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No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

You expect congress to make public goods choices with due consideration for my well-being. My well-being?
Yes. Your well-being, and that of the 320 million other US citizens. Some care about non-Americans too. You as a citizen have many ways of giving elected officials information about their priorities, such as:

• Voting
• Donations
• Communicating with elected officials
• Protests
• Contributing to activist organizations
• Running for office

Yes, that's right. Even citizens can run for office. Who knew?

Granted, it's not perfect. Then again, neither are markets, or the people who operate in them.

We also occasionally dislike the rather ruthless operations of the market. We don't like it when companies fire large numbers of their employees. We don't like it when the price of gas goes up, because there's a shortage of a good. We really don't like it when jobs move abroad, because it's cheaper to hire foreign labor. We don't like it when monopolies form, and abuse their monopoly position. Some of us don't like it when neighborhoods gentrify, and drive long-time residents out. The list goes on.


Yet here you are telling me that congress can somehow know what works for my well-being despite the fact that I've never once in my life shopped in the public sector.
Yes... What you do is tell them.

Treating a government as though it is a market is an absurdity Market operations tell producers what to make, and usually do so quite efficiently. The role of government is to make sure the market can operate properly, has a peaceful means of conflict resolution, regulates markets, provide public or common goods, and protect citizens.

In the same way that the government generally sucks at predicting demand and setting prices of goods, the private market sucks at regulating itself, protecting citizens, providing public goods, and so forth.


Then again, it pays to double check. E-mail your representative and ask them what works for your well-being.
Actually, most elected officials these days are happy to tell you what they plan to do for you. They give speeches, they have web pages, they occasionally even talk to constituents.
 
While military is important, the reality is that we spend more than the next 8 nations combined,
and we defend more than 8 nations so this makes perfect sense but most importantly we need to spend even more, especially on missile defense as Reagan wanted now that North Korea and Iran have nuclear missiles and hate us. Do you understand?
 
the private market sucks at regulating itself,.

if that was true we'd have the lowest standard of living in the world rather than the highest. In the USA alone the market regulates 10,000 companies out of business each month just because they are not the best in the world at price and quality. Do you understand?
 
The role of government is to make sure the market can operate properly,

but mostly it makes markets operate improperly which is why 120 million slowly starved to death in USSR and Red China.
 
I agree. Too bad liberals are opposed to the concept of all the people deciding through their market place activity. They prefer a few people in Washington deciding for everyone.

Well, remove the politics and you'll see you, and most Republicans, also do something similar.

Nearly every single Republican (and Democrat) gives their priceless time and best years, to corporations via their daily labor. These corporations, where the vast majority of profits go only to the top share holders and executives, decide on how you spend your day, which health care plans are available to you, what retirement plans and sometimes even funds. They have near limitless power when it comes to that corporation, they can typically hire at will, replace you with India/China/Mexican labor at will, and fire you at will, update your job description, send you to Siberia or you get to quit, etc.

Yet when we try to do something similar with our institution of government...you call foul? And you bring up the private market as an example of doing it different?

No, governments are a necessarily evil, just as corporations are, and most people outsource most of the best hours of their day to corporations, the least we can do is admit that having our nations governance, is at best, similar to what you do every day with work. Move beyond those political propaganda talking points.

The federal government largely deals with much higher level issues, including foreign trade, defense, and the public welfare. These are not things any corporation can or should do. These are not things any individual can or should do.

The best Republicans can do is decide on what they actually want government to do, rather than simply what they think it should NOT do. As you can see, a Republican controlled everything is scratching it's head...we won, now what?
 
Yet when we try to do something similar with our institution of government...you call foul?

exactly because liberal, monopoly, bureaucratic govt is the source of evil in human history having slowly starved 120 million to death in the last century alone while trying to do liberal good. There are 10's of millions of saintly corporations all around the planet that only survive if they provide the best jobs and products possible to raise our standard of living at the fastest possible rate. If you doubt it for even 1/100th of a second please start a business with sub-standard jobs and products and let us known what happens. Can you predict??

Now you can see that corporations are Godly while liberal govt is the devil incarnate on earth.
 
