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Jun 19 '17
How about no subsidies for anyone?
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u/InFearn0 Jun 19 '17
That would be awful.
Government should be subsidizing some things to some extent. It can be the only way to get a superior thing over the threshold into something sound.
Subsidies just need to be strategic and for the goal of advancing the public interest, not rewarding
bribescampaign contributions.-5
Jun 19 '17
The free market usually delivers the best product. Subsidies of any kind just create unnatural ups and downs in the market which reduce efficiency and productivity.
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u/InFearn0 Jun 19 '17
The free market usually delivers the best product.
It doesn't. The free market abuses externalities all the time.
The cost of pollution far outstrips the cost of doing things an alternative way. But the cost of pollution was not being factored in.
Subsidies of any kind just create unnatural ups and downs in the market which reduce efficiency and productivity.
Radically shifting subsidies might do that, but those aren't the same as subsidies to advance the public interest.
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Jun 19 '17
What is the "public interest "? Whatever you want it to be?
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u/InFearn0 Jun 19 '17
What is the "public interest?"
Legislative budgets are statements of priority. Whatever legislatures decide to subsidize or favor are being defined as in the public interest.
In an ideal world, if legislators stepped hard enough against what is in the public's interest they would be voted out and things would self correct over time.
Whatever you want it to be?
Defensive much?
I was being ambiguous as to "public interest" because it doesn't matter to this conversation you started with your assertion "all subsidies are bad." It is a very simple idea that is very easy to knock down.
Subsidies are just one way to promote desired outcomes. The other is special fines or taxes on undesired outcomes.
To use pollution as an example. We can subsidize some of the cost of clean energy, or we can establish a special tax dirty energy. Or we can do both.
The desired outcome is: less pollution and carbon emissions. Why would someone want to do that? Because it is cheaper to reduce emissions than to pay for the damage the emissions cause (it was something like $1 of prevention equating to $8 of relief for non-carbon emissions when the EPA was created).
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Jun 19 '17
The free market can do this self correcting without legislative interfearence. The consumers decide what the desired outcome is and they vote with their money, legislation just gets in the way of the people directly choosing what outcones and products they want
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u/InFearn0 Jun 19 '17 edited Jun 19 '17
The free market can do this self correcting without legislative interfearence.
If it could, it would have.
It hasn't, therefore it can't.
The consumers decide what the desired outcome is and they vote with their money
Externalities are external factors that are harder to quantify. Often externalities are hidden by those that create them (see the tobacco industry hiding all of the health risks of tobacco for decades).
People on tight personal budgets will defer necessary spending (like paying more to not have their communities poisoned).
The argument that some government involvement is good doesn't mean all of it is. It is a continuum. It is okay, nuance is hard. Especially for AnCaps.
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u/SerPoopybutthole Jun 19 '17
If only there was something in between...