Paul Howard and I discuss the New Commanding Heights. That is, education and health care are taking over a larger share of the economy, and this is an important phenomenon for political economy.
Paul Howard and I discuss the New Commanding Heights. That is, education and health care are taking over a larger share of the economy, and this is an important phenomenon for political economy.
Aug 16 2011
If people envy people richer than themselves, I say we should fight envy, not inequality. A number of people have objected that "Envy is 'hard-wired.'" They're right - but it doesn't matter.Why not? Most, if not all, of our emotions are hard-wired. We're hard-wired to resent it when strangers ta...
Aug 16 2011
From Noah Smith's review of my review of The Happiness Equation:Caplan's solution probably wouldn't work. Michael Lewis describes something like this in Liar's Poker, in which no one at his company ever mentions money, bonuses are kept secret, etc. The hush-hush attitude only makes people more determined to ferret out ...
Aug 16 2011
Paul Howard and I discuss the New Commanding Heights. That is, education and health care are taking over a larger share of the economy, and this is an important phenomenon for political economy.
READER COMMENTS
Thomas Sewell
Aug 16 2011 at 3:02pm
Shouldn’t this be that the public sector is taking over a larger share of the economy?
mike shupp
Aug 16 2011 at 8:20pm
The economy is in poor shape and the Federal government is running a deficit. Otherwise, there isn’t any much evidence that federal and state spending is “taking over” the economy — not by relentless leaps and bounds anyhow.
Military spending as a fraction of GNP has been declining (with some ups and downs) since the end of World War II. Government spending on R&D has been declining since the 1970’s. The fraction spent on transportation hasn’t changed much in recent years, unless you want to include spending on airport security. Housing is conspicuously on the back burner. Policing and courts and prison spending increase, but not by high percentages, year after year.
That leaves spending for education and health care, which DOES increase by more than the inflation rate, for year after year after year. PARTS of the public sector are taking over a larger share of the economy, which changes the environment for all the rest.
Your knee was recently repaired by surgery funded by Medicae. Your son is going to college with loans subsidized by the government. Your daughter was just laid off from her park historian’s job and your brother-in-law at Boeing decided to retire when NASA terminated a contract for space shutle maintenance. Congratulations — you’re a normal US citizen.
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