RE: FWD [forteana] Health Care: USA, Iraq & Canada

From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Wed Sep 10 2003 - 19:01:48 MDT

  • Next message: Rafal Smigrodzki: "RE: How do you calm down the hot-heads?"

    Robbie wrote:
    >> ### Yes. See http://www.techcentralstation.com/090803C.html,
    >> especially the references to Nike.
    >
    > Non-responsive. Nike is both famous for running sweatshops which
    > perpetuate poverty and lying about it.
    >
    > Lies will not help you here.

    ### Who's lying?

    -----------------------------

    >
    >>> What's the mechanism by which this happens exactly? Can you site
    >>> any historical precedent?
    >>
    >> ### Free market. Poland in 1970-95, even more so later on. USA at the
    >> beginning of the century, industrialization by Ford, GM, etc. Etc.
    >> etc. etc.
    >
    > Mechanism, think physical "follow the path of resources." Your
    > historical precedence is ridiculous. Laughable, really. How do THEY
    > show that it happens?

    ### (context elided - show how capital investment increases incomes)

    Oh, by simple calculations, by experiments, by observations of markets. The
    whole of economics, ever since Adam Smith, describes the effects of supply
    and demand on the price and availability of goods and services. Even
    Keynesians admit such basics. Are you aware of any alternative economic
    theory, which would deny the right of supply and demand?

    I guess it elevates one's mood, to find so many things laughable. Have fun,
    by all means.

    --------------------------------

    >
    >> Why would you like to reduce incentives to invest by individuals of
    >> limited means, thereby reducing economic growth, and harming
    >> everybody?
    >
    > Clearly stated above. Read better. Capitalism causes inhumane
    > situations, the LLC is the vehicle by which it does it.

    ### If I remember correctly, you have never explained how capitalism causes
    inhumane situations (presumably more so than the alternatives?). Do tell me
    the mechanism, or else the repetition of simple accusations against business
    will bore the readers.

    ----------------------------

    >
    >> ### Yes. By increasing the flow of capital to the mud huts.
    >>
    >> (This is not meant as a snub - I actually mean exactly what I wrote.
    >> The easier it is to invest, the more competition there is for
    >> workers, and the better wages ensue)
    >
    > You mean keeping them in their mud huts? What USUALLY happens is the
    > peasants revolt and are put-down occasionally by their
    > capitalist-funded leaders. At least, this is how it works in Burma.

    ### More people crawled out of the mud in the last century than in all the
    centuries before. That's how it worked in the US, in Poland, in Vietnam, and
    will work in Burma.
    -------------------------------------

    >
    >> ### Thanks to the flow of capital, the percentage of children
    >> playing in pee has been steadily decreasing. The world is actually
    >> getting better every day.
    >
    > Where do you get your stats?
    >
    > Here's a good place to start:
    > http://corporatism.tripod.com/poverty.htm
    >
    > As a matter of fact, poverty is up worldwide.

    ### If you choose your source of facts appropriately, you will find that
    Elvis lives, and the Earth is flat. For economic data try OECD, WHO, UN, US
    Dept of Commerce.

    -----------------------------------------

    >
    >>> Do you seriously think that we're going to run out of poor countries
    >>> in which workers can be exploited?
    >>
    >> ### Yes. The world will be getting better in the future, too.
    >
    > "There is a sucker, born every minute" - Barnum
    >
    > Rhetorical questions to which I know the answer. Do you?
    >
    > What is the current population of the earth?
    > What percentage are "poor"?
    > Has that changed significantly over time?

    ### Yes, the percentage of poor changed - from 100% about 8 000 years ago,
    to today's less than 20%.

    But now I see why you need to laugh at the least provocation - your have to
    dispel the darkness, your view of the world is so gloomy, evil and poverty
    rising everywhere, rapacious capitalists raping the planet, no hope for the
    future, and those who have it, must be suckers.

    Sad, sad.

    >
    > ______________________________________________
    >
    > Personal questions directed to the point:
    >
    > Rafal, are you a multi-millionaire?

    ### No, my income is 42 500$/year.

    --------------------------

    >
    > Do you want to be?

    ### Yes.

    ----------------------------

    > How do you think someone like you could accumulate the effective labor
    > of lots of other people without actually performing that labor
    > yourself?

    ### I have no need to accumulate the labor of other people. I will make a
    million $ on my own, and then another, and another - with cryonics and life
    extension, could go on for a long time.

    ----------------------------------

    >
    > If you are a multi-millionaire:
    >
    > How will you continue to benefit from your economic status without
    > continuing to keep other people working for you?
    > How will you keep them working for you if it's not in their best
    > interest?

    ### You know I am a staunch opponent of coercion. I will benefit only from
    people working for their own gain, freely, such as the Nike workers in
    wherever they are.

    Rafal



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