From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Jul 08 2002 - 13:40:18 MDT
6500$c9b8fa43@braniac> <20020708012721.GA10759@akira.nada.kth.se>
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Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> It would be nice to look at the time course here - these freedom indexes
> cover several years, and by comparing them with economic development I
> am sure an even clearer picture will emerge. Another factor that it
> would be healthy to include is press freedom (and I would love to
> correlate all these with happiness indices), but I will leave that to
> another night.
>
> To sum up, taxes do not make you poor - they make your economy grow more
> slowly. What really makes you poor is lack of freedom.
But the time course is the most important factor when you are examining
growth. An economy that grows more slowly causes erosion of the
purchasing power of the individual, with a long term erosion of the
middle class, with few rising to wealth and most devolving back to
poverty. Such an erosion encourages political policies that confiscate
freedom to provide economic security to those sliding downhill.
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