No, governments are a necessarily evil, just as corporations are,

how can corporations be evil when we'd all be dead without them??? Its like saying food or medicine are evil. Notice how you've been brainwashed to double think.
 
The best Republicans can do is decide on what they actually want government to do,

Our Founders decided this 200 years ago when they wrote the Constitution. Govt is the source of evil in history and so should do as little as possible
 
exactly because liberal, monopoly, bureaucratic govt is the source of evil in human history having slowly starved 120 million to death in the last century alone while trying to do liberal good. There are 10's of millions of saintly corporations all around the planet that only survive if they provide the best jobs and products possible to raise our standard of living at the fastest possible rate. If you doubt it for even 1/100th of a second please start a business with sub-standard jobs and products and let us known what happens. Can you predict??Now you can see that corporations are Godly while liberal govt is the devil incarnate on earth.

Nonsense.
Governments can be good or bad and in between.
Corporations can be good or bad and in between.
Governments typically affect more people, thus a bad government can affect more people than a single bad company, in general.

These seem like basic concepts.

Our government has incredible diversity in terms of checks and balances, its hardly monopolistic in that respect. Between federal, state/local, and the various branches, and elections and term limits, it's hardly some monolithic freedom-burning machine. If Republicans would stop being idiots for a while and figure out how to improve government instead of simply berating it (while working in it and getting elected...), they might have something to contribute.

Corporations are not saintly, most are designed for one purpose, to profit. As part of a well functioning/regulated economy, private enterprise IS a good thing for most populations.
And yet it must be regulated, and must be part of a well functioning government. Unregulated, companies were not saintly, they killed workers, cheated them, and look for any/all advantage including monopolies, buying government, etc. Money is power, and power corrupts...it corrupts corporations just as much as it corrupts governments.
There are 10's of millions of saintly corporations all around the planet that only survive if they provide the best jobs and products possible to raise our standard of living at the fastest possible rate.
lol. Saintly? They are largely all just working for a profit. All other benefits are incidental. Have you really run a company? Seems like a bizarre view to hold.

But in part it's true. U.S. companies have for the past few decades been raising the living standard of the rest of the world and proving the best jobs foreign countries have ever seen, at the cost of U.S. jobs. Wasn't that part of why Trump's Republican supporters elected him? Because free enterprise, according to them, was giving away all their jobs? Saintly indeed.
 
Our Founders decided this 200 years ago when they wrote the Constitution. Govt is the source of evil in history and so should do as little as possible

Nature is the source of all evil (mortality, suffering, everything is here)
Humans are the next in the hierarchy. (the ones who are moral)
Governments are below that. (just one of many places humans can do bad things to each other)

Government can be a source of evil, and it should be kept in check, I agree. But simply sticking ones head in the sand is a failed strategy, always has been, always will be.
Just like the Spartans, so manly and so loved for their one-track ideology that knew no compromise. The lesson of sparta is that even a popular ideology that just "feels right", can also be terribly wrong.

It feels good to simply say "small government", and beat that drum, the freedom caucus, libertarianism, it's all the same. But in reality, it would be an utterly stupid way to run any nation of merit.
 
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But simply sticking ones head in the sand is a failed strategy, always has been, always will be.
.

obvious strawman!! Our founders did not stick their heads in the sand they caused a revolution!!!!
 
It feels good to simply say "small government",.

and to create it with the Constitution and then watch the USA become the greatest most saintly country in human history by far because of small govt.
 
A problem exists with the idea of taxpayers earmarking their personal tax payments - they assume that they alone know what is best (highest priority) which is also not a market decision since their tax funds are gone no matter what.

Using your given taxpayer choices of a building/manning a border wall or giving a NEA grant which would "win" is moot since we are talking about .00001% of a federal budget yet a taxpayer earmark poll of this sort dedicates up to 100% of their funds to one or the other.

