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To: GraceZ who wrote (3178)	10/18/2001 12:26:16 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24758

Grace - ...Aside from that argument, recently I've noticed that two things that continually run well ahead of inflation are higher education and medical costs which is bringing them further and further out of reach for many more people. One could argue that a great deal of that running ahead of inflation has to do with the fact that they are subsidized by the government. So these programs that are designed to do what is essentially a "good" thing (ie. providing education and medical care for the needy) also sets up a situation where the cost continually rises and makes them less affordable for people further up the ladder. This is exactly right, but may not go far enough. The government can create money, but it cannot create wealth. Whenever the government tries to give a benefit to one group, it must steal it from someone else. Even worse is its effect on the providers of the goods and services to be subsidized. When the government is paying the bill, there is little or no pressure to compete on price and quality, nor to address the specific desires of consumers. The only pressure is to fill out all the government forms in a manner that the government accepts. This results in very high prices for goods and services whose characteristics are far inferior to those which would have resulted from an undistorted competition for the consumer's dollar. But you only have to look at all the hospitals that go bankrupt to realize that the government subsidies are poisonous to the providers as well, as the government mandates both what the services are and what it will pay for them. The strings attached to government subsidies are really steel cables wrapped in razor wire. Regards, Don

To: GraceZ who wrote (3178)	10/19/2001 11:59:05 AM
From: Mark Adams	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24758

Grace, I've considered this. Arizona State tuition is only $2500 per semester. For some reason, that doesn't seem all that high to me. I seem to here from the popular media that college education costs on the order of 200k, but I must assume they include room & board, and tuition at the finest Ivy league schools. I imagine that tuition at the high end schools must be substantially outpacing that of state schools. But I've not done the research to confirm this. On another line, the primary hold back on developing nations and islamic countries is considered to be an educated workforce per Rees-Moog (Great Reckoning). Even in the US, companies place a premium on locations with a large pool of highly educated workers. If this is the case, then it would seem both local and 3rd world governments could boost overall wealth by improving the level of education for all citizens who desire that education. This might drive costs higher as teachers salaries are bid up to attract the best talent. But it should also increase the size of the economic pie, meaning it is a positive sum game, net net.