isn't a simple problem to solve. The "let them have real jobs" statement is more of a statement of frustration than a real solution.

Maybe there's an angle there. I'll use the example of an MBA degree to illustrate. A friend of mine complete an MBA at Pepperdine. Over dinner I asked him: "What's an MBA good for?". He said "Not a damn thing without context". He got the MBA after over a decade as an engineer. He knew what to do with it and how to apply it to something concrete.

Perhaps rules for government employ could change in that you would be required to have had a career in the private domain for, say, ten years, before even qualifying to apply. And I'm not talking about working at a fast-food joint. Different positions would have different requirements. There's a difference between someone working at the department of motor vehicles vs. the Mayor of a city. I would be OK with DMV workers having five years experience in a non-trivial job (no flipping burgers) but would want a Mayor with a solid twenty years in a position of responsibility in a private enterprise. I don't know if this even makes sense, but we need better people in government than what we are getting. That's probably a huge part of the problem.