Quotes About Public goods

If one sentence were to sum up the mechanism driving the Great Stagnation, it is this: Recent and current innovation is more geared to private goods than to public goods. That simple observation ties together the three major macroeconomic events of our time: growing income inequality, stagnant median income, and the financial crisis.

Unfortunately for the composers of the time, wealthy Renaissance merchants were more likely to commission a painting than a composition. The painting could be owned, repeatedly shown off, and later resold, unlike the music. The financial incentive to commission a composition, which can be enjoyed by any audience member, was weaker. Paintings were closer to private goods, and musical performances were closer to public goods.

To Republicans, I humbly suggest that we make it possible for Democrats to give up their quest for redistribution of income and wealth by our acceptance of an appropriate role for government in financing those public goods and services necessary to secure a social safety net below which no American would be allowed to fall.

Theory of public goods. Theory that if I take you euro (as an elected state government) and give fifty cents back... you will be happier and I will be satisfied.