From the Economist: Buy local

joG said:

If a production factor cannot be paid for from the revenue, why would you want to pay for it? What is the sense of a road that is almost never used?

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It provides service to citizens and the expense of doing it shouldn't be a factor for a reasonable project.

Joe Steel said:

It provides service to citizens and the expense of doing it shouldn't be a factor for a reasonable project.

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I would propose looking at optimization of public and private goods. In particular the definitions are important. You can let government produce private goods, but it is inefficient without an additional set of benefits.

joG said:

I would propose looking at optimization of public and private goods. In particular the definitions are important. You can let government produce private goods, but it is inefficient without an additional set of benefits.

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Efficiency is of no concern. Government must serve the People's need: ...provide for the general welfare.

Joe Steel said:

Efficiency is of no concern. Government must serve the People's need: ...provide for the general welfare.

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That is very true, what democratic government is about. And to do so, the government must act so that this happens. The best way to do so, is learn about how economies work and apply the knowledge. One parcel of that is about how to produce private vs public goods without wasting resources. You see, waste reduces the welfare of society and should be avoided by governments. This is, what efficiency is all about and why it is of concern.

In other words, your statement above is self-contradicting.

joG said:

That is very true, what democratic government is about. And to do so, the government must act so that this happens. The best way to do so, is learn about how economies work and apply the knowledge. One parcel of that is about how to produce private vs public goods without wasting resources. You see, waste reduces the welfare of society and should be avoided by governments. This is, what efficiency is all about and why it is of concern.

In other words, your statement above is self-contradicting.

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"Waste" isn't a concern. What you might define as waste is revenue to someone. It adds to economic activity even it if it makes a particular project look overly expensive.

Joe Steel said:

"Waste" isn't a concern. What you might define as waste is revenue to someone. It adds to economic activity even it if it makes a particular project look overly expensive.

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Nope. That is economically wrong. Sorry.

Joe Steel said:

"Waste" isn't a concern.

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Of yours, clearly.

Mycroft said:

Something that flies in the face of reality.

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Not really. You're understanding of political history, as usual, is faulty.

Obama had promised to treat the "hot-question" of HealthCare during his campaign. The American people are entirely at fault that he could not deliver it in the manner he had intended. In 2009, he was preoccupied with stopping the Great Recession. In 2010, with unemployment at 10%, he was blamed for not-walking-on-water to reduce it and suffered at the polls accordingly.

In fact, had he been able to do so, Sanders would not be as interesting candidate on the Left as he is today. ObamaCare would be a tried-'n-true universal government paid and managed by a National Health Service - on a par with the European variety of the same nature. Bingo! At half the current expenditure rate, America would have shifted 8% of American GDP ($100B) off HealthCare and into other sectors of the GDP to create jobs.

By electing the Replicants into control of the HofR, only 35.7% of American registered voters cut off all additional funding that did not adhere to the inane view of Replicant priorities. (Entirely related to "Massive Debt". Sounds good, but irrelevant in a recession.)

The corporatist plutocrat money spent on the election obtained its intended result. Obama was obliged to work his plan through private-enterprise HealthCare; which is double the cost comparatively with any European country (with a National Healthcare System).

I'm not kidding you. At interpreting correctly the political-history of the US you should "try harder" ...

Lafayette said:

Not really. You're understanding of political history, as usual, is faulty.

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Yeah...okay...let's look at "your" understanding of political history.

Obama had promised to treat the "hot-question" of HealthCare during his campaign. The American people are entirely at fault that he could not deliver it in the manner he had intended. In 2009, he was preoccupied with stopping the Great Recession. In 2010, with unemployment at 10%, he was blamed for not-walking-on-water to reduce it and suffered at the polls accordingly.

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The American People had nothing to do with things. Heck, by a majority they didn't even WANT the government to mess with healthcare...whether single payer, ACA and any other mess the Democrats were talking about. We even saw that when Hillary was messing with it.

Single payer was something Congressional Democrats didn't want. There just wasn't any support for it and, believe me, if Obama had any kind of support for single payer he would have shoved that down the people's throats like he did with Obamacare.

And here's what Bernie had to say back then about Obama and single payer:

Like so much else about the healthcare debate, it comes down to math. “I would say that in the Senate, there are at most 10 votes for a single-payer plan,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a self-described democratic socialist, who isn’t shy about his own preference for that kind of solution, told Salon this week. “In the House, I have no idea but it’s a small minority … It’s absurd to say, ‘Mr. President, go forward and make your bill single-payer,’ when you’ve got 10 percent of the Congress supporting you.”

