Thursday, May 31, 2012

Mixed Markets

Hoisted from the comments over at Dean Dad's blog:
This is also the core of the social security privatization movement. SS is a visible example of government helping people, it's very popular, and it's highly efficient.

(Well, the ideological affront of it all, plus what a sudden, massive infusion of taxpayer cash into the stock market would do for people who already have large holdings. Ahem.)

Gov't does a lot of things poorly, but social security, like higher ed, isn't one of 'em.
 Is there a reason that we are allergice to the idea that different approaches work better for different problems?  A screwdriver is a very useful tool but sometimes you need a saw instead.  I would think that adaptability is the most important feature of a society or an economy.  But for some reason we refocus adaptability to be entirely framed as competition between private firms without asking hard questions about where different approaches might have a comparative advantage.

I find it mystifying that efficiency is so under-rated in the discourse. 

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