Free Markets versus Government Intervention

[Admiral]

This thread is about the question: What is the right balance between the free market and government intervention to solve any of a number of issues?

All political opinions are welcome: liberals, conservatives, libertarians, socialists, libertarian socialists, anarchists... I want to hear your opinions and arguments.

This thread should be free from ad hominem attacks and other fallacies- I'm sure we can keep the debate civil and rational, no matter how much you disagree.

I'll start with my opinions: I think goverment is best which governs least. While there are roles that government has to take on, generally eliminating its role in any sector of our society will lead to increased freedom and increased prosperity.

I'll start with my opinion on two controversial issues:

School choice: Schools should NOT be controlled by the government, with every student in a particular district forced to go to that school and pay for it with their property taxes. Doing so destroys competition and accountability- teachers don't care if their students don't learn anything- parents can't take their kids out of the school.

If every student's family instead got a voucher for the same amount of money that goes to tuition in their public school (the national average is about $7000- at least it was ten years ago, I believe it has risen since), they could be free to send their kids to whatever private school they want. Private schools would spring up across the country in poor areas to "steal" kids away from underperforming public schools, simply because they could make $7000 a kid by doing so. Kids would be better off, parents would be better off- the only people not better off would be the public school teachers that were unqualified, who are now accountable for their actions and would lose their jobs. Qualified teachers, on the other hand, would be making far more, as a private system bids on them to try to attract students.


Corporate and agricultural subsidies: The government should get rid of most, if not ALL, subsidies to corporations and farmers. This includes a lot: it includes getting rid of the handouts to big businesses that politicians describe as "fiscal policy" or "stimulus packages," but the rest of us know as "pork." It also eliminates the programs that give farmers money just for doing their job- often, it is biased towards farms that don't grow anything useful and wouldn't survive without the subsidies. It also, though, includes getting rid of subsidies for alternative energy, or ones that go to small businesses meant to "level the playing field." Why don't I support those? Because such subsidies, by definition, go to companies that DON'T succeed. Companies that are ineffective at researching new energy sources, or competing with big firms, get money meant to "help them along."

If a company researching alternative energy ever actually finds a source that is capable of competing with oil, rich investors will leave a cloud of dust trying to invest in it- simply because it'll be the next multi-billion dollar industry. The question is, which do you trust more- the ability of the government to make the right decision based on the goodness of their hearts and their ability to get elected, or the desire of multi-millionaires to make money? And who would you rather trust to make such decisions on investment- George Bush, or Warren Buffett?


You can respond to my opinions on those issues, give your opinions on other issues about the market or government intervention, or do whatever you want. After all, we live in a free society, right?

 

[boooeee]

I agree with both of your positions.

Is that allowed in this sub-forum?

 

[Lurker]

School choice: Schools should NOT be controlled by the government, with every student in a particular district forced to go to that school and pay for it with their property taxes. Doing so destroys competition and accountability- teachers don't care if their students don't learn anything- parents can't take their kids out of the school.

If every student's family instead got a voucher for the same amount of money that goes to tuition in their public school (the national average is about $7000- at least it was ten years ago, (...)Kids would be better off, parents would be better off- the only people not better off would be the public school teachers that were unqualified,

Actually, I think you are incorrect in saying the only people not better off would be the public school teachers. I think those who attend inner city public schools would be losers as well. Right off the bat they would lose roughly 10% of their budget due to kids already in private school. so these schools would become even poorer.

Also, private schools would crop up but unless one was close to the poor person, how do they get their child to that school? many people don't have cars or the time to drive their kids to and from school. Any solutions here?

Corporate and agricultural subsidies:

I kind of agree with you here. Are you aware that most farm subsidies actually go to the big corporate farms?

Lurker

 

[geni]

If every student's family instead got a voucher for the same amount of money that goes to tuition in their public school (the national average is about $7000- at least it was ten years ago, I believe it has risen since), they could be free to send their kids to whatever private school they want. Private schools would spring up across the country in poor areas to "steal" kids away from underperforming public schools, simply because they could make $7000 a kid by doing so. Kids would be better off, parents would be better off- the only people not better off would be the public school teachers that were unqualified, who are now accountable for their actions and would lose their jobs. Qualified teachers, on the other hand, would be making far more, as a private system bids on them to try to attract students.

