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Okay, I'm City Joe McDonald, local franchiser for a big fast-food chain. The government says they'll pay me $2 for each free meal I give away. Currently I sell the "All-American" package for around $2, so that's what I'll give away. The problem is, as soon as I announce that I'm giving away lunch, every human in a 10-mile radius is at my door, asking for their free lunch. No other restaurant manager in the area was stupid enough to fall for this, so all the freeloaders come to my place. The paying customers are fed up with it, so they take their cash (which they were using to buy $4 Classic Meals, which have only 25 cents more food than the $2 All-American meals, and take no more time to prepare and deliver) elsewhere. On second thought, no thanks Uncle Sam.At the risk of sounding like one of the mythological Radical Right, I ask the question, "Why is it that everyone should have the right to _free_ food and shelter?"
As an economist, I ...