@spruce112358said As I said, I'm leaving the funding model alone for the moment. Just adding choice - a lot of the US does not have that at the moment. I haven't sent my kids to public school much - but the few times I did, I always had to petition to change their school, and it was rarely accepted.
Sounds like we largely agree, then.
Public funding doesn't necessarily imply a lack of choice. No death panels either. Germany has universal health care coverage and I can choose whatever health care provider and insurer (in the German system, these are semi-public) I want.
The reason you want public funding going towards education is to boost supply. Why would you want to boost supply? Here's where the externalities come into play. When someone follows education, their productivity generally increases. But to whom do the spoils of this enhanced productivity go, financially speaking? Certainly not to the education provider, directly. So there is a mismatch between the producer (some educational facility) and the "consumer" (whoever directly benefits from the labour of the person being educated). Since there is no way for an education facility to charge for future productivity gains to the future "consumers" thereof, you will get a lower supply of education than what would be optimal for maximizing productivity in society. This is, of course, exactly what happened before public education, when only the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie were able to obtain a reasonable standard of education.
@kazetnagorrasaid Public funding doesn't necessarily imply a lack of choice. No death panels either. Germany has universal health care coverage and I can choose whatever health care provider and insurer (in the German system, these are semi-public) I want.
The reason you want public funding going towards education is to boost supply. Why would you want to boost supply? Here's where the ...[text shortened]... hen only the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie were able to obtain a reasonable standard of education.
The phenomenon you are describing isn't unique to education, though. Let's say I buy a bike so I can run a larger newspaper delivery service and make more money. The bike company doesn't charge me based on future earnings. I just pay what they want for the bike. It's up to me to turn that into a profit. The government could step in and say, "Bikes are a public good" and give everyone one for free - but it's not clear that that makes things any better.
I found this interesting: "In 1910, for example, 9% of Americans had a high school diploma; in 1935, the rate was 40%. By 1940, the number had increased to 50%. This phenomenon was uniquely American; no other nation attempted such widespread coverage."
Back to the original subject of the thread: Matthew Yglesias
has an excellent proposal to resolve the shutdown:
It really feels like Pelosi should cut out the middle-man and open direct negotiations with the cast of Fox & Friends to find out what kind of face-saving “border security” fudge they’d go for.
@spruce112358said The phenomenon you are describing isn't unique to education, though. Let's say I buy a bike so I can run a larger newspaper delivery service and make more money. The bike company doesn't charge me based on future earnings. I just pay what they want for the bike. It's up to me to turn that into a profit. The government could step in and say, "Bikes are a public good" and ...[text shortened]... uch widespread coverage."
You still seem confused over what an "externality" is. In your example, the bike's use to you to start a business would be a direct benefit to you and would be presumably factored into the price you would be willing to pay.
But "An externality is a positive or negative consequence of an economic activity experienced by unrelated third parties. Pollution emitted by a factory that spoils the surrounding environment and affects the health of nearby residents is an example of a negative externality. The effect of a well-educated labor force on the productivity of a company is an example of a positive externality."https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/externality.asp
Externalities don't get priced into free market economic transactions because neither side obtains the benefit (positive) or suffers the disadvantage (negative) of side effects of the transaction. A free market can't fix this.
Government shutdown
05 Jan '19 22:29
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