Keith Devens .com

Tragedy of the Commons
Give Me A Break was a great read. Know if Stossel has a regular show/segment? Last I saw him he was on 20/20, but I haven't watched that show in ages (and was never a regular viewer).

I think I disagree about the private vs. public land bit. Usually volunteer groups and good samaritans keep public lands clean. It sucks when beaches and beautiful scenic lands are locked away in private ownership.

Know if Stossel has a regular show/segment? Last I saw him he was on 20/20...

Yes! I know him from 20/20, and always really liked him. I've been gratified to find out since then that he's a standup guy -- I'm glad my good impressions of him from so long ago were well-justified. I have no clue what he's been up to though -- I wish I could see more of him on a regular basis. He should move to Fox News

I think I disagree about the private vs. public land bit.

I didn't put too much thought into what he was saying in that article, but I thought the bit I quoted was a very insightful way to frame the relation of benefits to responsibilities. They must be commensurate or the imbalance causes problems. I was thinking mostly of its application to things like health care -- if you have socialized health care, you diffuse individual responsibility, yet the benefits are unlimited, so people take advantage of the system.

I think the diffusion of responsibility even happens with normal insurance -- the person filling in for Rush today did at least a whole hour on health savings accounts, and I found it fascinating. It's a federal law that basically does for health insurance what Bush wants to do with Social Security, and it already exists, put into law last year as part of the Medicare drug benefit bill. A bunch of people called into the show to say how much they liked the program, and how much money it was saving them. The host announced a web site about HSAs that he really liked which I'll be blogging in a bit.

By the way, the problems with an imbalance of benefits to responsibility can also be seen in the other direction, where you have more responsibility than benefits. This can happen when you tax "the rich" enough that you take away their incentive to work hard and take risks.

Yeah, I'm somewhat familiar with HSA's. It's an account which can only be used for medical expenses (primarily for deductibles). Today everybody treats insurance-covered health care like a free lunch - get as much as you can (usually at the expense of other payers). Most doctors don't even price stuff out and usually bill insurance co's for all they're worth. If consumers become more responsible for shopping around to get a better deal, doctors' practices will change - hopefully even reducing costs.

Taxes - absolutely. It's maddening how many and much taxes one pays once they start making more than a bit of money.

I think Stossel is/was on a book tour just recently. He has a message board here: http://forums.go.com/abcnews/forum?start=0&forumID=17&byThread=true
and page: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/ABCNEWSSpecial/