When people bump up against one another in the course of pursuing their goals, it is in everyone's interest to resolve any resulting problems in the least costly ways possible.

When people bump up against one another in the course of pursuing their goals, it is in everyone's interest to resolve any resulting problems in the least costly ways possible.

A good school is a relative concept, and the better schools are located in more expensive neighborhoods. But when everyone bids more for a house in a better school district, they succeed only in bidding up the prices of those houses. As before, 50 percent of all children will attend schools in the bottom half of the school quality distribution. As in the familiar stadium metaphor, all stand, hoping to get a better view, only to discover that no one sees better than if all had remained seated.

Pass down values every day through your actions, your words and your time with your kids.

If the search is for examples that contradict the predictions of standard economic models, a good rule of thumb is to start in France.

As John Maynard Keynes taught us in the 1930s, in such situations, government is the only entity with both the motive and the ability to boost total spending by enough to put people back to work. As it happens there are long lists of important public projects that cry out to be done.

We're in a classic demand-shortfall recession. There aren't enough jobs because total spending is too low. Consumers won't lead the way because they're busy paying down debt and are fearful they'll lose their jobs, if they haven't already. Businesses, which are currently sitting on mountains of cash, won't spend either, because they already have sufficient capacity to produce more than people are willing to buy.