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11/14/01: Illinois_Stan
Posted by: grundle2600@hotmail.com (grundle)
Actually, I think that forcing person A to pay taxes to feed person B is evil.
Here's an article that explains how bad governemnt policies regarding farming, lack of private property rights, and bad trade policies were responsible for the deaths of those people:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:hZZv9EoRQ68:www.mises.o rg/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae3_2_8.pdf+causes+irish+potato+famin e+property+rights&hl=en
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11/14/01: also.....
Posted by: grundle2600@hotmail.com (grundle)
That article that I gave the link for in my last post explains that there were governemnt attempts to feed the starving Irish, but that these attmpets did not work.
Also, you seem all gung ho about the redistribution of wealth, but you seem completely ignorant to the incentives that allow the wealth to be created in the first place.
You said you support what works. OK. Well, Hong Kong and Singapore went from being very poor to being very rich in just a few decades, because they adopted very strong protections of private property rights, freedom of contract, free market pricing, free trade, and low taxes. Are you saying that other poor countries should adopt these policies?
Recently, Ireland has had a huge economic boom. Their economy has grown by a huge amount. A huge number of new, high paying jobs have been created. Why? Because they had major tax cuts. Rich people and businesses from all over the world have realized that Ireland is a great place to do business. The result of this is one of the greatest economic booms anywhere in the world. Are you saying that you support Ireland's tax cuts?
You said you support what works. OK. Regarding food, every country in the world that has all 3 of these policies has an abundant supply of food. #1 There are stong protections of private property rights. #2 There are no government price caps on the price of food. #3 The country has relatively free trade. Every country in the world that meets all 3 of these criteria has an abundant supply of food. There are no exceptions. Do you support these policies?
Past real world experience shows that cutting taxes on the rich leads to more taxes being paid by the rich. It happened with the Reagan tax cuts, and with the Kennedy tax cuts, and with the Clinton capital gains tax cuts. Since you said you suport what works, are you saying that you support these tax cuts?
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11/14/01: Here's a list of government regulations that caused the Irish potato famine
Posted by: grundle2600@hotmail.com (grundle)
The Irish did not have private property rights regarding land ownership. The potato is the only staple crop that does not require sizable capital investment in land. Without private property rights, the Irish were not able to invest any significant amount of capital into the growing of crops. It is this lack of private property rights that caused them to be so dependent on the potato. Other government restrcitions on Irish economic activity prevented the Irish people from being able to earn enough money to pay for other, more expensive crops. It is because of these governemnt restricitons on freedom that the Irish people were poor and starving.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. For every country in the world that meets all 3 of these conditions, there is an abundant supply of food: #1 There is strong protection of private property rights. #2 There are no price caps on food #3 There is relatively free trade.
Ireland did not have secure protections of property rights. And there were strong trade restrictions. And Irish people were forbidden to engage in many kinds of economic activity that would have enabled them to earn enough money to pay for the more expensive food. If the Irish had had secure private property rights, then they would have engaged in the necessary work that it takes to grow other crops. Farmers who have secure property rights in their land always grow a lot more crops than farmers who don't have property rights. Irish farmers limited their work to growing potatoes because that's the only staple crop that doesn't require substantial investment in the crop, and thus, doesn't require as much protection of property rights.
The recent economic boom in Ireland is a direct result of the fact that people in Ireland now have more protections of private property rights, the fact that taxes have been lowered, and the fact that regulations have been reduced. Economic freedom is, by far, the biggest factor in allowing a country to create large amounts of wealth. Every country in the world that had adopted strong protections of property rights, freedom of contract, and free trade, and held on to these policies, has become rich. There are no exceptions.
Here's a great article listing some of the laws that were passed that took away the freedom of the Irish poeple. The restrictions on property rights and restrictions on economic freedom were the things that led to the deaths of those people.
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http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/unit_1.html
Irish Famine
PENAL LAWS
"Professor Lecky, a Protestant of British blood and ardent British sympathy, says in his History of Ireland in the 18th Century that the object of the Penal Laws was threefold:
1. To deprive the Catholics of all civil life
2. To reduce them to a condition of most extreme and brutal ignorance
3. To dissociate them from the soil
He might, with absolute justice,
substituted Irish for Catholics-and added, (4) to expirate
(cause to expire) the Race.
The Irish Catholic was forbidden the exercise of his religion.
He was forbidden to receive education,
He was forbidden to enter a profession.
He was forbidden to hold public office.
He was forbidden to engage in trade or commerce.
He was forbidden to live in a corporate town or within five miles thereof.
He was forbidden to own a horse of greater value than five pounds.
He was forbidden to purchase land.
He was forbidden to lease land.
He was forbidden to accept a mortgage on land in security for a loan.
He was forbidden to vote.
He was forbidden to keep any arms for his protection.
He was forbidden to hold a life annuity.
He was forbidden to buy land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to receive a gift of land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to inherit land from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to inherit anything from a Protestant.
He was forbidden to rent any land that was worth more than thirty shillings a year.
He was forbidden to reap from his land any profit exceeding a third of the rent.
He could not be guardian to a child.
He could not, when dying, leave his infant children under Catholic guardianship.
He could not attend Catholic worship.
He was compelled by law to attend Protestant worship.
He could not himself educate his child.
He could not send his child to a Catholic teacher.
He could not employ a Catholic teacher to come to his child.
He could not send his child abroad to receive education.
MacManus, Seamus, Story of the Irish Race, Devin-Adair Co., Grenwich, Connecticut, 1979 p.458-459
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11/15/01: Illinois_Stan
Posted by: grundle2600@hotmail.com (grundle)
Your last post suggests that you have trouble responding to the specific things that I said, and that you have trouble answering my specific questions, so, instead, you simply resort to making a general statement that has nothing to do with any of the specifics. This does not give any credibility to your side of this discussion.
The Irish who died during the potato famine were victims of government regulations that were very similar to the regulations that the Nazis passed against the Jews. In both cases, this was a deliberate attempt, on the part of government, to make life difficult to impossible for a specific group of people.
Real world experience with the Kennedy and Reagan tax cuts, and with the Clinton capital gains tax cut, shows that cutting taxes on the rich leads to increased investment, more jobs, higher productivity, higher wages, economic growth, and higher tax revenues. Rich people benefit, because they have more money. People with jobs, and poeple who are looking for a job, benefit. And because tax revenues go up, people who receive government aid for health care, education, etc., benefit. So, it's a win-win-win situation. There's no logical reason to object to such a policy.
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