What Do We Expect of Government Employees?

I'm prompted by a scattering of factoids in today's press, which I won't even bother to link to.

• Item. GAO reports some government bureaucrats are flying business/first class. (One being a deputy assistant undersecretary for USDA (those job titles keep getting longer).)
• Item. A mention of the starting salaries for law school grads ($160K).(More than all but a few federal employees.)
  
• Item. Blackwater head defends his employees, who earn multiples of what the retired Gen. Pace did, in front of Congress.
• Item. NYTimes has a diagram showing the "old boy network" (my terminology) of how the up and coming wheeler dealers in finance relate by school ties (clue Harvard Law and MBA and undergrad, Yale, and the other usual prospects).

I guess the lesson is, government employees give stable service for middle of the road benefits. If you want the big bucks, and the comfortable seats, you have to take the risks inherent in being part of an old-boy network.