That isn't what happens. You get prive schools chargeing $10,000 a year. First this allows them to make more money but second it keep the poor kids (who tend to be harder to teach for various reasons out of the system). The extra cash and relivtivly easy to teach kids does result in the best teachers moveing to the schools but that just results in the schools where all the kid's who's parents can't afford $3000 a year haveing poor teachers as well as difficult kids.

And yes this has been tried so none of this is theoretical.

Companies that are ineffective at researching new energy sources, or competing with big firms, get money meant to "help them along."


If a company researching alternative energy ever actually finds a source that is capable of competing with oil, rich investors will leave a cloud of dust trying to invest in it- simply because it'll be the next multi-billion dollar industry.

This works fine as long as you are prepared to run your civlisation off coal fired power stations for the next 200 years. Coal is fairly cheap the odds of anything else competeing with it on a pure cost basis are zilch.

The question is, which do you trust more- the ability of the government to make the right decision based on the goodness of their hearts and their ability to get elected, or the desire of multi-millionaires to make money?

Depends on what I'm doing.

And who would you rather trust to make such decisions on investment- George Bush, or Warren Buffett?

Neither. Bush however is advised by soem smart people. It is hard to figure out what Buffett adds to human atchivements.

 

[Thanz]

A couple of responses. First, my general position is that there are a number of areas where government intervention makes a lot of sense. Considering that I live in Canada, that is a good thing.

On your specific examples, I find them interesting for they make two different arguments regarding competition. Your argument in education boils down to a position that more competition is needed and gov't should set policies to make competition between schools easier. You then say that subsidies to private corporations in certain areas should be cut, even if they have the effect of increasing competition (by making smaller businesses more competitive with big businesses.)

Specifically on the education front, I have to disagree with both your position and the analysis you use to back it up. IF all private schools were given a subsidy of whatever the public system tuition value is (you don't call it that, but that is what it is) I disagree that the poorer areas will see schools pop up. The smart money is in schools popping up in more affluent or middle class areas, where the school can charge the subsidy amount (in your example, the $7000) plus a little more and still attract a school full of students. If you were going to invest in a school, would you do it in a poor neighbourhood at $7000 a student (which may have other problems as well, relating to crime or vandalism) or a suburban affluent neighbourhood, at $10,000 a student? It will be a while before anyone decides to invest in a school in a poor neighbourhood, if ever.

Gov't intervention is needed for things that are for the public good. THings that benefit everyone, either directly or indirectly. I see Education as a public good, as well as health care. An educated, healthy workforce benefits the country as a whole - so I feel it is fair that the country as a whole pays for it.

 

[Lurker]

The smart money is in schools popping up in more affluent or middle class areas, where the school can charge the subsidy amount (in your example, the $7000) plus a little more and still attract a school full of students. If you were going to invest in a school, would you do it in a poor neighbourhood at $7000 a student (which may have other problems as well, relating to crime or vandalism) or a suburban affluent neighbourhood, at $10,000 a student? It will be a while before anyone decides to invest in a school in a poor neighbourhood, if ever.

The fly in your soup is that the public schools in predominantly affluent areas are already performing quite well on standardized testing. Thus, many parents would not send their kids to the private school since it is untested. This might actually result in not as many private schools popping up in these areas as you might think.

I recently moved to an affluent school district and would not send my kids to a new private school. Why bother when the suburban school is already doing quite well? Of course I am biased since I attended a quality public school myself.

Lurker

 

[DavidJames]

Private schools would spring up across the country in poor areas to "steal" kids away from underperforming public schools, simply because they could make $7000 a kid by doing so. Kids would be better off, parents would be better off- the only people not better off would be the public school teachers that were unqualified, who are now accountable for their actions and would lose their jobs. Qualified teachers, on the other hand, would be making far more, as a private system bids on them to try to attract students.

You wouldn't happen to have any evidence to support any of that, would you. Heaven knows in the private sector we never see inequity in pay. We never see less qualified people getting more pay then qualified people.

Private businesses fail all the time, who loses, the owners and the employees. The customers just go to another store. I'll let your kids attend one of those private schools that "spring up", only to close shop when their bottom line isn't big enough.

 

[Earthborn]

This thread is about the question: What is the right balance between the free market and government intervention to solve any of a number of issues?

I think it is an invalid question. There is no such thing as The Right Balance. What the right balance is depends on the circumstances. The right balance can shift from one extreme to the other.

