From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Date: Thu Jan 09 1997 - 11:46:21 MST
Hara Ra wrote:
>
> Michael Lorrey wrote:
> > Any lunar settlers would contain a high percentage of people who are
> > disposessed, alienated, exiled, as who would give up living on earth if
> > they didn't HAVE to? THink of this: a lunar settling corporation puts
> > together a deal with earth governments strapped with overpopulated
> > welfare rolls to take welfarees off their hands for a set fee. The corp
> > ships em to the moon and puts them to work shoveling dirt and growing
> > food. how many of these people would be PISSED at the earth for kicking
> > them out?
>
> Unlikely. When L5 colonies were more popular some studies were made of
> the costs
> of moving to the American colonies in the 1600s. It turned out the cost
> for an
> individual was about that of a house in the Midwest ($60,000 in todays
> money),
> which could be paid off in 5-10 years of work. The contract was called
> indentured
> labor. Unfortunately the cost of moving to a L5 colony was about 100x
> this
> number and therefore not economically feasible.
And this was given the economic and technological limitations they could
see. Even given this, the average welfaree or prison inmate puts a
larger drag on the economy than this. If a government would pay half the
cost, the laborer would pay for the rest in economic growth on the moon.
>
> AFAIK, every job training program for welfare has essentially failed,
> both due to the lack of jobs for the trainees and the wothlessness of the skills being trained for.
Exactly. There are no jobs here on earth, but in any colony situation
there is always a labor shortage. Doing productive, first level work
(i.e. actually being a producer). And given the high state of technology
needed on the moon, anyone spending 5-10 years on the moon would have
skills and experience to get an upper middle class life anywhere on
earth.
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael Lorrey
------------------------------------------------------------
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#!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL
@k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_
]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256;
&S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}
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