Yeah, that paragraph was just an aside, but anyway.
> Those future market segments affects his current decision to spend (go into debt) $150k+ for his medical degree.
I think the problem here is that we let him make the decision which should be really responsibility of the whole society to make. If he didn't go to debt (and got a salary instead while is he studying), it would be IMHO perfectly OK for society to say "we changed our minds, now you have to work for minimum wage" (and he would have replied "F Y" and perhaps got a better arrangement). This is normal acceptable order of business (that things change). And in sane countries, degrees are for free (well obviously you have to work, and you can even get a stipend) for that very reason.
So in case of market segmentation, we are trading off some efficiency in the future for the fact that the whole society doesn't bear the risk of the investment. But is it really needed, to make this trade-off? What is wrong with society bearing that risk as a whole? That's what I was questioning in that paragraph.
I think the real problem though is that the whole idea of investment is not very compatible with the theoretical description of the free market (perfect competition). So to recoup investment, you need to introduce some inefficiency. And it can be abused - you can produce more inefficiency than is needed to recoup it.
> Those future market segments affects his current decision to spend (go into debt) $150k+ for his medical degree.
I think the problem here is that we let him make the decision which should be really responsibility of the whole society to make. If he didn't go to debt (and got a salary instead while is he studying), it would be IMHO perfectly OK for society to say "we changed our minds, now you have to work for minimum wage" (and he would have replied "F Y" and perhaps got a better arrangement). This is normal acceptable order of business (that things change). And in sane countries, degrees are for free (well obviously you have to work, and you can even get a stipend) for that very reason.
So in case of market segmentation, we are trading off some efficiency in the future for the fact that the whole society doesn't bear the risk of the investment. But is it really needed, to make this trade-off? What is wrong with society bearing that risk as a whole? That's what I was questioning in that paragraph.
I think the real problem though is that the whole idea of investment is not very compatible with the theoretical description of the free market (perfect competition). So to recoup investment, you need to introduce some inefficiency. And it can be abused - you can produce more inefficiency than is needed to recoup it.