Reading alot of the New York Times comments from the Q & A and it brings up alot of arguments from those who don't believe with Rep. Paul's policies. I wonder if some people would like to respond to some of these comments made...Here is one example:"First of all a ?free-market? works great most of the time. But there are four fundamental ?market failures? that require government intervention to insure efficient use of our resources. The four ?market failures? are 1) ill-defined property rights, meaning that if it isn?t clear who owns it than the market can?t work. Some clear examples are our air, water, and fish in the lakes and oceans. 2) externalities, for example, negative externalities, where the consumption or production of a good results in pollution which negatively impacts society. A ?free-market? completely ignores pollution, and the result is too much of it. Education and basic research are goods that produce positive externalities, meaning positive spill-overs to society and the ?free-market? underprovides them. 3) Too much market power, where a ?free-market? could lead to monopolies and too little competition in production which will lead to inefficiently high prices for the good and underproduction of it. Last market failure is 4) incomplete information. For a ?free-market? to work requires complete information for the buyer and seller to know what they are trading.At a minimum, economists argue govt. must intervene to fix these market failures. And to do a good job fixing them requires a strong FEDERAL govt. as leaving it to state or local govt.?s would be an inefficient mess of different rules, regulations, and taxes in each state. We need strong FEDERAL policies in terms of energy usage and pollution, anti-trust laws, subsidizing basic research and education, and insuring the safety of goods being sold (solves the incomplete information for the buyer), to list a few.Even a Libertarian should support federal policies in these cases."
scoot87Nov 14, 2008
Reading alot of the New York Times comments from the Q & A and it brings up alot of arguments from those who don't believe with Rep. Paul's policies. I wonder if some people would like to respond to some of these comments made...Here is one example:"First of all a ?free-market? works great most of the time. But there are four fundamental ?market failures? that require government intervention to insure efficient use of our resources. The four ?market failures? are 1) ill-defined property rights, meaning that if it isn?t clear who owns it than the market can?t work. Some clear examples are our air, water, and fish in the lakes and oceans. 2) externalities, for example, negative externalities, where the consumption or production of a good results in pollution which negatively impacts society. A ?free-market? completely ignores pollution, and the result is too much of it. Education and basic research are goods that produce positive externalities, meaning positive spill-overs to society and the ?free-market? underprovides them. 3) Too much market power, where a ?free-market? could lead to monopolies and too little competition in production which will lead to inefficiently high prices for the good and underproduction of it. Last market failure is 4) incomplete information. For a ?free-market? to work requires complete information for the buyer and seller to know what they are trading.At a minimum, economists argue govt. must intervene to fix these market failures. And to do a good job fixing them requires a strong FEDERAL govt. as leaving it to state or local govt.?s would be an inefficient mess of different rules, regulations, and taxes in each state. We need strong FEDERAL policies in terms of energy usage and pollution, anti-trust laws, subsidizing basic research and education, and insuring the safety of goods being sold (solves the incomplete information for the buyer), to list a few.Even a Libertarian should support federal policies in these cases."
richandlerNov 15, 2008
Simply put we have a strong Federal Government and it has failed to solve any of these problems and in some cases has made it worse.
coldkill3rNov 15, 2008
Grass?
gavinNov 18, 2008
I had no idea Ron Paul could not run 3rd party for legal reasons. Thanks for clearing that up!