esk@wucs.UUCP (Walter Wego) (02/11/85)
[] From: mck@ratex.UUCP (Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan) (quotes from several postings) > Such concntrations of economic power are maintained by exercising > political power; they could not persist in a Free Economy. Why? Because > of diseconomies of scale -- especially informational diseconomies. How about some empirical evidence to back that up. > By the way, in case anyone is interested, Socialist economics were com- > pletely blown out of the water several decades ago by Ludwig Edler von Mises By the way, in case anyone is interested, the above statement is based on a blatantly false definition of "Socialist" as implying the absence of markets. Not that I'm a fan of it, but mainline socialism has changed a lot since von Mises's time. > Economic performance is maximized when: 1) the Price System is unhindered, > 2) externalities are internalized as much as possible. Yes!, externalities need to be internalized as much as possible! That includes positive externalities like those that flow from education, scientific reasearch, national defense, etc. Now, here's a suggestion for internalizing these externalities: charge the external beneficiaries a fee, and use the money to subsidize the above activities. It's called -- you guessed it -- TAXATION!! > Probably no one out there could follow what I said, and probably no > one out there gives a damn... Believe it or not, I followed it. (I'm sort of an intermediate-level economics student myself.) I do have a question however, where you say: > For a number of reasons, rational and irrational, people tend to value > present consumption over future consumption. What do you think are the rational reasons? (I can see someone reasoning, "I expect to have a higher income in the future, and I prefer a more constant level of consumption to meager consumption now and extrav- agance then; so the marginal value of present consumption is greater." But this isn't the same as valuing present income higher *per se*.) From: mag@whuxlm.UUCP (Gray Michael A) > [Sevener is] quite correct in pointing out that in a community of people > andtheir interests, unanimous agreement is nearly impossible. My answer > is, so what? If 80% of the people think that a community swimming pool > should be built, let them build it, pay for it and use it. Just don't > try to force me to pay for it. I realize that I then have no right > to use it. Fine. Yes, fine. > Now, substitute some other phrase for "swimming pool", > such as "public education system" and repeat the above paragraph. No. There's a crucial difference: education has positive externalities (see above), swimming pools don't. --The perspiring iconoclast, Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 Don't hit that 'r' key! Send any mail to this address, not the sender's.