RE: Food labels and consumer information (was Re: Protesters swarm Calif. biotech meeting)

From: Paul Grant (shade999@optonline.net)
Date: Sun Jul 27 2003 - 22:36:46 MDT

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    From: owner-extropians@extropy.org [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]
    On Behalf Of Mike Lorrey
    Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 9:02 PM

    --- Brett Paatsch <paatschb@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
    [Brett] Another duty of the federal government is the 'general welfare'
    of the economy, i.e. its economic vitality and long term stability (i.e.
    NOT nanny statism). If high paying skilled manufacturing jobs are being
    shipped overseas or replaced by automation, leaving just poorly paid
    burger flipping jobs in their place, this is a constitutional concern of
    the federal government because it deals in not just the long term
    economic stability of the nation, but its political stability as well.

    [Brett] Even worse, a government that allows the export of not just its
    high paying manufacturing jobs overseas, but its higher paying knowledge
    jobs overseas is asking for only one possible result: the reinstitution
    of feudalism, because all that will be left are wealthy stockholders and
    lots and lots of burger flippers and blue jeans sales people, and
    garbage collectors, etc etc etc. i.e. an aristocracy of educated elites
    and a majority of uneducated and unskilled wage slaves.

    [Me] Buckle up bub; 'cause thats precisely where we're headed.
    They had a *REALLY* interesting piece of research done recently;
    it had to do with income distribution versus percentage of the
    population...
    apparently everywhere else in the world, the top x% of the population
    controlled a significant amount of the [fiscal] resources.... and the US
    had
    a significantly larger X than europe or other countries...Pretty much
    the
    exception to the rule.

    Anyways; it turns out there was a direct analogue
    for the computational problem which had already been solved [or rather
    directly observed and studied] in physics which explained why the
    tendency
    for the rich to become ultra-rich (control all the resources)...

    Of course, they were puzzled by the US score [histogram]; that is until
    they
    computed the score using figures in the 1950's :) Apparently we're in
    the
    decline (or rather the slide) into exactly the same situation that
    plagues
    every other country.

    omard-out



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