Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: bike light optics
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2024 09:39:53 -0500
Organization: Yellow Jersey, Ltd.
Lines: 162
Message-ID: <uuub7q$2r71m$1@dont-email.me>
References: <uuk938$3icl$1@dont-email.me> <uukbbn$42v9$3@dont-email.me>
 <uukcfb$3tspr$1@dont-email.me> <jrjPN.617728$Rq2.250265@fx15.ams4>
 <uumsuu$qiga$3@dont-email.me> <zyDPN.635506$Rq2.626274@fx15.ams4>
 <uun21g$rv7k$1@dont-email.me> <rxGPN.525218$jO2.46696@fx10.ams4>
 <uunli6$13usc$1@dont-email.me> <FPPPN.269588$Tp2.235755@fx03.ams4>
 <uup543$1esl6$1@dont-email.me> <uupacr$1g40b$2@dont-email.me>
 <gdc01jt1kv6du02fpdcgla46gqi2p0m7i2@4ax.com> <uupe8p$1h30i$1@dont-email.me>
 <ssg11j51k1a6f5kk3enka6ivqr8lpc3sgs@4ax.com> <uurf3j$22sur$1@dont-email.me>
 <uurqdl$25ehk$2@dont-email.me> <uus12i$274o6$1@dont-email.me>
 <uusfia$2aj45$1@dont-email.me>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2024 14:39:54 +0200 (CEST)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="46c5204ba6a9f245ee7201ebd4c4c5a4";
	logging-data="2989110"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX188fPNWe6pUsSA5RbUR2DSn"
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
Cancel-Lock: sha1:2HPzJtE3SpZuNdjbbi0mAXG99TU=
In-Reply-To: <uusfia$2aj45$1@dont-email.me>
Content-Language: en-US
Bytes: 9062

