Tories axe academic freedom

[Victor Galis]

Those are obvious public goods. Healthcare is not particularly obviously a public good beyond immunization and some basic hygiene. Most healthcare expenses in the West do not go toward the prevention/containment of communicable disease.

Though I suspect we could do a lot more in the way of preventive care. Since the benefits of such care are hard to measure, that sort of care might also be a natural monopoly.

By the way, you are confusing the term "natural monopoly" with "public good". A public good is one where the free-rider problem is acute. Natural monopolies are simply industries where the cost of production is strongly inversely dependent on size.

No, I approached the problem from a different angle than you. I assumed the state would control several natural monopolies but not others. I guess I wasn't thinking about why it's usually those goods and not others.

For example, electricity distribution is usually claimed to be a natural monopoly, however it is not a public good. My neighbour using his toaster doesn't allow me to use my TV without paying the electric company.

The public good involved is actually the maintenance of the power grid. You having neighbours that use electricity makes it much more likely that you have a power grid you can easily and cheaply connect to. If you were living by yourself in the woods, you'd have to generate your own power.

On the other hand, if you were living in some village where no one had power, you could easily get into a situation where no one is willing to pay to have the power grid extended to said village, even though they'd be quite happy to connect into it if someone else paid the expense of expanding it.

On the other hand, lighthouses are the classic example of a public good, but as far as I can see it doesn't really matter if one company runs some lighthouses and another company some other ones.

Hence why I started answering the what should the state provide from the natural monopoly rather than public good angle. I didn't want to start a debate about school vouchers, electricity deregulation, etc.

Roads may be both a natural monopoly (or at least natural oligopoly) as well as a public good, depending on how much you hate tolls.

Yeah, the downside of having competition in roads is that we'd end up with overcapacity or an awful lot of narrow roads that together have the same throughput as an interstate highway. Both outcomes are undesirable.

If you think that this will do anything you're crazy. In addition to the fact that financial firms are just as guilty of groupthink as other people, there are obvious ways to engineer around any size restrictions you care to think of. You have far too much faith in regulation. It never works. Not for long, at least.

I would like to know why the Canadian banks didn't get into the same sort of trouble as many others internationally. (I mean I really don't know.) Then, when we find that out, I would suggest that solution to other countries as appropriate.

Dude, exposure to firms' credit is FAR bigger than is indicated by the freaking size of its bond issues. There's a whole ****ing HOST of things you can hedge against by using CDS. Like exposure to a downturn in the sector of the underlying. Or direct business dealings with the underlying. Or some crazy **** that it takes 5 PhDs ages to figure out. I'm not smart enough to know what's hedging and what's gambling without in-depth knowledge of every situation and neither are you. Accept the bounds of your intelligence and knowledge. The world is FILLED with very smart people. The things they come up with is constantly surprising to me. Be humble.

Somehow allowing firms to hedge these risks seems to have made the situation worse, not better. Perhaps that's just because some of the sellers had no business selling the amount of protection they were offering, but I suppose that's another issue.

CDS are so massively used because they're so useful. Why would people choose to gamble with CDS instead of options, futures or any other of the scads of derivatives UNLESS THE CDS FILLED A NEED WHICH WASN'T PREVIOUSLY FILLED?

Because for the sellers they can make a steady, sizeable stream of income by betting against some unlikely event, while knowing full well they don't need to actually need to pay out if all their CDSs go bad because they'll just go bankrupt or be bailed out. (see AIG)

Yeah, but the areas where most of 'em agree is pretty stable and convincing. And most, if not all of the points I made there are precisely in those non-controversial areas, even if they are phrased slightly differently.

You are no doubt familiar with group-think.

High marginal tax rates are bad.

I'm not convinced this is as true in practice as it is in theory. I would like to see empirical studies or at the very least some papers from behavioural economists on the subject.

Transfers in cash are more valuable than transfers in kind.

This is not necessarily true if the good provided cannot be bought in market for what it costs the government to provide.

[Victor Galis]

Both of these are true of the auto insurance market too. I agree that these are inefficiencies, but I question any claim which say that the cost savings from these factors is a significant part of the total cost of medical care.

Galbraith claims those costs are about 2% of GDP or 16% of overall healthcare costs. He might be including other administrative costs that could be eliminated by having a single-payer system. I'll admit I never independently checked those numbers.

Car insurers do not have to spend as much screening because they can rely on driving record.

[KrazyHorse]

No, I approached the problem from a different angle than you. I assumed the state would control several natural monopolies but not others. I guess I wasn't thinking about why it's usually those goods and not others.

Then your problem is more fundamental. And you obviously haven't spent much time thinking about this. Police forces, for example ARE NOT natural monopolies. Their services are provided by mulltiple agencies EVEN IN A SINGLE GEOGRAPHIC AREA. Police forces ARE, on the other hand PUBLIC GOODS. Arresting wrongdoers protects everybody else. There's no way to ensure that a privately provided police force could extract payment from all of those who benefit from their presence.

The public good involved is actually the maintenance of the power grid. You having neighbours that use electricity makes it much more likely that you have a power grid you can easily and cheaply connect to. If you were living by yourself in the woods, you'd have to generate your own power.

THAT IS NOT A PUBLIC GOOD. THAT IS A NATURAL MONOPOLY. You ****ing ****. Learn the terminology before you use it.

