Hmmm. I'll agree to antitrust, but with a caveat. Most monopolies are government-enforced in the first place. Through some means or another, the government gran

Hmmm. I'll agree to antitrust, but with a caveat. Most monopolies are government-enforced in the first place. Through some means or another, the government grants a business or group of business privileges above the other, usually through making it difficult to entry a market. Natural monopolies just aren't that bad--- they get to be natural monopolies because they're efficient and they're granted consumers good products at good prices. > Or we invest in infrastructure and R&D now to make the profit later. You know, like every sane country in history prior to the Reagan Revolution. But, do politicians ever get away from deficit spending? In order to follow the Keynes playbook you suggest, we need to take in a surplus eventually to pay off loans. And if we're taking this money from a larger economy the deficit spending has created, then Keynes' strategy also relies on the money being well spent. It's not enough to have employed people, they have to be projects that do help the economy and help wealth creation. Digging a hole & filling it up will not generate the profit we can skim in the future. And I question the ability of the government to spend money well. In general though, it just becomes an engineering/finance problem. (And whenever we can turn an emotional political problem in a boring engineering/finance problem. that's a good thing.) I suspect that highway expansions are usually worth it. Subway and light rail are questionable. I agree that subways are really awesome to ride, but the true cost of subways are masked from the consumer. The $2.75/trip new yorkers pay is about 40% of the actual cost. https://tcf.org/content/commentary/in-defense-of-the-cheap-subway-ride/ https://tcf.org/content/commentary/in-defense-of-the-cheap-s... (I suspect that they're only looking at operating costs, not capital costs.) > No, I wasn't proposing my ideal economic program. That would start with a lot more of Karl Marx and Henry George. I know you weren't, I was just noticing a pattern in your thinking anyway. :) I'm pretty Austrian so..... yeah. TIL Henry George though, he seems like a cool guy: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-value-tax http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-val... Anything to motivate cities to develop more is good in my book!