Snow ploughs and The Economic Problem

It was no surprise to get the text telling me that school is closed today, as I am in the area of Surrey that has 12 inches of snow so far, and it hasn’t stopped falling yet. Watching the news on TV, I can’t believe the number of people claiming that local councils should have the facilities to deal with ‘a bit of snow’ and drawing comparisons with Sweden and central Germany. But those countries have this sort of weather routinely and expect to deal with it several times each winter – the opportunity cost of using local taxes to provide the number of snow ploughs, gritters and road clearing equipment that might be needed to cover such rare events would be immense. This must be a classic example of resource scarcity and choice – the basic Economic Problem!