Imagine the chaos of placing millions of government programs, offices and/or write-ins as "options" for each taxpayer to allocate thier personal taxation funds toward. Gosh, we ended up with billions for wind farm subsidies and $500K for paying the military - I guess those people knew best so lets convert 99.9% of military bases into wind farms. ;)

Bottom line for me is:
1. Who is the best equipped to know what is best for me/my community/my state? Me/the people of my community and my state? Or the federal government?

2. Do we believe people should have the liberty to decide for themselves what is the most effective, beneficial, enjoyable use of their own money that they earned with their own labor? Or do we believe the federal government is smarter than we are in how to use a good chunk of our money?

3. Should any authority be given power to confiscate resources from the people in order to give to those charities that the authority deems worthy to receive charity? Or should people decide for themselves whether to donate to charity and what charities deserve their donations?

Absolutely the federal government is constitutionally authorized and mandated to provide whatever common defense/national security that the states are not authorized to provide. Whether we agree or disagree with it, the wall certainly fits into that category. And the federal government must initiate and enforce such policies/regulation that prevent the various states from doing economic or physical harm to each other--anti trust and RICO laws as well as interstate rules/regs re shared air, water, transportation, radio transmissions and such would apply here. And the federal government is charged to promote the general welfare--safety regulation of imported products and those that cross state lines and such, the tax code, and economic regulations and such fall into that category.

Which leaves us with such things as the National Endowment for the Arts, Meals on Wheels, education and such for which the Constitution gives the federal government no authority whatsoever to control, regulate, or finance.

But such things are so wonderful, yes? Some indeed are, but if they are so wonderful, why would the people themselves not fund them instead of leaving it to the federal government to do?

The enormous, duplicative, overreaching, bloated, unmanageable, and ever growing federal bureaucracy confiscates a huge lion's share of every dollar flowing into it just to feed and benefit itself. The piddling amount left over sometimes actually helps somebody, but just as often, maybe more often, just goes to some 'feel good' program with a wonderful title but not much of substance to show for the money they receive. How much better would it be to leave the money with the people where all or most of it could go directly to worthy causes instead of the pittance they receive from the federal government?
 
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he didn't come up with the idea of opportunity cost. Anyway....
A. rescue a cat stuck in a tree
B. save Gotham from imminent destruction

B is the opportunity cost of A. Quiggin obviously didn't invent the idea of opportunity cost. Instead he very reasonably assumed that society's limited resources should be put to more, rather than less, valuable uses. This important concept didn't have a name so I named it after him... Quiggin's Implied Rule Of Economics (QIRE).

If Batman can do either A or B... then clearly he should choose the most most valuable option. Batman should follow rather than break QIRE. Then the issue is determining the value of A and B. We all intuitively understand that B > A... but how can we effectively communicate what we all understand? Communicating the value of things is the very point of spending money. So we'd spend a lot more money on B rather than on A.

1. Batman can't be in two places at once (Buchanan's Rule)
2. Batman should choose the most valuable option (Quiggin's Rule)
3. We should use our money to inform Batman's decision (Smith's Rule)

You're under the impression that Smith's Rule can be broken and Batman will still choose the most valuable option anyways. In this example you're probably right. It's obvious that B > A. But if you truly believe that the most valuable option is always obvious... then you really shouldn't have a problem if we follow Smith's Rule.

If you think that a giant wall is obviously not the most valuable option... then you shouldn't have a problem with taxpayers having the freedom to confirm this with their own tax dollars. Same thing if you think that a war is obviously not the most valuable option.
 
A. rescue a cat stuck in a tree
B. save Gotham from imminent destruction

B is the opportunity cost of A. Quiggin obviously didn't invent the idea of opportunity cost. Instead he very reasonably assumed that society's limited resources should be put to more, rather than less, valuable uses.
OK, I hate to do this, but I'm going to repeat my position. Hopefully it will be clearer the 2nd time around.

• I'm well aware of the idea of opportunity cost.

• The costs of things like CPB, NEA, NEH are very low (and I'd say efficient). They are practically rounding errors in the federal budget. Meanwhile, defense spending and the proposed border wall are both very expensive and very inefficient.

• Federal spending is NOT a zero-sum game. Thus, it does not in fact make sense to say "you can have either NPR or community gardens, but not both."

