NBC: Why Americans are increasingly dubious about going to college

[Anon1787]

So educate. Was Wahoo's an example of a private or a public good? I'm specifically asking about the availability of support.

Also. Would there not be more GPs (there is clearly a shortage) if their cost benefit wasn't better? Yes, I get the limiting of supply by the AMA. But I'm talking about the proportion of GPs to specialists.

Wahoo's example is more of a private good similar to installing more security devices in your house because a restraining order only protects one person (and could prompt the bad actor to select a different victim).

If there is a "shortage" of GPs, then their salaries should increase or you could directly subsidize educating them (though one might ask what public or private regulation is keeping their salaries from increasing or is it simply that people don't want to pay more?).

[ciao_yall]

So educate. Was Wahoo's an example of a private or a public good? I'm specifically asking about the availability of support.

Also. Would there not be more GPs (there is clearly a shortage) if their cost benefit wasn't better? Yes, I get the limiting of supply by the AMA. But I'm talking about the proportion of GPs to specialists.

Fixing my mother's sickness is a purely private good. My mother's health has no bearing on your well being. It's an insurance problem, not a public goods problem.

I don't know that there is a shortage of GP's compared to specialists. How would one even know? If one can't see a GP, my [highly educated] guess would be that it's an insurance problem.

No gasoline on the fire.

Fixing your mother's sickness is a public good. Your mother works and pays taxes.

If she is now retired she contributes to the economy by purchasing goods and services.

She also does a lot of work that benefits the economy that is probably unpaid, such as caregiving for your father or her grandchildren, thus supporting their ability to work and pay taxes.

[dismalist]

So educate. Was Wahoo's an example of a private or a public good? I'm specifically asking about the availability of support.

Also. Would there not be more GPs (there is clearly a shortage) if their cost benefit wasn't better? Yes, I get the limiting of supply by the AMA. But I'm talking about the proportion of GPs to specialists.

Fixing my mother's sickness is a purely private good. My mother's health has no bearing on your well being. It's an insurance problem, not a public goods problem.

I don't know that there is a shortage of GP's compared to specialists. How would one even know? If one can't see a GP, my [highly educated] guess would be that it's an insurance problem.

No gasoline on the fire.

Fixing your mother's sickness is a public good. Your mother works and pays taxes.

If she is now retired she contributes to the economy by purchasing goods and services.

She also does a lot of work that benefits the economy that is probably paid, such as caregiving for your father or her grandchildren, thus supporting their ability to work and pay taxes.

Oh dear, oh dear, the precise opposite of the true situation, on all counts:

Fixing your mother's sickness is a public good. Your mother works and pays taxes.

Somebody else's health does nothing for me. If she worked, she consumed what she earned. If she payed taxes, she enjoyed the benefits of what they paid for.

If she is now retired she contributes to the economy by purchasing goods and services.

If she is retired she consumes stuff paid for by her past savings [or borrowings in the case of Social Security]. Consuming does not contribute to "the economy". It contributes to the consumer.

She also does a lot of work that benefits the economy that is probably paid, such as caregiving for your father or her grandchildren, thus supporting their ability to work and pay taxes.

If it is paid, it is not a contribution, it is an exchange. Only if it is not paid is it a contribution -- to individuals, not to "the economy".

The economy is us.

[Wahoo Redux]

But again, imagine a culture without enough lawyers.  As a matter of fact, one of the biggest problems facing our legal justice system is that both prosecutor and public defender offices are vastly overwhelmed.  This is a bad for society and we are paying the price.

Someone can correct me on this, but my understanding is that it isn't because there aren't enough lawyers available, it's because the government budgets for prosecutors and public defenders don't allow for the number that ought to be hired.

I seem to recall that there are lots of lawyers struggling to get sufficient work. So it's not that there aren't enough getting the education; it's that there aren't enough getting hired.

We have a glut of lawyers in America and have had for some time.  Often attorneys cannot get jobs and so must be paralegals or find some other non-law use for their degrees.  Law schools have been admitting waaaaaaayyyy too many students for a couple of decades, just like some PhD disciplines.

I was not clear enough and that is my fault.

