LovePrevails

sounds great I'd love to see it in action

how can they remain competitive if they are buying exporters? that's expensive - someone who is not buying up will outcompete them on price

It's a flase dichotomy to say either starve to death or steal

my pleasure

When I look at the economic factors that have contributed the most to retarding an increase in living standards I come to the conclusion that the two biggest factors are A) the printing of money which has absolutely destroyed the purchasing power of cash over 100 years. Between the late 1700s and 1913 the price of all goods came down in America by 20%. Whereas over the last 100 years the vlue of the dollar has declined by 96%. I don't have stats for the UK but they can't be too different! it's hard to imagine how much richer we would be if no money had been printed and this has affected the poor the most. B) Artificially lowering the interest rates over 50 years or so, because that has drven so much money into the housing market that the prices of houses have multiplied to 10x what they were in the 70s. Imagine if everyone could get a house for a tenth of what it costs now - or pay a tenth of what they pay in rent. how much would that help the poor? The funny thing is I NEVER hear left-wingers talk about those two things. Why? Is it ignorance or is because these abuses are in the public sector rather than the private sector and they have trained themselves to look only for abuses in the private sector? I was a socialist but now that I am a liberal (in the classic sense) it seems the left don't seem to actually care about poor people at all they only want to talk about rich people - they don't want to look at what is actually harming and helping the poor across the world and point to the major causes. Why? Because FREE MARKETS are helping the poor, in the poorest countries in the world where they are turning to free markets that is where the most progress is being made in terms of lifting the poor out of poverty - 30-40,000 people a year between India and China at the moment! Poverty as it was defined in the 80s, as living on less than a dollar a day, when you adjust for inflation has disappeared from the planet. There is further to go, of course, that is a cause for celebration. But the left don't talk about it - because it's devastating to their case that markets are evil and forcing people - at gunpoint if necessary - to achieve their aims is virtuous.

I beg to differ, I think you did a great job.

That's the second recommendation I've seen ! I was going to see about taking it out the library because it's damn expensive but they only have it in the reading room so I'll have to go in and have a peak to check if I want to fork out for it

thanks!

New essay by yours truly Misanthropic myths about 3rd World Poverty debunked One of the most persistent myths about 3rd World Poverty is the idea that if underdeveloped countries are allowed to progress in their economy it will be some kind of unmitigated environmental disaster. There are a few important facts to take into consideration in order to respond to these claims. Firstly, wealthy countries can afford to clean up their water after fouling it and treat their sewage properly, they can replant their forests, and put recycling infrastructure into place. Countries without wealth can’t do any of those things. In places like Bangladesh people will scramble to make a living with no long-term consideration to their surrounding environment, and they have no means of repairing it afterwards Starving Brazilians can’t really choose not to cut down the rainforest – they can’t afford it. However, what would help is if the governments in those countries who are logging the world’s rainforest would allow private ownership so that the logging industry would be personally invested in taking care of the longevity of their property and leave parts to grow back while other areas are logged as happens in the forests in developed countries. Western charities could then also go in and buy up vast tracts of rainforest to stop them being logged – at present that is really impossible as those property claims would currently just be ignored by the loggers and the corrupt governments in those countries. The next critical point to understand is that the 1 billion richest people are responsible for 50% of the world’s consumption of resources and the 2nd billion richest people for the next 25%, and so forth. Once this is understood, it is easy to see that the 2 billion poorest people in the world could easily be lifted into the standard of living of the 3rd poorest (or even the 4th poorest) with a comparatively small environmental impact. As to overpopulation, the industrial revolution created population booms across the whole planet – but in every single country where a reasonable standard of living was achieved population growth receded; there is no reason to believe that will be any different with the developing world. Education has and will also be able to play a bigger role. (Note: at current trends the world’s population is set to level off at 11 billion and then may even start decreasing according to current projections.) It’s not economic progress, but our irresponsible economic systems which are responsible for the environmental damage we have seen over the last 200 years or so. Governments externalise the costs of environmental damage and redistribute it to the taxpayer, rather than allowing producers and consumers to pay the cost of their own consumption. We can create sustainable economies by holding individuals personally responsible for paying to repair the damage caused by their consumption, in proportion to their consumption. In order to do that you would essentially have to privatise garbage collection, anything that was recyclable, biodegradable or repairable would likely be collected for free by anyone who could use it or sell it on. Non-biodegradable waste (which would become less and less common as the economy as consumers and producers adjusted to the new incentives by dodging items which were over-packaged or would be costly to dispose of) would be charged in proportion to how difficult it would be to dispose of. Antony Sammeroff 27-01-16

Here's me from back in my lefty days. There is a grain of truth to the idea that Western Governments are partially responsible for Africa being slow to develop as you can see the intervention of statist and multi-statist organisations in the region have been detrimental. But luckily the situation is improving there now.

great work

It's not that I don't like it it's just not a high priority subject to me. If you get some conclusive answers I'll be very interested in them but I'm not particularly engaged in the investigation. I'm working hard on other resources at the moment.

well, thanks for your diligence

these ones

ah crap Peikoff is charging for that series now - so annoying should have got it while it was free

Here, I think, is an excellent resources of dispelling illusions about the minimum wage. Please share far and wide. It hits it from every angle and talks to left-interests such as the poor, the workers, poverty etc. http://scottishlibertarians.com/living-wage-the-road-to-hell/

I'm hoping all eyes throughout academia will be on California after the wage increase comes in - if studies are done it could be the final nail in the coffin of the minimum wage. Forever more people will be saying "well look what happened in California."

I don't have a horse in the race I don't feel the need to engage in a rousing debate with you it seems clear that the majority of harm comes from cutting the cord ahead of it ceasing to pulse and then going white.

I never heard of a lotus birth before kind of agree with that ^^^

thanks for listening, sorry to hear of your sad story - so sad they disregarded your requests.

Hi people, we've talked already of the importance of breast feeding, here is another thing that could make all the difference. Waiting a few minutes before cutting the umbilical cord. Please share this interview far and wide this is critical information that could potentially help lots of people.

you have to shine the light in dark places

No offence dude, but what the hell way have you wired your brain up that what you took out of this was a gender issue? Have you ever been in a long term relationship? Imagine that you had trusted someone for months or even years and put your faith in them, planned your future with them, shared your most intimate moments and parts of your body, dark secrets, and weird unhealed dysfuctions with them and you wake up to find that that was all based of false pretences - ? this prank is really cruel I felt for her