Take for example the agricultural subsidies you mentioned. Let's for example discuss the situation in Western Europe just after the Second World War. Countries were faced with a rapidly growing urban population that needed to be fed, and few people had any interest in living the hard life of a farmer. Farming was still relatively primitive. Farmers had many small fields scattered randomly across the landscape, and were quite poor and unable to afford the necessary machinisation and modernisation to increase production. Was it right for governments to redraw the boundaries of farmers' fields to large rectangles and offer them subsidies to modernise and vastly increase production? Maybe not for a strict libertarian who prefers to wait for the free market to solve everything, but few people at the time complained.

There now is a modern and highly productive agricultural system that produces more than enough. Distribution around the world is much better, making it unnecessary for countries to be self-sufficient in everything. Agricultural subsidies have now cause unfair competition for countries that can produce and export agricultural products very well, just not prices that appear much lower because of high subsidies. It's now probably a good idea to phase out the subsidies so that for example African countries can competitively produce for the European market.

I think it is wrong to claim that the subsidies were a mistake, just because they now need to be reversed. All it means is that times have changed and what once seemed to be a good idea, can now be a bad one. I do not think there is a "right balance" between free market and government intervention that will always stay exactly the same and applies to all sectors.

 

[Thanz]

The fly in your soup is that the public schools in predominantly affluent areas are already performing quite well on standardized testing. Thus, many parents would not send their kids to the private school since it is untested. This might actually result in not as many private schools popping up in these areas as you might think.

I recently moved to an affluent school district and would not send my kids to a new private school. Why bother when the suburban school is already doing quite well? Of course I am biased since I attended a quality public school myself.

Lurker

I see your point. The public school in my area is quite good as well, and my oldest daughter starts there in the fall. I probably wouldn't consider a new private school over this public school's track record of quality either.

So, perhaps the 'target market' for these new schools would not be affluent areas or poor areas but somewhere near the middle - where the incomes are in the middle, and the schools may be middling as well. People may have a few extra dollars for a private school and whatever prestige comes from that. But I would not expect private schools to immediately jump into poorer neighbourhoods.

 

[Admiral]

First I want to mention that my $7000 figure was too low. The national average is $9,354, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Actually, I think you are incorrect in saying the only people not better off would be the public school teachers. I think those who attend inner city public schools would be losers as well. Right off the bat they would lose roughly 10% of their budget due to kids already in private school. so these schools would become even poorer.

First of all, by saying "even" poorer you're implying that the reason the schools are bad is that they don't get enough money.

Do you know what the average tuition per pupil is in public schools New York City? Surely it's under the national average, right? No- it's over $12000 a year. The problem isn't how much money they're getting, it's how they're spending it- the best teachers aren't making any more money than the worse teachers, so obviously there's no accountability, no incentive to teach well, and certainly no incentive to come to New York City to teach if you can make better salaries in the suburbs.

To answer your question, though:

Students that stay in the public schools would be HELPED by vouchers. Why? Consider what happens when students start leaving a school. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that half the students in a school move to another school. What would the school administrators do?

Well, since their budget is now half what it was before, they would have to make serious changes. That's right- they have to fire half the teachers (give or take). And since they're now accountable for how good they are, they're going to fire the worse teachers and keep the better ones. Whoa- the quality of the school has just radically improved! Instead of only half the teachers being qualified to teach, they suddenly all are!

It's true that the school would lose an immediate 10% or so of their budget for students already going to private schools. First of all, I'd say that the effect on quality caused by this 10% is NOTHING compared to the effect of making those teachers accountable.

Secondly, I'd remind you that the families of students going to private schools would certainly appreciate getting to keep that money for themselves. After all, everyone else in their district is going to public school on taxpayer money- why are they being forced to shell out thousands a year for their schools when all they're trying to do is find opportunities?

If the only thing keeping you from privatizing schools is the fact that in your opinion, public schools NEED to steal money from these families going to private schools, doesn't that give you a hint about how weird the system is?

Also, private schools would crop up but unless one was close to the poor person, how do they get their child to that school? many people don't have cars or the time to drive their kids to and from school. Any solutions here?

Yes.

The closer the private schools are to the most students, the more money they make- they're optimizing the ability to attract students. Therefore, private companies would put quite a bit of research into placing schools into places where they're as convenient as possible for as many students as possible.