Why Obama snubbed single-payer - Salon.com

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But...what about the "public option"???

There are any number of explanations for why there aren’t any votes for a single-payer plan; the massive campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures by the insurance industry and other big healthcare players surely didn’t help the cause. But as the public option looks like it may, once and for all, be ruled out of the bill, it’s worth remembering that even the Democrats in Congress are a change-averse bunch when it comes to healthcare. (After all, it was Democrats, not Republicans, who insisted on knocking the public option out of the Senate bill.) The writing was on the wall for the public plan for a while, even though it did make it out of the House; President Obama told key progressive lawmakers last week that the votes just weren’t there, but even before that, the White House was being so blasé about the idea that it was hard to see the administration fighting for it. Sanders will introduce an amendment for the public option in the Senate, but if Durbin is going to whip Democrats to vote against it in the name of smoothing the reconciliation bill’s passage, it’s likely to be defeated.

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So...according to political history, we got Obamacare as it is solely because of wheeling and dealing amongst the Congressional Democrats. That's all Obama could manage to get out of them.

You'll notice, I'm sure, that these quotes aren't from some anti-left hit piece or publication. It's from Salon...who are decidedly leftist.

In fact, had he been able to do so, Sanders would not be as interesting candidate on the Left as he is today. ObamaCare would be a tried-'n-true universal government paid and managed by a National Health Service - on a par with the European variety of the same nature. Bingo! At half the current expenditure rate, America would have shifted 8% of American GDP ($100B) off HealthCare and into other sectors of the GDP to create jobs.

By electing the Replicants into control of the HofR, only 35.7% of American registered voters cut off all additional funding that did not adhere to the inane view of Replicant priorities. (Entirely related to "Massive Debt". Sounds good, but irrelevant in a recession.)

The corporatist plutocrat money spent on the election obtained its intended result. Obama was obliged to work his plan through private-enterprise HealthCare; which is double the cost comparatively with any European country (with a National Healthcare System).

I'm not kidding you. At interpreting correctly the political-history of the US you should "try harder" ...

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The rest of your post is a combination of fantasy, whining, spin and irrelevant comparisons and deserves no consideration.

Mycroft said:

The rest of your post is a combination of fantasy ... and deserves no consideration.

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I think, rather, it is not very far from the thoughts of most Americans, and the older they get the more it grows on them. And it's the elderly who vote most religiously.

Gallup Poll, Health Care, 2015 - HealthCare
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Lafayette said:

I think, rather, it is not very far from the thoughts of most Americans, and the older they get the more it grows on them. And it's the elderly who vote most religiously.

Gallup Poll, Health Care, 2015 - HealthCare
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Oh, I agree that Americans think about their health care, but I'm not sure what you are referring to when you say, "it". Are you talking about health care? Obamacare? Single payer? Public option? And, I'll agree that the elderly vote more than other groups.

But I have no idea what your point is here or why you presented that poll link. I don't see any connection to the part of my post that you elected to respond to. Perhaps you'll explain?

Mycroft said:

But I have no idea what your point is here or why you presented that poll link. I don't see any connection to the part of my post that you elected to respond to. Perhaps you'll explain?

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The elderly vote. They need healthcare more than any other segment of the population.

They will inevitably turn to voting for a Universal Healthcare from the government. Why not? Healthcare, DoD - both are related to life-span of the individual and individuals and thus the nation.

Bad habits are hard to break, but it is simply a question of time ...

Lafayette said:

The elderly vote. They need healthcare more than any other segment of the population.

They will inevitably turn to voting for a Universal Healthcare from the government. Why not? Healthcare, DoD - both are related to life-span of the individual and individuals and thus the nation.

Bad habits are hard to break, but it is simply a question of time ...

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LOL!!

Your reasoning is ludicrous.

It's like saying...

"People need to eat and that the elderly need to eat, all those people will vote for Universal Food from the government. Or Universal Lodging. Or Universal Clothing. All supplied and paid for by the government, of course.

We know people are accustomed to making their own choices, taking responsibilities for their own welfare, that such bad habits are hard to break...but it is simply a question of time."

Look, I have no doubt you'd like the government to supply everything to everyone...along with the strings that are inevitably attached...and who knows, you will probably get a lot of people to fall for your sucker routine, but there will always be those who fundamentally resist your desires. Not to mention that such government services are economically unsustainable.