On Tue, 17 May 2016 12:57:19 AM David Zuccaro via luv-talk wrote:
I'm reading a book at the moment that my next door neighbor gave me titled "Europe In Transition: 1300 - 1520" by Wallace K. Ferguson. This is a period of history (The Middle Ages) that I am a bit hazy on which is why I am reading it, additionally it is very well written and I enjoy learning history. But I found a good passage discussing the Burgers which where a free merchant class of the middle ages. The highlighted passage states that these Burghers were essentially responsible for lifting Europe out of feudalism; but they didn't do so consciously or intentionally -- this benefit was a by-product of the Burgers simple desire for personal gain.
The desire for personal gain doesn't necessarily lead to benefits for all. We have always had a stratified society, benefits for the top and middle usually don't trickle down to the lower classes. Gough Whitlam significantly changed Australian society by providing free university education to everyone. But that is going away, unless the Greens get the balance of power after the next election we can expect Australian degrees to become as expensive as American degrees.
When people are liberated to improve their lot in life wondrous things can happen. However, whenever governments impose taxes economic activity is stifled and human progress is retarded.
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/28/these_5_charts_prove_that_the_economy_does_b... That's an article of faith of the Libertarians that isn't supported by evidence, above is one of many articles comparing Republican (economically Libertarian) and Democratic governments in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber One of the religious beliefs of Libertarians is that if taxes are higher the rich won't invest their money. I doubt that anyone who has ever run a company actually believes that, it's people like Joe the Plumber who imagine dream about owning a small business without knowing what it's like. People who have actually owned a business know that it's all about having customers. If you have enough customers then paying tax isn't a problem. If you don't have customers then even if you pay no tax you will lose. Giving money to the rich people doesn't stimulate economic growth. The richest people will tend to spend or invest their money in other countries. Give poor people higher salaries and they will spend the money locally. They have no options for investing in Panama (unlike our PM), they will never afford a Ferrari or Porsche no matter how much we raise the minimum salary. Most of their money is spent locally which supports local companies. https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2014/06/25/insurance-companies-and-the... cost-of-health-care/ Human progress overall depends on having a healthy and well educated population. Paying parents low salaries so they have to work extremely long hours hurts their children. The Libertarian approach to health care hurts everyone (even the rich). No-one who thinks about the issues wants to live in a country where people can't afford medical treatment, that just leads to disease transmission. See the above link for one of many articles about this. This especially applies to countries where employees don't get mandatory sick leave, you really don't want to eat at a restaurant where the staff don't get sick leave! -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/