On the other hand, if you were living in some village where no one had power, you could easily get into a situation where no one is willing to pay to have the power grid extended to said village, even though they'd be quite happy to connect into it if someone else paid the expense of expanding it.

OMFG it's like talking to a two year-old. Whatever electrical company chooses to extend the power grid to the village can charge whatever they like for electricity (because they will be a monopoly in the village). They can PAY FOR THE EXTENSION OF THE POWER GRID BY CHARGING HIGH RATES FOR ELECTRICITY. If you choose not to pay then you don't get power and your neighbour's using power doesn't help you. Are you seriously this dumb?

[KrazyHorse]

I can't be bothered to read the rest of your long, dumb, boring posts. You don't even understand ECON 101 terms like public good and natural monopoly. You are going back on ignore, dumbass.

[KrazyHorse]

Hey, we have two perfectly good terms for TWO DIFFERENT PHENOMENA. But instead of learning the idea behind each of these I'm just going to start throwing them around like they're interchangeable, along with some other terminology I don't really understand....

[KrazyHorse]

Every time I talk to vickie I end up having to explain basic things like this to him (e.g. last time it was the yield curve).

Read a ****ing book, dude. Then get back to me.

[Ben Kenobi]

You're a masterful ironist, aren't you?

Just saying that Philosophy can be far deadlier then Business. Business tends to shy away from social experiments that result in the deaths of millions of people.

[Ben Kenobi]

Galbraith claims those costs are about 2% of GDP or 16% of overall healthcare costs. He might be including other administrative costs that could be eliminated by having a single-payer system. I'll admit I never independently checked those numbers.

Does Galbraith take into account that innovation slows as well in a single payer system? There's no incentive to invest in medical research if you cannot reap the benefit as you can in the US. That has a great ongoing cost which lowers both the effectiveness and the efficiency of the care up here.

[Victor Galis]

And you obviously haven't spent much time thinking about this.

Touché.

Police forces, for example ARE NOT natural monopolies. Their services are provided by mulltiple agencies EVEN IN A SINGLE GEOGRAPHIC AREA.

Ok, that's somewhat true, but I think multiple police forces operating within a single geographical area do not have overlapping jurisdictions in terms of crimes they deal with. Not only that, many of those agencies are controlled by the government. If two wholly-owned subsidiaries of the same company "competed" to provide a service do you think anti-trust regulators wouldn't consider them a monopoly?

At best I accept the claim that law enforcement is a natural oligopoly.

Police forces ARE, on the other hand PUBLIC GOODS. Arresting wrongdoers protects everybody else. There's no way to ensure that a privately provided police force could extract payment from all of those who benefit from their presence.

Surely you've heard of protection rackets?

THAT IS NOT A PUBLIC GOOD. THAT IS A NATURAL MONOPOLY. You ****ing ****. Learn the terminology before you use it.

Er... sorry. The public good is the economic development that follows from electrification of your surroundings and any increase in your property values because the next owner could have an easier time connecting to that power grid if he chose to.

Whatever electrical company chooses to extend the power grid to the village can charge whatever they like for electricity (because they will be a monopoly in the village). They can PAY FOR THE EXTENSION OF THE POWER GRID BY CHARGING HIGH RATES FOR ELECTRICITY.

Not anywhere where natural monopolies are heavily regulated. Then again, everything I've said about it probably doesn't apply either.

If you choose not to pay then you don't get power and your neighbour's using power doesn't help you. Are you seriously this dumb?

Sure it does. Your land value goes up, maybe the local economy improves.

I can't be bothered to read the rest of your long, dumb, boring posts. You don't even understand ECON 101 terms like public good and natural monopoly. You are going back on ignore, dumbass.

Put me on ignore then post two more replies to me? I suppose I don't understand your brilliance. I also don't understand punching oneself in the face. Oh well.

[KrazyHorse]

April 1, 2009, 23:21
Remove user from ignore list
Victor Galis
This message is hidden because Victor Galis is on your ignore list.

[Fake Boris]

I like how this is a progression of stupid assertions to less stupid ones as I gradually debunk each claim in turn.

Fakeboris puts up the most retarded assertion possible.

I correct him and then he changes to the next most retarded position available.

I correct that and vickie posts an even less retarded position (though still with plenty of residual retardedness).

Is it true learning or simply blind evolution? I'm mainly a functionalist, so I'll be optimistic.

Lucky/competent investors lending the US money at 0.3%?

[Fake Boris]

Not even to talk about your own assumptions

(assume that a quant can never cost anyone anything, because one's losses are another's gains.) Welcome to financial pantheism.

[Fake Boris]

And bear in mind that if there is no counterfactual where a crash doesn't happen, your work is still useless.

I seldom bother with explaining you my POV in detail because you'd rather put words in my mouth that I didn't stay (and then intellectual-masturbate in mockery). The show you put up is still decent at times though.

Anyway, end of semester rush. I'll be back in a few days, but I doubt you're up for an honest discussion.

[Kidlicious]

Er... sorry.

He wore you down with his horrible argument until you made a mistake then he jumped all over it like it's a big deal. For some reason he convinces himself of his superiority that way.

[KrazyHorse]

Not even to talk about your own assumptions

(assume that a quant can never cost anyone anything, because one's losses are another's gains.)

You're an idiot. I've never claimed this.