- What caused the savings-and-loan catastrophe? Why did such a large part of "society's" banking system make so many gigantic mistakes at once? Why was the disaster largely confined to this particular segment of business?
- The Medicare program cost $3 billion at its inception in 1966, when it was projected to rise to $12 billion by 1990. Why did it instead rise to $110 billion (in constant dollars)—almost ten times the original estimate—during that period? Why did "society's" medical care costs and the portion of them billed to Medicare rise so catastrophically?
- Federal spending on means-tested (i. e., poverty) programs increased eight-fold from 1965 to 1992. Why then did "society's" poverty rate, after falling from about 30% after World War II to about 13-14% in the early 1970s, remain constant thereafter—even as its efforts to eradicate poverty escalated?
- In the mid-1990s, "society's" annual spending on poverty programs averaged around $9,000 per person—or about $36,000 for a family of four. Why then did not all formerly poor people enjoy comfortable middle-class incomes?
- What made the Industrial Revolution in nineteenth-century Western Europe possible? Why did "society's" living standards—indicated by lower mortality rates, increased longevity, population growth, and other measures—suddenly soar, even though "society" took little action on its own behalf during this period of relative laissez-faire?
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