X-Message-Number: 28091
From: 
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:20:37 EDT
Subject: Re: Economics

In a message dated 6/22/2006 3:00:42 AM Mountain Standard Time,  
 writes:

How this  leap from regulation, law, and foresight to tyranny? Don't
you realize that  a "free-market" and a massive rich-poor gap is it's
own tyranny? The idea  of democracy is that people have a part in
making informed decisions  regarding how our economics works out
between us. No regulation means no  democracy means no protection -
protection which the poor and the  environment need. Indeed, rich-boy
wannabes like yourself need it too,  unless you're immune to
pollutants.



The US is not a democracy but a constitutional republic for exactly this  

reason.  It has been observed that a democracy lasts exactly as long as it  
takes 
the bottom 51% to figure out they can vote to steal the wealth of the top  
49%.
 
>Third, wanton consumption is not a good idea for human beings'  because
our insatiable lust for money and consumption leads to  massively
inequitable distribution of the world's wealth and natural  assets,
fostering economic and political instability, and at present, the  very
real danger of self-imposed extinction of the human race by  fatal
depletion of natural resources

With the exception of fossil fuels, the depletion of natural resources is a  
foolish idea of people with a poor grasp of science.  Please recall the old  
bromide that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. (Absent nuclear  

reactions, which are rare in garbage dumps.)  Everything we have ever  consumed 
is 
still in place or in a garbage dump.  Whence it can be  re-mined, if that 
ever becomes cheaper than just digging up more from the  ground. So natural 

resources do not get "depleted", only rearranged. As for  mining, remember that

beneath our feet are 4000 miles of ore, mainly iron and  aluminum and silicon.
With even a mile's worth we could construct a  building several miles high. 

(Buildings are mainly empty space; the earth is  solidly packed.)  As for 
energy, 
with breeder reactors, we have plenty  for thousands of years.  As for 

pollution, in the West it was decreased ten  or a hundred times since 1960, 
while in 
communist Europe the pollution was  incredible.
 
While I am aghast at the actions of Bush and company, and see examples of  

wretched excess on the part of rich and poor both (the rich, more recently), I
also see the progress of China since they adopted capitalistic practices.   I 
hear that they are very happy and have an optimistic view of their  future.  
It is not a bad thing when a billion people go from literal  starvation to a 

happy prosperity, and I think Anthony's attitude is too  pessimistic. Note that
the "inequitable" distribution of wealth was the fault of  the Chinese for 
following the insanity of the "Great Leap Forward," and now that  they are 

adopting capitalism they are getting their fair share.  Is there a  moral here?
Yes 
-- capitalism brings prosperity and a people's future  is in their own hands. 
It is not America's fault that Africa is  kleptocratic and poor and other 

places are feudalistic and sad. Instead of  blaming the West they should emulate
it.
 
Alan
 


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