• Thus, the desire to cut social spending, and increase military spending and border wall spending, is not fiscal in nature. It's ideological. Claiming any sort of fiscal benefit from that particular arrangement is just bull****.


1. Batman can't be in two places at once (Buchanan's Rule)
2. Batman should choose the most valuable option (Quiggin's Rule)
3. We should use our money to inform Batman's decision (Smith's Rule)
Making up your own names for things that already have them does not improve your persuasiveness. ;) And to repeat:

• Batman is a single person, thus the use of his time is a zero-sum game. Federal spending is not zero-sum, thus the analogy does not apply.

• Despite this, I have no problem with optimizing spending. But in that case, the best thing to do is go after the biggest targets with lots of waste. As such, we should scrutinize military spending, and avoid inefficient projects like a border wall that won't work.

• It doesn't cost much money, in the grand scheme of things, to put together a commission to scour the federal government. The real problem is that when you say "we're going to order fewer fighters and close a bunch of military bases," politicians and constituents freak out and resist. I.e. taxpayers don't always know the best outcomes.


If you think that a giant wall is obviously not the most valuable option... then you shouldn't have a problem with taxpayers having the freedom to confirm this with their own tax dollars. Same thing if you think that a war is obviously not the most valuable option.
I'm sorry, but this argument here is both patently absurd, and undercuts your own argument.

You're insisting that we must adopt the most efficient policies -- but that the only way to find out if a policy is efficient is to enact it and spend billions on it? The only way to know that war is ineffective to achieve a policy goal is to wage it? That just doesn't add up.

Plus, it licenses practically any policy, including contradictory ones. E.g. the only way to know that a single-payer health care system will cut costs and improve outcomes is to implement it. At the same time, the only way to know that total removal of government from all health care systems will cut costs and improve outcomes is to... implement it. Obviously, we can't do both.
 
• Batman is a single person, thus the use of his time is a zero-sum game. Federal spending is not zero-sum, thus the analogy does not apply.
The analogy applies because federal spending is used to employ people. In case you missed it, people are by far the most important resource. The more money that the DoD has, the more brilliant brains it can compete away from other endeavors. There isn't a problem with the DoD competing brains from other endeavors... if, and only if, those other endeavors are less valuable (QIRE).

Let's keep it simple and think about Netflix. You have the freedom to decide whether or not you subscribe to Netflix. This is simply because Netflix is in a market. However, you don't have the freedom to decide whether you spend your fees on chick flicks or nature documentaries. This is simply because Netflix is not a market.

A. You can help Netflix compete brilliant brains away from other endeavors = QIRE is followed
B. You can't help nature documentaries compete brilliant brains away from other endeavors = QIRE is not followed
 
On Twitter I saw this tweet with this pic...

Public_Spending_Opportunity_Cost_Pragmatarianism_Wall_Trump_National_Endowment_Art.jpg




There's no such thing as a free lunch. The massive amount of resources needed to build a giant wall aren't going to magically appear out of thin air. They are going to be taken from other endeavors. However, this is just as true for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as it is for a giant wall. Here's how I illustrated this...


National_Endowment_For_The_Arts_Pragmatarianism_Trump_Wall_Opportunity_Cost_Trade-Offs.jpg



If you genuinely appreciate that every endeavor is going to take resources away from other endeavors... then clearly the goal should be to take resources away from the least valuable endeavors. This is Quiggin's Implied Rule of Economics (QIRE).

Imagine that Batman is at home twiddling his thumbs. In this case, there would be absolutely no problem with having him rescue a cat from a tree. Batman would be put to a more valuable use. But what if Batman isn't at home twiddling his thumbs? What if he is actually trying to save Gotham from imminent destruction? Then it would be a terrible idea for him to stop what he's doing in order to rescue a cat from a tree. The opportunity cost would be way too high.

So the most important question is... how do we determine the actual value of an endeavor?

Market = Everybody decides for themselves, with their own money, which trade-offs are acceptable
Not-market = Everybody does not decide for themselves, with their own money, which trade-offs are acceptable

How many places are missing a market? The public sector is missing a market. Taxpayers can't decide for themselves, with their own taxes, which trade-offs are acceptable.

