From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Date: Mon May 05 1997 - 18:07:36 MDT
Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> Ken Meyering wrote:
>
> > >I can't talk for Extropians, but I can talk for myself. And I know
> > >that economy and free markets is what makes those people poor.
>
> > Some facts are so simple and obvious that somehow they get
> > overlooked.
> >
> > Free markets and economies don't make poor children. Parents do.
>
> Oh man, you did it. You made me laugh, which rarely occurs on this list.
> This is one of the funniest Libertarian explanations for inequality I've
> ever read.
And rather obvious as well. How children turn out is entirely based on
the choices their parents made, even before they were born. I'm 29 with
no kids, because I choose to not reproduce until I am in my own opinion
able to provide a responsible environment for my kids. This is not just
me either. My older brother, currently much farther along the same
track, is still expecting to wait at least another 5 years before having
kids. The only people I know who have had kids and are my age are the
idiots who did not go on to college. Most of them are bankrupt and
divorced by now at least once.
>
> But to become serious again: Education _is_ a real problem. Not only
> education of the poor, but also education of those who are able to buy
> whole universities. Money means power, and in a world where some people
> are much richer than others, you will always have explicit power
> structures.
Duh, and there will alwasy be black holes and quasars too. Communist
systems also had their moguls, you just never heard about them because
their wealth was a state secret, and if you complained it was off to the
cotton mines for you.
>
> Decisions of today are made by this power elite. This ain't the big bad
> government guys, it's those economic rulers, investment banks especially
> (Brown Brothers Harriman, Morgan Investment Trust). They own all the
> larger companies and, as if this wouldn't be enough, also manage them
> with their people sitting in the board of directors.
WHile I personally see no merit in large inheritances, those that get to
such positions due to their own skill and drive to me deserve to be
where they are and have demonstrated ability to match the responsibility
they assume.
>
> They WANT government. Goverment is an easy way to get money (taxes) and
> to invest it the way they want. Government therefore doesn't only (or
> does hardly) do "clever" investments. Pushing weapons industry, for
> example, always helps big companies to grow bigger and to crush smaller
> companies, for it doesn't raise the life standard.
HAH, now you did it. Its the old imperialist gun makers routine again.
Sorry you could not be more wrong. I can tell you for a fact that the
absolute very worst thing for any arms company's long term stability is
war and arms buildups. If you look at all of the arms companies
operating over the last 200 years, you will find that at a bare minimum,
90% of them go bankrupt within 2 years of the end of a major war or arms
buildup. WHy? because in war and during buildups, governments give them
huge orders beyond their capacity to meet, so they expand furiously to
meet the artificial demand, and often are under strict quotas of
production which they cannot vary from, even when any idiot can see that
a war is almost over and it would be wise to start shifting resources
back to consumer production. Once the war or buildup ends, government
contracts are cancelled, leaving huge amounts of capacity idle for a
bare minimum of 6 months to 5 years, which is the kicker that breaks
companies backs.
People still are wondering why Russia is still in the pits. Its obvious,
they still havent fully converted from a wartime production footing.
>
> Remove government and you get a dictatorship of banks / monopolies. Much
> worse than gov't could ever be. Freedom? You'll be so free, you'll want
> to buy a whole load of guns in order to defend yourself from street
> thugs. Equality? Raising life standard? Nope. But nobody who defends
> markets claims that -- that's natural selection. Eat or be eaten. Live
> and let die.
>
> Conclusion: Make those powerful guys cleverer, and they'll recognize
> that making the everone else cleverer, too, will be to their own benefit
> in the long term. That's all you need. No communism (any communist
> movement is crushed in its roots, whether by media propaganda or by
> weapons power), no free markets and no dictatorships (whereas these two
> are actually the same).
THis lesson has already been learned by our most successful
billionaire/mogul/tycoon/capitalist running dog oppressor, Bill Gates,
as well as scores of other technology industrialists. You've still got
problems over there because you've got ex-communist party bosses running
around playing 19th century robber baron. You should have strung them up
when you had the chance.
>
> I advocate efforts to help the poor. They'll never be enough to save the
> poor children, though. And anyone who puts this phrase in quotation
> marks should take a look. 12.5 million each year, have fun on your
> vacation. Poor, poor children -- they're just too stupid, or their
> parents are, or government is evil, or aliens have infiltrated them, or
> they've deserved it, or ...
>
> Anyway, I hope this isn't classified as "rant" again. I hope some of you
> think about what I say, or it is a waste of time. I don't want to insult
> anyone, I'm a peaceful guy. Maybe I just want the same thing you do:
> Make this world a better place.
>
That is what most of us are after, but we know from experience that much
more is done constructively by individuals on a volunteer basis than any
centrally planned solution. It is a fact that Americans are the very
most charitable givers in the world, at the very same time that we are
considered by most to be the most capitalist.
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael Lorrey
------------------------------------------------------------
mailto:retroman@tpk.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive
Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com
Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/
Mikey's Animatronic Factory
My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA)
MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday
Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH)
------------------------------------------------------------
#!/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]}
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:44:25 MST