Starbucks hires math Ph.d's and has loads of business experts constantly figuring out where they should place Starbucks's in cities so that they'll make the most money. They do that by figuring out where Starbucks would be most convenient for people who want it. Private schools would do the same thing. If you were an entrepeuner preparing to start a new school in the inner city, what would you do? You'd do research into what schools were bad, you'd look into where those students lived, and you'd try to position your school so that as many dissatisfied students as possible would have an easy time getting to my new school. If after I start my school, there are still dissatisfied students, another entrepeuner will see that there's money to be made and make a school to pick up those students.

Also, since every additional student can pick up the school $7000 a year, private schools would offer busing services to pick up the last few students that were too far away. They'd do whatever was optimal to pick up every single student that they could possibly attract to their school.

What if, you ask, there are still a very few students that live too far away for the private schools to offer busing, and their parents can't take them, but they're too few for private schools to crop up to teach them? I'd ask you what kind of inner city this is- is it on a Mobius strip or something? Just where does this kid live that all these other private schools have cropped up to help the other students in his school district, but he's still too far away? And how did a public school teach him if he's so isolated?

I kind of agree with you here. Are you aware that most farm subsidies actually go to the big corporate farms?

Yes. Absolutely.

Understand- I'm not "pro-big business" OR "anti-big business." Many businesses hate the market- they rely on subsidies or regulations.

I think that companies that work efficiently should get more money than companies that don't work efficiently. Wait, that's what already happens? Excellent- let's leave it that way.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

School choice: Schools should NOT be controlled by the government, with every student in a particular district forced to go to that school and pay for it with their property taxes. Doing so destroys competition and accountability- teachers don't care if their students don't learn anything- parents can't take their kids out of the school.

If every student's family instead got a voucher for the same amount of money that goes to tuition in their public school (the national average is about $7000- at least it was ten years ago, I believe it has risen since), they could be free to send their kids to whatever private school they want. Private schools would spring up across the country in poor areas to "steal" kids away from underperforming public schools, simply because they could make $7000 a kid by doing so. Kids would be better off, parents would be better off- the only people not better off would be the public school teachers that were unqualified, who are now accountable for their actions and would lose their jobs. Qualified teachers, on the other hand, would be making far more, as a private system bids on them to try to attract students.

I have to, respectfully, disagree with this stance. I do not believe that competition would magically change education for the better. To the contrary, I think that if schooling was made into an open market, there would be a great reduction in quality.

The main reason why private schools appear to be of such higher quality than the public schools consists of socio-economic factors (i.e. the rich kids with the rich parents perform better statistically and are lumped into one school and not the other). Adjusted for these factors and private schools perform the same as public.

Furthermore, there would be reduced quality control. I have seen studies that showed that private schools actually have less qualified teachers than public schools (My old computer spectacularly broke down, so forgive me for not providing links). I also believe that competition would only result in schools 'teaching the test' (i.e. "Look at how well our students performed on the CAT-5!!!") or in lowering the standards for success (i.e. grade inflation). Furthermore, there are policies in education that parents simply don't agree with that are helpful to their children. For example, many parents dislike the "child" grade-scale that their children receive in elementary school. However, studies show that this is best for the children (Again, sorry but no links).

Finally, on the topic of "poor inner-city schools," we actually discussed the topic in my English class and I found my teacher's comments to be quite revealing. She said that there existed more than enough funding for the schools, but that the system was notoriously corrupt (This is an issue in my area, at least). Naturally, this can also be seen as a reason to support privatization.

And on subsidies... I have never actually studied those ...

 

[Alt+F4]

School choice: Schools should NOT be controlled by the government, with every student in a particular district forced to go to that school and pay for it with their property taxes. Doing so destroys competition and accountability- teachers don't care if their students don't learn anything- parents can't take their kids out of the school.

If every student's family instead got a voucher for the same amount of money that goes to tuition in their public school (the national average is about $7000- at least it was ten years ago, I believe it has risen since), they could be free to send their kids to whatever private school they want. Private schools would spring up across the country in poor areas to "steal" kids away from underperforming public schools, simply because they could make $7000 a kid by doing so. Kids would be better off, parents would be better off- the only people not better off would be the public school teachers that were unqualified, who are now accountable for their actions and would lose their jobs. Qualified teachers, on the other hand, would be making far more, as a private system bids on them to try to attract students.

