Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

anonymous in Alexandria, Va.:

[...] My question is this: why is the concept of a "public good", which is either an answer to negative externalities that individual behaviors create or a means to achieve positive externalities that individual behaviors cannot create, is so poorly understood, especially by the rabid anti-government types. We are in the Great Recession precisely because individual behaviors created adverse collective outcomes. What can be done to fix this ignorance?

Steven Pearlstein:

Everyone should be required to take a good economics course before getting out of high school, and again in college. And whoever writes the best textbook should make as much money as the best hedge fund manager.

-- 2010-02-10, Washington Post public web-chat