We got off on a tangent about who pays, and I was simply pointing out that, if you want to talk about public good being subsidized, which prosecution and public defenders are, then America has really fumbled the ball.  In fact, since we DO have so many lawyers wandering the countryside, it is a shame and a sham that we do not employ more of them to keep the population safe from incompetent or harried prosecution and public defense which, if you follow the various reporting and podcasts, is a major problem in our society.

Policing too.

I got a look at it.  The legal system strives for justice, it really does, but it is a bit of a shambles.

[Wahoo Redux]

There's no such thing as a private good that is a public good at the same time.

I get that you are knowledgeable and you want to be dismal about everything not Libertarian, but don't say silly things either, please. 

Education, law enforcement, medicine, among many other forces in society, are both private and public goods at the same time.

[Anon1787]

Fixing your mother's sickness is a public good. Your mother works and pays taxes.

If she is now retired she contributes to the economy by purchasing goods and services.

She also does a lot of work that benefits the economy that is probably unpaid, such as caregiving for your father or her grandchildren, thus supporting their ability to work and pay taxes.

If mother gets sick and can't work, that's unfortunate for her and her employer who must find someone else to do the work, but how does that harm everyone else? As for paying taxes, one would have to calculate the net effect on public finances (taxes paid-benefits received). E.g., smokers dying younger means that government has to pay out less in old-age benefits, which is dismal but true.

[Wahoo Redux]

Fixing your mother's sickness is a public good. Your mother works and pays taxes.

If she is now retired she contributes to the economy by purchasing goods and services.

She also does a lot of work that benefits the economy that is probably unpaid, such as caregiving for your father or her grandchildren, thus supporting their ability to work and pay taxes.

If mother gets sick and can't work, that's unfortunate for her and her employer who must find someone else to do the work, but how does that harm everyone else? As for paying taxes, one would have to calculate the net effect on public finances (taxes paid-benefits received). E.g., smokers dying younger means that government has to pay out less in old-age benefits, which is dismal but true.

Well, if one has no empathy or sense of society and is purely fixated on the value of money and nothing else...

and has no fear that hu will someday be that elderly mother or father who is sickly and in need of support...

yeah, if you have no fear of a safety net being in place seeing as how academics make so much money...

then one need to worry about other people.

[dismalist]

There's no such thing as a private good that is a public good at the same time.

I get that you are knowledgeable and you want to be dismal about everything not Libertarian, but don't say silly things either, please. 

Education, law enforcement, medicine, among many other forces in society, are both private and public goods at the same time.

As I dismally explained upthread, there is some output that is a public good, such as public health, law enforcement, and basic research, but the education for that isn't.  The government employee is being paid his worth to us and he gets to consume his income. Government is already paying for the output. If one wants more output, vote that way, to increase public spending on those services.  But we don't want to be paying twice, once for the public good, which already includes the wage of the provider, and again an education subsidy for the private benefit of the provider.

[jimbogumbo]

Did some reading this afternoon, and now I know much more about definitions of private and public goods. I also know more about a quasi-public good, which does seem to be a gray area (somewhat).

I'll rephrase. Wahoo's situation is definitely something that I see as both of benefit to the public as well as of benefit to an individual.

[Anon1787]

Well, if one has no empathy or sense of society and is purely fixated on the value of money and nothing else...

and has no fear that hu will someday be that elderly mother or father who is sickly and in need of support...

yeah, if you have no fear of a safety net being in place seeing as how academics make so much money...

then one need to worry about other people.

I interpreted the claim that fixing mother's illness is a public good because mother works and pays taxes, not because it's charitable. Of course, S.S. and Medicare were sold as social insurance, not welfare.

[dismalist]

Did some reading this afternoon, and now I know much more about definitions of private and public goods. I also know more about a quasi-public good, which does seem to be a gray area (somewhat).

I'll rephrase. Wahoo's situation is definitely something that I see as both of benefit to the public as well as of benefit to an individual.

All public goods benefit all individuals. Private goods benefit only individuals who own the good.

What's meant by "quasi-public" goods is that some goods are capacity constrained, e.g. a bridge is a public good when there's little traffic and a private good when there's lots of traffic. It's all about congestion.

Nothing discussed on this thread benefits from use of the concept of "quasi-public" good.

[Wahoo Redux]

There's no such thing as a private good that is a public good at the same time.

I get that you are knowledgeable and you want to be dismal about everything not Libertarian, but don't say silly things either, please. 

