Usually when economists use the term “subsidize” they only mean a government action that benefits someone—since that’s all that matters for economic analysis.
edit: note the point of Chronos’ original post: that the IHS crowds out other methods of shipping goods. This is true even if the IHS only subsidizes shipping by truck in your “trivial” sense.
Chronos also singled out WalMart as such as receiving subsidies, which is a case of “agree denotationally but not connotationally”. If the government taxes everyone to provide police protection to everyone, you can equally say that “Wal-mart’s protection costs are subsidized” and it would be just as vacuous.
To the extent that Chronos was singling Wal-mart out, he is in error for that reason. That was my point.
Furthermore, claiming that other shipping methods are crowded out implies that Wal-Mart’s founders would have been helpless about handling that environment, which is wrong. (Again, it’s technically correct, but misleading.) It’s like the case of “oh, GM is a big company, but only got that way because of government contracts for tanks …”—as if GM would have just carried on making worthless tanks for a non-existent market if not for those government purchases!
Furthermore, claiming that other shipping methods are crowded out implies that Wal-Mart’s founders would have been helpless about handling that environment
I don’t understand where this implication is coming from
Usually when economists use the term “subsidize” they only mean a government action that benefits someone—since that’s all that matters for economic analysis.
edit: note the point of Chronos’ original post: that the IHS crowds out other methods of shipping goods. This is true even if the IHS only subsidizes shipping by truck in your “trivial” sense.
Chronos also singled out WalMart as such as receiving subsidies, which is a case of “agree denotationally but not connotationally”. If the government taxes everyone to provide police protection to everyone, you can equally say that “Wal-mart’s protection costs are subsidized” and it would be just as vacuous.
To the extent that Chronos was singling Wal-mart out, he is in error for that reason. That was my point.
Furthermore, claiming that other shipping methods are crowded out implies that Wal-Mart’s founders would have been helpless about handling that environment, which is wrong. (Again, it’s technically correct, but misleading.) It’s like the case of “oh, GM is a big company, but only got that way because of government contracts for tanks …”—as if GM would have just carried on making worthless tanks for a non-existent market if not for those government purchases!
I don’t understand where this implication is coming from
Politics is a mind killer.