On 4/6/2024 4:41 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
> On 4/6/2024 1:34 PM, AMuzi wrote:
>> On 4/6/2024 10:40 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
>>> On 4/6/2024 8:27 AM, AMuzi wrote:
>>>> On 4/5/2024 10:54 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, if taxation is not your cup of tea (or blood), 
>>>>> then perhaps we
>>>>> should finance our government using the traditional 
>>>>> methods of
>>>>> sacking, plundering and pillaging other countries.  
>>>>> This has worked
>>>>> fairly well since history has been recorded (by the 
>>>>> winners).  If you
>>>>> want some fairness and logic, successful conquerors 
>>>>> usually hire
>>>>> politicians, philosophers and economists to justify 
>>>>> their actions, all
>>>>> of which are summarily declared to be fair and logical.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The original Constitution had a better ethos IMHO than 
>>>> the incorporation of envy as a guiding principle after 
>>>> the XVI Amendment. Predictably the situation has 
>>>> degraded such that more than half of us pay zip and many 
>>>> of those have a negative Federal tax burden, i.e., they 
>>>> are paid to be here. So much for 'shared burden'. And 
>>>> also predictably election results reflect the avarice 
>>>> and envy of the takers against the makers, creating 
>>>> societal and cultural divisions to our greater loss.  
>>>> There has to be a better way. And there was.
>>>
>>> As usual, I'm interested in how other nations manage 
>>> things. Which leads me to again ask: Is there a nation 
>>> that finances its operation in ways you like?
>>>
>>> I'm aware that much of Europe has economic structures 
>>> that generate far less economic disparity. Taxes are 
>>> higher, but tax-generated benefits are also far higher, 
>>> and citizens are generally much more content. It's not 
>>> that there are zero problems, but that there seem to be 
>>> far fewer problems than we have.
>>>
>>> Also, when making comparisons, it seems simplistic to say 
>>> "The U.S. did things better in 1795" or whenever. 
>>> Conditions were totally different then regarding society, 
>>> technology, morality, customs, personal freedom etc. 
>>> Anyone who campaigned for election saying "Let's just go 
>>> back to all the laws we had in 1795" would surely lose 
>>> the vote of almost all women and blacks, and most of 
>>> while males as well.
>>>
>>
>> Nice straw horse you have there. Maybe I'll help you beat 
>> on it later.
>>
>> As regards actual economics, and ignoring various other 
>> cultural failings you mention, no nation in history 
>> enjoyed so large a wealth increase and so fast and so 
>> broadly shared as the USA between 1865 and 1914.
>>
>> Regarding 'income disparity', the myth seems to have 
>> shouted over the actual data:
>>
>> https://www.hoover.org/news/senator-phil-gramm-john-early-dispel-myths-income-inequality-america
>>
>> But it serves some interests to perpetuate that lie, and 
>> so 'official numbers' utterly ignore public transfers 
>> (rent, food, medical, walking around money, negative 
>> income tax and so on) which are no longer negligible. They 
>> are in fact a huge drain on our society.  Economists have 
>> noted this for years but in politics facts do not matter.
> 
> Nice try, but you really didn't address my points.
> 
> You said "the original constitution had a better ethos." I 
> tried to explain that the original constitution had severe 
> problems, and we're never going back to it, for good 
> reasons. Besides, let's remember that every change in the 
> constitution was, in effect, approved by the constitution. 
> It does specify a mechanism for changes, which is the 
> opposite of "Thou must never improve this document."
> 
> Also note, I didn't say "income disparity." I said "economic 
> disparity." There is a difference.
> 
> And your linked article is remarkably non-specific. It 
> alludes to data that it claims isn't counted, but it doesn't 
> seem to be a source of much of that data. I suppose they 
> want me to buy that book, but they could certainly have 
> provided a bit more detail to convince me.
> 
> Regarding the surge in U.S. economics between 1865 and 1914: 
> The U.S. was in a pretty unique position in the world. By 
> 1865, the original inhabitants of the U.S. had been pretty 
> thoroughly wiped out. The few remaining were mostly confined 
> on reservations. Their land was given away or sold cheaply, 
> and the resources on that land were up for grabs.
> 
> And being at the dawn of the industrial age, the U.S. had 
> the technology to take advantage of a continent full of 
> untapped resources. So people like Carnegie could purchase, 
> control and use vast amounts of resources, and make money 
> using the new technology and the very inexpensive labor of 
> countless immigrants drawn in part by the promise of former 
> Indian land - even if that land was a small plot inside a city.
> 
> Those were huge advantages, ones that other countries lacked 
> at least in part. So I think the U.S. would have succeeded 
> very well even with a markedly different constitution or 
> political system.
> 
> Also, your article offers no comparisons with the other 
> nations I mentioned. Again, it's consistently shown that 
> many European nations have a far more contented population 
> than the U.S., plus lower crime rates, less violence, more 
> economic security, etc. Much of those are attributed to a 
> different attitude toward taxation, wealth and social care.
> 
> It's obvious that you don't prefer their tax, income, wealth 
> and benefit rules. But let me ask again: Since you're 
> complaining about the American set of rules, is there a 
> country whose rules you prefer? What do you like about it 
> and why?
> 

Andrew Carnegie is an excellent example, a man (legal 
immigrant I might add) who gave much more to this nation 
than he took from it.  Popular myth, such as the utterly 
ahistorical presentism of the current educational propaganda 
in our schools, reduces USA's greatest era to a dark time of 
'robber barons', a claim  which spins a blanket of lies from 
a few errant threads.

Anyone moderately well read in the period will know that 
excesses were real but more exception than rule.

Another excellent example is John D Rockefeller, who not 
only saved the whales (literally, albeit inadvertently) but 
dropped the going rate for kerosene from over $1 to 17 cents 
in a few short years. You're big on costs and benefits 
generally, so I know you'd appreciate the much better lives 
of 75 million citizens against Mr Rockefeller's earned 
wealth.  If success is a sin, how do you judge George 
Westinhouse, Thomas Edison or the perpetually litigious 
Wrights, all of whom have decidedly distasteful aspects 
thrown in with their gifts to our country.

And criticizing the Homestead Act? Really?  We have a great 
comparison to The Russian Empire where slavery was abolished 
just before our own and shared a huge expanse of sparsely 
settled fertile land with a similar desire to develop it. 
We succeeded swimmingly while Russia never has. Never, in 
that chinese are simply appropriating Siberia across the 
Amur, as there's no one there to stop them.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50185006
-- 
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971