Certain things need more advanced knowledge. If you are going to be an accountant, you need math skills. Writer, English skills. Scientist, varied sciences. Sometimes to even have a proper conversation, you need to do a bit of research and enhance your knowledge on a subject past the basics.

Anyway I think this is wayy offtopic. I think in general this guy looks quite promising and I think he does have a shot because I suspect there are a lot of fiscal conservatives who have been itching to get behind a good candidate. I think people will be willing to look past disagreement with specific policies so long as he presents himself as the best candidate for the republican party.

Like I said, was in a hurry.

It's pretty simple though isn't it?  101 classes teach via broad strokes.  As such, when it comes to individual arguements, 101 knowledge is completely useless because broad strokes are extremly impercise.

Often times in those broad strokes what they teach are in fact... blantantly untrue.   For example in the case of Psychology, Frued and Maslow's theories are basically completely wrong.

What you learn in a textbook is far different then what you learn if you read their direct writings or had the chance to talk to them.

In the case of Public Goods.

Public Goods are just a overly broad term that nobody agrees with.   In reality there is basically nothing that actually is a public good by the definition of public goods.

Every "public good" has it's exceptions and none are agreed opon as public goods.

I mean really.... for the most basic (and pointless) classification.

Anyone who says roads aren't Rivalrous has never been caught downtown in a big city during rush hour.   Technology is pushing roads more and more towards being private goods.

The level of precision required depends on what work is actually being done. Being too precise can be inefficient and can cause people to get bogged down in minutae details which would otherwise be indistinguishable from noise. If you define the best answer as the most efficient answer in that the least effort is required to get a desired outcome then you would not expect a government to be precise in order to act at the maximum possible efficiency. Even if exceptions exist, dealing with the exceptions on a case by case basis can be more inefficient than simply accepting the existance of exceptions.

Unless you are specifically talking about these exceptions?  Which you know... we are.  Though I would note that Public Goods are filled with nothing but exceptions. 

It doesn't help that Manus specifically brought up the main example that disproves the theory of roads as a public good needed to be provided by the government.

Then backtracked and tried to cover his ass by referencing an "Econ 101" book after having discussed the specifics and realized the specifics don't back him up.

It would be the same as if he said "Maslow said that you needed to fill the hierarchy of needs in order".  Followed by me pointing out a case where Maslow specifically didn't say that.

Followed by him backtracking and quoting out of a Psych 101 book.

I do also want to point to a new road technolgy being developed by private businesses.

http://www.solarroadways.com/main.html

Recently, yes this group earned a contract with the DOT, but their beginnings was from General Electric and they have been questioned by many cities who were/are interested in purchasing them and funding installation projects themselves. Plus, I'm fairly sure all the contract states is they are allowed to "pave" the roads with their technolgy and have the DOT charge for use.

Kasz's arguments consist of either silly logic or ad-hominems, though most of the time both.  I like the electronic tolling idea (though I suggested it in the post before to point out how stupid of an idea it was), too bad it would cost trillions of dollars to implement and greatly hamper economic activity.  And I'm still waiting for you to calculate the cost of road construction for your daily commute, then tell me that you believe that the millions and millions of dollars will happily be paid for by everyone along the route.  I have some magic beans I want to sell you too.

I also like that, in an attempt to make both of your arguments sound less ridiculous, you claim to be more intelligent than a vast majority of experts in the area.

I'm still lost on where you get your figures from. All that is needed is a slab of concrete about 300 feet long. My dad's 30 x 36 slab cost about $12k, and a road doesn't need to be 30feet wide. 10 or 11 feet is all that's needed, no shoulder at all. So figure based off the savings on distance an 11 x 45~ foot slab would be 12k, probably can get a decent discount buying a massive amount of concrete, price of rebar, no labor needed as many of us can form a block of concrete and have the tools, so around $60k to pave over whats needed.

You know people in graduate school?  Thats very prestigious and automatically justifies all of your opinions.

I also like that you somehow attacked my argument where I define simple economic terms, then turn around and show that you don't understand simple economic terms.  There are many more factors than rivalrous and excludability that go into determining if a good is a public good and should be provided by the government.  For instance, government provided roads have benefits that cannot be provided by or taken into account by the private market, such as increase in economic activity and cheaper deliverty costs.

Its more economically efficient for the government to collect funding from taxes to provide roads than it is to pay trillions of dollars to put electronic toll booths across the country and electronic readers in every car.  If any country were to undertake such a fool-hardy decision, it would be economic suicide.

Lets do more math, though you don't seem to get that either:

There are 150 million cars in America, put a $20 electronic reader (guess) on every one and thats $3,000,000,000.  Now put electronic toll booths on every intersection, they would cost upwards of $100,000 a piece and lets guess that there are a million intersections, thats $1,000,000,000,000.  Now we need a private company and hundreds of thousands of employees to staff and maintain this new infrastructure, they get paid an average of $50,000 a year and thats well over $100,000,000,000.

Congratulations, you just destroyed your country's economy by spending trillions of dollars on unnecessary spending when you could have allocated resources elsewhere in the economy. 

Because I'm an engineer that understands construction costs, its what I do.

Then take your own advice and build the road.  Try to get all of your neigbors on board and build it yourself.  It will be a crash course in human relations for you, just be prepared to crash and burn.