RS> That book does not have the salvation of us all in an economic sense
 RS> Paul. 
 
 Yes it does, Rod. (I can make bald statements, too!) 
 
 RS> Thats a completely silly proposition for starters. In the times of
 RS> small government, and much lower overall taxation we actually saw
 RS> the worst excesses of speculation. At times it went completely mad.
 RS> So much for that silly line.
 
 Yours is the silly line.  When did we last experience small government, Rod?  
 We've been mainlining on deficit budgets for 20 years!

 RS> It aint a tangent. The history of economics is riddled with people who
 RS> claim to have found the holy grail of economic salvation for us all.
 
 The history of economics is riddled with the names of famous people who HAVE 
 found the holy grail, that is, if you tax production, you'll have no 
 production; if you tax speculation, you'll have no speculation. But idiots
 just keep saying that's too simple!  They want convoluted solutions.  The 
 best solutions are always simple.

 RS> Yes, without a shred of evidence that its actually going to work to

Try Denmark in the late '50s.  They went it alone.  When it looked like the
Justice Party was going to get into a coalition government (their revenue
policy was slashing taxes and increasing revenues drawn from land), these
things happened: speculation stopped overnight; unemployment fell;
inflation dropped; people had more coin in their pocket.  

The New York Times featured an editorial "Big Lesson From a Small
Country" all about it.  When the coalition lost power in the early
'60s, the incoming government removed the land tax and re-levied the usual
forms of destructive taxes - and guess what happened, Rod?  Yeah...
Unemployment up, inflation up, etc - your sort of reality.  

One example, you'll say.  But it was an example that went counter to every
country in the world - as a result of a decent revenue system.

Well why did Denmark kick the system out, do I hear you say, Rod?

It's like this. There are idiots who, even when confronted with the
evidence before their eyes, are unable to discern good economics from bad
economics.  Denmark lost their nerve.  How could they remain so different
from the rest of the world and still be right?  Moreover, the landlord
lobby spent millions of kroner pointing out how their land values had
dropped (forget that poverty and inflation had also) in Denmark.

 RS> I dont think its a foolish conspiracy theory, I think you have just
 RS> got it wrong, you cant demonstrate that slashing taxes will eliminate
 RS> economic cycles. Its the usual extremely superficial simplistic
 RS> solution. It wont work.

Yes, Rod. Wasn't it the British wartime Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord
Snowdon, (who also favoured more land taxes and less fines upon industry)
who said that we wont employ simple and effective solutions, until we've
exhausted all the stupid and superficial ones?

Cheerybye and good fortune to you, Rod!

... Beam me up, Scottie. There's no intelligent life down here! ___ Blue
Wave/QWK v2.12


--- Maximus/2 2.01wb