Netflix is also missing a market. Subscribers can't decide for themselves, with their own fees, which trade-offs are acceptable. The NY Times is also missing a market. So is this forum.

There's a multitude of places that are missing markets. Therefore...

A. Markets aren't the best way to determine the value of endeavors?
B. In some cases it's not necessary to know the value of endeavors?
C. People don't understand the benefit of using markets to determine the value of endeavors?

Friedman popularized concept of free lunch in response to liberals who felt govt could spend money to stimulate the economy. He pointed out it is not that easy, there is no free lunch given that when govt taxes money, to get the money it spends, it destimulates the economy so that no net benefit is possible..
 
The analogy applies because federal spending is used to employ people.
Meaning what, there is an inviolable number of people the federal government can employ? That's absurd.

Are you genuinely trying to say that the government can hire the same person to either review arts grants, or to be a soldier? Please.

Now, I do agree that in practical terms, if the federal government wanted to hire 20 million people? Yes, it would have a huge problem with staffing. But government today doesn't need to do that, unless they are running a stimulus program with the goal of putting as many people to work as possible.

And in the current context? We already have the government employees; Trump is talking about whacking $50 billion from social spending, to pay for his military and VA increases. And no, someone who administers Medicaid in Iowa is not likely to be able to take a new job, cleaning destroyers, at a Navy base in Louisiana.


Let's keep it simple and think about Netflix. You have the freedom to decide whether or not you subscribe to Netflix. This is simply because Netflix is in a market. However, you don't have the freedom to decide whether you spend your fees on chick flicks or nature documentaries. This is simply because Netflix is not a market.

A. You can help Netflix compete brilliant brains away from other endeavors = QIRE is followed
B. You can't help nature documentaries compete brilliant brains away from other endeavors = QIRE is not followed
I'm sorry, but that makes even less sense.

Netflix is a black box, but it certainly has elements of competition. The company knows exactly how many people are viewing which videos, and on that basis decides what to fund, what to emphasize, what is worth paying higher fees for licensing, what is not worth it.

More to the point, Netflix is not a government. It is a commercial entity, which collects money from subscribers in exchange for a service. The government, in contrast, collects taxes in order to perform a variety of social functions that cannot be handled effectively with private arrangements. They operate a military; they redistribute income to those who need it; they set up courts for neutral arbitration of conflicts; they enforce laws....

I suggest you stop with the unworkable examples, and just accept that this is not a zero-sum game, and that much of the spending cuts are targeted not for fiscal reasons, but ideological ones. Just accept that Trump is a callous, heartless, compassionless fiend who doesn't care about the health and welfare of the people who voted for him or the nation as a whole, and who is so cold he's even shocked Republican legislators. The truth will set you free.
 
Are you genuinely trying to say that the government can hire the same person to either review arts grants, or to be a soldier? Please.
Are you trying to say that soldiers are too dumb to review art grants?

Netflix is a black box, but it certainly has elements of competition. The company knows exactly how many people are viewing which videos, and on that basis decides what to fund, what to emphasize, what is worth paying higher fees for licensing, what is not worth it.
demand = Netflix subscribers watching nature documentaries
demand = Subscribers paying for Netflix

Is that what you're saying? Or are you saying that we don't need to know the demand for nature documentaries? If so, then why do we need to know the demand for Netflix?
 
Are you trying to say that soldiers are too dumb to review art grants?
:roll:

I'm saying that your example is absurd.

• It is deeply false to say that the government can hire one person either as a soldier or as a grant reviewer. The labor market simply is not that tight.

• Even if we did accept that bizarre argument, the person who has spent 2 years learning to review grants has built a skill-set different than a soldier, and vice versa. They aren't interchangeable anyway.