As a teacher myself, let me say that children are not widgets and the forces of competition in a free market place don't apply well to education. If you're my boss and you hand me a shovel with the order to dig a hole then you can judge how well I did my job.

How do you define a "qualified teacher"? A teacher that gets kids to pass standardized tests? What does it mean for a teacher to be "accountable for their actions"?

The reasons why children do poorly in school are numerous, but home environment is a greater factor than who their teacher is. For example, let's say I have a student who's attendence is very poor. I call the parents (no answer) and I mail home a letter (no reply). The student continues to be absent and eventually fails the class. I did my job yet since the student failed I'm considered a failure as well. How can you possibly assess an employee's performance fairly when that employee is being evaluated based on factors of which they have little or no control?

As for vouchers, let's assume that each child did have a $7,000 voucher. How much of that $7,000 do you think a for-profit school would actually spend on a child's education? As little as they could get away with. There is an atmosphere of cooperation among teachers, we help each other out for the good of the kids. How is having us compete against each other for performance bonus' beneficial to the children?

Educators don't look at kids with dollar signs in their eyes.

 

[shanek]

This thread is about the question: What is the right balance between the free market and government intervention to solve any of a number of issues?

In general, and in principle, the government should only have two things to do with the free market: 1) it should be a player in the free market just like any others (it does need to buy stuff, you know); 2) it should step in and stop any force that interferes with the free market. Of course, this means that the government itself shouldn't use any force in the free market beyond what is necessary to achieve #2.

School choice: Schools should NOT be controlled by the government, with every student in a particular district forced to go to that school and pay for it with their property taxes. Doing so destroys competition and accountability- teachers don't care if their students don't learn anything- parents can't take their kids out of the school.

If every student's family instead got a voucher for the same amount of money that goes to tuition in their public school (the national average is about $7000- at least it was ten years ago, I believe it has risen since), they could be free to send their kids to whatever private school they want.

I agree with all of this, except for the contention that vouchers are the solution. The best thing would be complete separation of school and state, but if we're going to have government schools, then instead of vouchers we should have educational tax credits that go directly to the parents (or to anyone who pays for the education of a child).

The problem with vouchers is that they're paid directly to the schools, and the government could easily attach strings to this money the way they have with funding for private colleges. This would ultimately make the system worse, not better.

Corporate and agricultural subsidies: The government should get rid of most, if not ALL, subsidies to corporations and farmers. This includes a lot: it includes getting rid of the handouts to big businesses that politicians describe as "fiscal policy" or "stimulus packages," but the rest of us know as "pork."

If you ask me, it's all pork. Call it what it is: corporate welfare.

It also, though, includes getting rid of subsidies for alternative energy,

I think getting rid of oil subsidies would quite nicely outweigh that.

or ones that go to small businesses meant to "level the playing field."

Actually, very little of that money actually goes to small businesses anyway.

And I'm convinced that the experience of flying on an airline (the TSA notwithstanding) would be much nicer were it not for all of the government "incentives" and bailouts. Make them actually work for our money!

One more thing about cutting out the subsidies: cut out the equivalent amount of taxes, and look at the boon to the economy!

I want to talk about one more:

The War on Drugs: This is just completely frakkin' insane. There's no evidence that it's stopped one person from using drugs, arguably has caused younger people to start doing drugs (how often do you see Coors or Budweiser dealing in schools?), has caused all of the gang violence and other negative aspects of the black market, has diverted so many police resources to fighting it which results in both fewer resources to combat real crime and problems such as innocent people killed in botched raids, has filled up our prisons to overcrowding (resulting in murderers and rapists getting off early to make room for them)...there isn't one single thing about the War on Drugs that I can think of that is beneficial at all.

And all to try to stop one person from buying a substance from another person and putting it in his body.

Let the free market handle it. The free market companies won't have their dealers in schools any more than Coors or Budweiser will (and like alcohol and tobacco, you're not going to stop kids from doing it anyway), they won't shoot each other (and innocent bystanders) in turf wars, they won't recruit kids into gangs, they'll regulate the amount of the drug in their product (and hence, its safety) the way they do now with caffeine, the police, courts, and prison system will have lots of resources freed up to fight real crime and more convicted criminals can serve out their sentence...I can keep going; suffice it to say there's every reason to let the free market handle this and no reason to keep Drug Prohibition alive.

