The nature of a statist economy creates endless confusion as (which is why it's so popular) to who has earned what and who is paying their own way. One of it's results is that a lot of our countries most strident advocates of free markets, live a lifestyle totally dependent on vast government transfers and other expenses. Another Piittsburgh blogger has a long rant on this subject.
"The factors that have allowed people to escape and ignore the social problems in the city are cheap oil and the public subsidization of interstate roads. People bitch about the (actually very small) percentage of their tax dollars that is earmarked for social programs to help the lower classes. Yet no one ever talks about the fact that our federal government artificially depresses the price of gasoline in this country with an aggressive and costly foreign policy. It's a vicious cycle that keeps our ecomomy wholly dependent on the rapidly failing oil paradigm."
"And while cities can be transformed to meet the changing variables of time, suburban/exurban developent and its accompanying "car-culture" are not only unsustainable- but also so artificial and wasteful that they can't ever be transformed into something useful."
I don't think it's in anyway accidental that the period when our country came closest to having a free market was an age of dense cities, with rapidly emerging transit systems which were connected by rail lines.
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