Education, law enforcement, medicine, among many other forces in society, are both private and public goods at the same time.

As I dismally explained upthread, there is some output that is a public good, such as public health, law enforcement, and basic research, but the education for that isn't.  The government employee is being paid his worth to us and he gets to consume his income. Government is already paying for the output. If one wants more output, vote that way, to increase public spending on those services.  But we don't want to be paying twice, once for the public good, which already includes the wage of the provider, and again an education subsidy for the private benefit of the provider.

And I dismally opined that education helps make the provider and thus the output better. 

[dismalist]

There's no such thing as a private good that is a public good at the same time.

I get that you are knowledgeable and you want to be dismal about everything not Libertarian, but don't say silly things either, please. 

Education, law enforcement, medicine, among many other forces in society, are both private and public goods at the same time.

As I dismally explained upthread, there is some output that is a public good, such as public health, law enforcement, and basic research, but the education for that isn't.  The government employee is being paid his worth to us and he gets to consume his income. Government is already paying for the output. If one wants more output, vote that way, to increase public spending on those services.  But we don't want to be paying twice, once for the public good, which already includes the wage of the provider, and again an education subsidy for the private benefit of the provider.

And I dismally opined that education helps make the provider and thus the output better.

Which gets us back to the original question. Given the government pays for the output of the public good, the cost of which includes the wage of the providers, let each provider pay for his own education.

[jimbogumbo]

There's no such thing as a private good that is a public good at the same time.

I get that you are knowledgeable and you want to be dismal about everything not Libertarian, but don't say silly things either, please. 

Education, law enforcement, medicine, among many other forces in society, are both private and public goods at the same time.

As I dismally explained upthread, there is some output that is a public good, such as public health, law enforcement, and basic research, but the education for that isn't.  The government employee is being paid his worth to us and he gets to consume his income. Government is already paying for the output. If one wants more output, vote that way, to increase public spending on those services.  But we don't want to be paying twice, once for the public good, which already includes the wage of the provider, and again an education subsidy for the private benefit of the provider.

And I dismally opined that education helps make the provider and thus the output better.

In fairness to me, I understood all of this prior to your post. I didn't mean to imply that anything discussed on the thread was a quasi-public good, only that I had a better understanding of things.

Also in fairness to m, an individual perceptions of whether a good is public or private can be at odds. Consider two equally well-off childless 60 year olds. In fact, they live next door to each other, have the same job at the same firm making exactly the same amount of money. Personal balance sheets are identical, as well as the same health pRofile. Heck, make them identical clones with identical properties. They each pay identical property taxes for K-12 education. One hates that, with the belief that is of no benefit to them personally. The other is fine with it, as they see taxes in support of K-12 education as a public good.

Happens (except for me trying to control for all relevant variables) all the time.

[dismalist]

...

In fairness to me, I understood all of this prior to your post. I didn't mean to imply that anything discussed on the thread was a quasi-public good, only that I had a better understanding of things.

Also in fairness to me, an individual perceptions of whether a good is public or private can be at odds. Consider two equally well-off childless 60 year olds. In fact, they live next door to each other, have the same job at the same firm making exactly the same amount of money. Personal balance sheets are identical, as well as the same health pRofile. Heck, make them identical clones with identical properties. They each pay identical property taxes for K-12 education. One hates that, with the belief that is of no benefit to them personally. The other is fine with it, as they see taxes in support of K-12 education as a public good.

Happens (except for me trying to control for all relevant variables) all the time.

Ah, subtle point perhaps. The definition of public or private good can't be about opinions, or psychological benefits. It's gotta be about observable service flows. The property tax is here just a fee for a private good, whatever anybody's opinion about it.

More generally, perhaps it would help to clear up some common confusion associated with bandying about the term "public" good.

The useful and operational definition is that something can be consumed by everybody without taking anything away from anybody else. National defense is the classic example. [Such examples are hard to come by. Examples of capacity constrained quasi-public goods are a dime a dozen.]

A good could be private, but financed publicly -- like much or part of education.

A good could be private, but provided by the government -- like much or part of  education.

The last two tempt one to call anything financed or provided by the government as public. That's not useful.

But because of the last two circumstances, I also have the impression that the descriptor "public" for good just gives many people a seemingly valid reason for requesting more. :-)