 

[geni]

Students that stay in the public schools would be HELPED by vouchers. Why? Consider what happens when students start leaving a school. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that half the students in a school move to another school. What would the school administrators do?

Well, since their budget is now half what it was before, they would have to make serious changes. That's right- they have to fire half the teachers (give or take).[/qupte]

Can't. Half of them already left to teach at the new school. The good half.

The closer the private schools are to the most students, the more money they make- they're optimizing the ability to attract students. Therefore, private companies would put quite a bit of research into placing schools into places where they're as convenient as possible for as many students as possible.

Your mistake is that they want every posible student.

Also, since every additional student can pick up the school $7000 a year, private schools would offer busing services to pick up the last few students that were too far away. They'd do whatever was optimal to pick up every single student that they could possibly attract to their school.

Please explain why I would want to be bringing a bunch of inner city kids into my nice middle class only school?

 

[shanek]

Well, I see the usual claims that school choice will hurt the poor, no one will build the schools, etc., with, as usual, absolutely nothing whatsoever to back it up.

I've posted this before:

Why Choice Helps Public Schools

School choice opponents claim that choice harms public schools. Research, however, shows the opposite. A new study published by Harvard economist Carolyn Hoxby addresses the question: "Do public schools respond constructively to competition induced by school choice, by raising their own productivity?" The answer: Yes, they do, and the benefits are greatest where large numbers of students are eligible for choice.

The fact that choice benefits public schools – not just students who switch to private schools – is a key aspect of school choice. Because public schools improve due to competition, school choice benefits reach beyond those students who take advantage of the opportunity to attend a private school with a voucher or tax credit scholarship. Because competition forces both public and private schools to improve, choice is like a rising tide that lifts all boats. Even students whose parents don't shop around for a private school will benefit because their existing public schools will get better.

So it doesn't matter whether the parents don't shop around or if poor students get left behind, because the competition benefits them, too.

 

[Admiral]

A couple of responses. First, my general position is that there are a number of areas where government intervention makes a lot of sense.

I'd be interested in hearing what areas.

On your specific examples, I find them interesting for they make two different arguments regarding competition. Your argument in education boils down to a position that more competition is needed and gov't should set policies to make competition between schools easier.

Yes.

You then say that subsidies to private corporations in certain areas should be cut, even if they have the effect of increasing competition (by making smaller businesses more competitive with big businesses.)

No. That's not increasing competition.

Competition is about letting multiple entitities try to find the best solution to fill a need. For example, I decide I want fast food. There are a number of places I can go to fill that need- McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's... these companies compete to fill the need with the most optimal use of resources. They try to place their restaraunts in places that are most convenient for the greatest number of people. They try to make their product as cheap as possible. And of course, they try to make their product taste as good as possible. I, the consumer, decide which one best fulfills my needs (which are getting food that is nearby, cheap, and tasty), and I get my food from there. The one that came up with the most optimal solution (in terms of taste, convenience, cost, and everything) is the one that wins in a competitive market.

Subsidies don't improve competition, though. Imagine there's a big company and a small company- say they sell widgets. The big company is more efficient than the small company, which means the small company can't compete with the big company's low prices- the big company sells widgets at $15 a widget, while the small company sells them at $18. In a free market, the less efficient company goes out of business.

Now imagine that, "to improve competition," government therefore gives the small company $5 for every widget they sell. Now the small company decides to sell widgets for $13 apiece (their widgets still cost $18 on their side, when you add together every expense and salary).

Well, great- now that they can sell widgets for $13 apiece, they can compete with the big company, right? They take over the market, meaning they're now selling all the widgets. Now things are better, because widgets are cheaper, right? Right?

Wrong. The widgets made by the company STILL COST $18. They're using an inefficient business model when better ones are available (the other company could be making them for $15). They only appear to be cheaper because taxpayers are paying $5 of the cost while consumers are paying $13.

If you pay subsidies to a company that is worse at business than another, you're not improving competition. You're having taxpayers pick up the slack for a company that, if the market functioned normally, would just go out of business.

Subsidies are costs too. The moment you consider that, you realize that you're actually greatly unevening the playing field for companies and supporting inefficiency and waste in corporations.

