Ok, one more, from the bottom:	[PS: Kevin, beat me to this, but from a 
different (complementary) perspective]

> 6. How, in a purely free-market system, does anyone decide it's a good
>   idea to have a mental hospital for the poor?

If I wanted to be a purist about it I'd say this is in the domain of 
private charity, which we'd have more of without the government sucking up 
nearly half the wealth we all generate. (Yes, some of that gets put to 
perfectly good use, but the Bush administration especially is so out of 
control.)
   In fact, if you think of the sheer magnitude of philanthropic spending 
in this country (Carnegie, Gates, Buffet) and how much more there would be 
if society didn't turn first to the government for these needs (which, 
notice, just means charity that everyone is forced to contribute to) then 
I really think that would improve, as we say, the world.

(Hmm, I started out ready to concede this one!	I'm becoming more of a 
purist the more we debate this. :)

PS: Another project at Yahoo involves clever incentive schemes for getting 
people to donate to charities.	I'll probably try them on you all at some 
point.	There's huge untapped potential here.  Dave would say people care 
about helping others, status, prestige, etc more than money -- I would 
translate that to: people have high value for helping others, status, 
prestige, etc.	(See, our differences are largely semantic!)

-- 
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"

"It's really annoying not to have email working.  What if Jesus emails me?
He'll think I'm ignoring him."	-- Kevin Lochner, 2005-06-14