Quote:
Originally Posted by aceventura3
Government is a net drag on any economy (Because if they take $1 from me to give to you, most likely you would get the benefit of less than $1 - they have to cover the cost of private drivers for senators and stuff like that). Sure we can have a population come to an agreement to invest in a interstate highway system that provides tremendous value to an economy but the fact is in order to build it and maintain it - it is all done with taxes taken from everyone or those who use it. The value did not come from government, the value came from people who paid for it.
|
The economy doesnt work like that. It is not a zero sum game (which is Keynes central insight, which is pretty much widely accepted today). The bail out last year prevented a much larger sum of assets from disappearing in thin air,as imperfect and flawed as it was. And there are several sectors where the government is significantly better at doing than the market, and often "government" and market are so intertwined as to be hard to separate.
It is really hard to have any investment in basic science, for example, without government intervention. Can't think of a single major innovation of the past 40 years that did not include heavy government investment.