[JasonC]

No one said it is insignificance, the point is that Beck is practicing one entry accounting which is utter nonsense, not that we shouldn't prefer a larger private sector to a larger public one. There are marginal differences in the overall efficiency of each use. But marginal differences in efficiency are not one-sided transactions sucking all value spent on them into a magical money pit in the sky.

Throwing extra money at health care raises health care costs for example. The net overall "loss" in that is simply that it takes 14% of our incomes to pay for all the health care we receive instead of perhaps 7%, perhaps 10%. In the absence of such subsidy we'd spend a little more on technology or travel, say. It is those opportunity costs in other services foregone, that are the real efficiency loss in delivery health care through a government-subsidy system instead of a market one.

I continue to wait for the slightest acknowledgement that the sort of rhetoric and reasoning Beck was engaging in, is misleading and irresponsible and preys on ignorance, when it suggests we are broke and poverty-striken. It may in fact reflect such ignorance on his part, that is the likely as well as the charitable explanation. He has heard such talking points in Heritage Foundation memos and he repeats them breathlessly without understanding any of the accounting, let alone economics, involved.

I don't get why it is pulling teeth to get this acknowledged. Anyone claiming that Americans are poor is either ignorant of economics, or he's lying.

[tacticalogic]

Paying an additional 7% per year for healthcare doesn’t seem like a lot, but looking at your figures on net worth, 7% per year is about what the average net worth increase of the average American household has been.