Specifically on the education front, I have to disagree with both your position and the analysis you use to back it up. IF all private schools were given a subsidy of whatever the public system tuition value is (you don't call it that, but that is what it is) I disagree that the poorer areas will see schools pop up. The smart money is in schools popping up in more affluent or middle class areas, where the school can charge the subsidy amount (in your example, the $7000) plus a little more and still attract a school full of students. If you were going to invest in a school, would you do it in a poor neighbourhood at $7000 a student (which may have other problems as well, relating to crime or vandalism) or a suburban affluent neighbourhood, at $10,000 a student? It will be a while before anyone decides to invest in a school in a poor neighbourhood, if ever.

First of all, it was my mistake earlier about $7000- the number is around $9,000.

Secondly, as someone said earlier, people in the suburbs often already go to schools that they're very happy with! The students that WANT to go to private schools are in the inner cities, so that's where the money would be made.

Thirdly, even if it were somehow true that private schools would crop up in richer areas (which it isn't), can you honestly imagine that at some point it would simply STOP? That entrepueners would say, "Well, there's a killing to be made in inner cities, at almost ten thousand dollars a head, and it would be easy to attract students away from bad schools, but, hey, I don't think I'm going to do it." Investors would leave a cloud of DUST trying to rush to any place where there was a gap! Every year, thousands of Ivy League graduates would head off to make six figure salaries starting private schools! It would be the new tech industry!

Fourthly- even if you don't believe anything else I said- you could solve the problem with means-tested vouchers. That is, you'd give vouchers to families based on their income. Families that couldn't pay for their children's schooling would get $10,000, families who could contribute a few thousand would get $8000, and rich folks in the suburbs wouldn't get anything. Do you honestly think THAT would increase inequality? (Also, by the way, that would make it considerably cheaper, and therefore lower taxes).

Gov't intervention is needed for things that are for the public good. THings that benefit everyone, either directly or indirectly. I see Education as a public good, as well as health care. An educated, healthy workforce benefits the country as a whole - so I feel it is fair that the country as a whole pays for it.

I'm not arguing about whether the government should PAY for it- that's a different discussion. Vouchers ARE the government paying for education. I'm talking about school choice.

 

[geni]

And I'm convinced that the experience of flying on an airline (the TSA notwithstanding) would be much nicer were it not for all of the government "incentives" and bailouts. Make them actually work for our money!

Strangly no. Cheaper maybe nicer no. See ryanair.

there isn't one single thing about the War on Drugs that I can think of that is beneficial at all.

Verious companies running prisons do well. As do various weapon manufactorers.

And all to try to stop one person from buying a substance from another person and putting it in his body.

In the case of antibiotics (and anti-fungals and anti virals) it is in everybodies interestests that that is controled

Let the free market handle it. The free market companies won't have their dealers in schools any more than Coors or Budweiser will

That would be because it is against the law and I suspect kids are more likely to drink whatever the US equiverlent of white lightening is.

they'll regulate the amount of the drug in their product (and hence, its safety)

Why? Cheaper not to.

 

[Modified]

For example, let's say I have a student who's attendence is very poor. I call the parents (no answer) and I mail home a letter (no reply). The student continues to be absent and eventually fails the class. I did my job yet since the student failed I'm considered a failure as well. How can you possibly assess an employee's performance fairly when that employee is being evaluated based on factors of which they have little or no control?

Why would they be evaluated in such a way? In a competitive environment the only reason they would be is that the boss or supervisor is an idiot. The school would have an incentive to assess, hire, and fire wisely, just like any business.

 

[Alt+F4]

That entrepueners would say, "Well, there's a killing to be made in inner cities, at almost ten thousand dollars a head, and it would be easy to attract students away from bad schools, but, hey, I don't think I'm going to do it." Investors would leave a cloud of DUST trying to rush to any place where there was a gap! Every year, thousands of Ivy League graduates would head off to make six figure salaries starting private schools! It would be the new tech industry!

There have been for-profit schools in the U.S. for over a decade. Guess what? They didn't make a profit. You should do some research on the Edison Schools, which lost millions of dollars every year, showing a profit in just one quarter of the 10 years it made it's finances public. Even THEY admit a private corporation can't operate a successful school as cheaply as a municipal school district can.

 

[Alt+F4]

Why would they be evaluated in such a way? In a competitive environment the only reason they would be is that the boss or supervisor is an idiot. The school would have an incentive to assess, hire, and fire wisely, just like any business.

Then how do you differentiate a "good" teacher from a "bad" teacher? What criteria do you use?