almost anything can be efficient if you do enough thinking: the public financing of rooftop gardens might have social benefits that exceed the costs. For example, the gardens help avoid global warming, moderate pollution, provide a soothing atmosphere for those jumping off the buildings, ...
> But a more serious question. What do these economists say about the choice
> between building super highways and mass transit networks? I know there are
> some economists who believe that super highways should be privatized but who
> would have built them in the first place? And the only reason I can see to
> prefer a superhighway to mass transit is because it benefits the relatively
> well off more in the short run (excluding externalities) than mass transit.
There's nothing in orthodox economics _per se_ that says that super highways are preferable to mass transit. That's only the "laissez-faire" wing of economics, as is the business of privatizing highways.
> So one further question, Jim and other economists. I have not studied
> economics... though I have studied mathematics and game theory at a good
> dilettante's level and I am very good at history.... so my question is,
> beside reading people like yourself and Doug, who mainly seem to concentrate
> on demystifying economics.... is there anything in economics that you can't
> counter with basic skeptical common sense?
I don't know. There are some things in economics that work. Supply & demand help us understand price changes, for example. Even if there are monopolies, a lack of information, etc. -- Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles