“Public goods” insinuates that there is such a thing. There are just goods. If the government takes over everything, does that make everything a “public good”? If it then crumbles and the economy liberates completely, does everything become a “private good”?
And how is windows a public good? I would consider it a sub-par good at best, and a bad at worst. We can thank IP law for that.
“Credit card interest rates” …what about them? Are credit cards a public good? Last I checked, they were issued by creditors to people who agreed to contracts that would result in them paying hefty charges if they didn’t pay back on time. Of course, we can just throw away all semblance of responsibility and accountability so that we can print money all day to achieve prosperity.
Yes, as water becomes more scarce, it becomes more expensive. How does putting water provision under the responsibility of the state going to address the issues of increasing price and increasing scarcity? Last I checked, governments failed miserably at rationing and distributing goods.
So, water is cheaper when it is subsidized by government? The challenge was to show that the private corporations providing the service had very high profit margins. Furthermore, you’ll find that “private” water sources in third world countries have been appropriated by the IMF’s structural readjustment programs which give a no-bid contract to Western corporations, who of course engage in price gouging.
[
You’d drive on a private highway if you lived in italy. And if the government provided all shoes, would you disbelieve the market’s ability to provide shoes simply because it had never been done before? I asked you for citations and you barely give me lip service. You can’t answer anything. Your arguments might work on naive high schoolers learning neoclassical economics for the first time, but you’re up against a community proficient in economics, political philosophy, game theory, geopolitics, and history. Try harder.
It seems to me the original poster is using the mainstream definition of inflation (price increases), and is arguing that Government spending is not inflationary if it, in the net, lowers the cost of doing business (thus lowering prices), with the example given being a canal.
The answer to this is easy and has already been explained: Is the new distribution of resources more efficient than it would be if the state had instead allowed that capital to remain in private hands? Economic analysis tells us: Probably not.
Benjamin said: “The government of New York used taxes to raise the funds it needed to build the canal, but imagine that it just printed the money instead…For a farmer in Central New York, or anywhere along the Great Lakes, the price of any transported goods would fall by by more than ten percent, while the profit they could make by transporting their goods to market would increase by more than ten percent. The price of commodities in New York City would likewise fall by more than the cost needed to build the Canal. The Canal, in other words, was simply “a good investment,” without exception for the people of New York and beyond.”
Money printing, then, is the cure for economic scarcity? You don’t mention scarcity, but that is what you are implying. If printing money would have the effect you describe throughout this thread, then why not print money to meet every human need, not just for infrastructure projects?
We have been printing money in the U.S. since the Federal Reserve Act, and have been printing it with no restriction at all since 1971. If the benefits of money printing are as you say, it would seem that our economic situation ought to be better than it is, shouldn’t it? Shouldn’t we just print more money, build some infrastructure projects that will “lower costs” as you say? Why have an income tax, or any tax, if we can just print money? Couldn’t they use more infrastructure projects in Zimbabwe? Why not print more money there?
You are missing the concept of capital formation and the structure of production in your analysis. You are looking only at the “seen” and fail to see the “unseen”. Have you read “Economics in One Lesson”?
It got me thinking that using the phrase, 'turning on the presses" does not well describe a lowering in the purchasing power of the monetary unit, through credit expansion, and depravity by government. I guess it does not really matter how many monopolized bank-notes are in circulation, because they are irredeemable, the public at large need not even know the amount in circulation. I’m thinking the current monetary policy will lead to more price fixing and, subsidies.
I like how Rothbard asks, “what is the optimal amount of money supply.”
When mentioning hard -money; I think it’s important to discuss the ills of fixing exchange rates.
Even if we ignore all the incorrect assumptions you’ve made the heart of this issue is the economic calculation debate. Is the market or the government better at allocating scarce resources. I suggest you read Economic Calculations in the Socialist Common Wealth by none other than Ludwig Von Mises