• Quite a bit of funding doesn't require the government to hire someone at all. E.g. if the NEA gets an additional $1 million to spend on grants, that doesn't actually require hiring a large number of people.



demand = Netflix subscribers watching nature documentaries
demand = Subscribers paying for Netflix

Is that what you're saying? Or are you saying that we don't need to know the demand for nature documentaries? If so, then why do we need to know the demand for Netflix?
I'm saying that your entire Netflix example makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
 
Bottom line for me is:
1. Who is the best equipped to know what is best for me/my community/my state? Me/the people of my community and my state? Or the federal government?

2. Do we believe people should have the liberty to decide for themselves what is the most effective, beneficial, enjoyable use of their own money that they earned with their own labor? Or do we believe the federal government is smarter than we are in how to use a good chunk of our money?

3. Should any authority be given power to confiscate resources from the people in order to give to those charities that the authority deems worthy to receive charity? Or should people decide for themselves whether to donate to charity and what charities deserve their donations?

Absolutely the federal government is constitutionally authorized and mandated to provide whatever common defense/national security that the states are not authorized to provide. Whether we agree or disagree with it, the wall certainly fits into that category. And the federal government must initiate and enforce such policies/regulation that prevent the various states from doing economic or physical harm to each other--anti trust and RICO laws as well as interstate rules/regs re shared air, water, transportation, radio transmissions and such would apply here. And the federal government is charged to promote the general welfare--safety regulation of imported products and those that cross state lines and such, the tax code, and economic regulations and such fall into that category.

Which leaves us with such things as the National Endowment for the Arts, Meals on Wheels, education and such for which the Constitution gives the federal government no authority whatsoever to control, regulate, or finance.

But such things are so wonderful, yes? Some indeed are, but if they are so wonderful, why would the people themselves not fund them instead of leaving it to the federal government to do?

The enormous, duplicative, overreaching, bloated, unmanageable, and ever growing federal bureaucracy confiscates a huge lion's share of every dollar flowing into it just to feed and benefit itself. The piddling amount left over sometimes actually helps somebody, but just as often, maybe more often, just goes to some 'feel good' program with a wonderful title but not much of substance to show for the money they receive. How much better would it be to leave the money with the people where all or most of it could go directly to worthy causes instead of the pittance they receive from the federal government?

The problem is that states, counties, cities and towns like "free" federal funding much more than they like raising their own taxes to fund those wonderful things.
 
:roll:

I'm saying that your example is absurd.

• It is deeply false to say that the government can hire one person either as a soldier or as a grant reviewer. The labor market simply is not that tight.
It has absolutely nothing to with how tight or loose the labor market is.

If you're a programmer in the public sector you can't also be a programmer in the private sector. If you're a programmer for the DoD you can't also be a programmer for the EPA. If you're a programmer for Google you can't also be a programmer for Microsoft.

I'm saying that your entire Netflix example makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

You can't explain the point of knowing the demand for Netflix? The demand for Netflix determines how many programmers it can compete away from other endeavors. If the demand for Netflix isn't known, then how can society know how many programmers Netflix should have?
 
Because nobody knows you better than you do.

1) It's not simply a matter of identifying your preferences. It's about identifying how to achieve the outcomes you'd prefer. Take climate change, for instance. Or trade policy. On any moderately complex issue laypeople are not going to be good judges of what specific policies to pursue (fund) to achieve the outcomes they prefer - look at climate change denial or the protectionist movements sweeping the masses. Almost by definition. Their current public disfavor notwithstanding, experts serve an important function in guiding policy.

2) Without contributions made compulsory by some arbitrating body (eg, taxation via the gubmint) people will tend to underfund public goods.
 
1) It's not simply a matter of identifying your preferences. It's about identifying how to achieve the outcomes you'd prefer. Take climate change, for instance. Or trade policy. On any moderately complex issue laypeople are not going to be good judges of what specific policies to pursue (fund) to achieve the outcomes they prefer - look at climate change denial or the protectionist movements sweeping the masses. Almost by definition. Their current public disfavor notwithstanding, experts serve an important function in guiding policy.
The division of labor really isn't an argument against consumer choice.

2) Without contributions made compulsory by some arbitrating body (eg, taxation via the gubmint) people will tend to underfund public goods.
I have absolutely no problem with compulsory taxation.
 
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