It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by Laokin
Which stifles real innovation and holds back the standard of living all at the same time. Way to prove the point... skip.
The problem is greed.... plain and simple.edit on 3-9-2011 by Laokin because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by eldard
Like USSR innovation and standard of living? Please zip your ass. Now.
Originally posted by ANOK
The reason the USSR's economy was the way it was, was because they had a closed economy, they didn't do business with wealthier countries. It was lack of resources that dictated their economy.
They were not a communist country, they still had private ownership of the means of production (capitalism).
Originally posted by eldard
reply to post by ANOK
Considering that the starving are from the cities, they wouldn't know what to do with land if you gave them one. And most people would rather become beggars in the city than plow the land. Few people in the world desire to be farmers.
Pollock v. The Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., 1895
The Supreme Court declared in a 5 to 4 decision that a tax on incomes was a "direct" tax and hence had to be apportioned among the states according to population. Since an income tax, by its very nature, would be effective only if applied on a basis of individual wealth and would have no reality if reckoned on the distribution of population, the Court had made it impossible to levey such a tax.
A History of the United States, Since 1865
T. Harry Williams, Louisiana State University
Richard N. Current, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Frank Freidel, Harvard University
page 209
When the Pollock case was argued before the Court, the lawyers appearing against the income tax passionately appealed to the Court to preserve the sanctity of property and halt the onward march of radicalism. Some of the justices responded with opinions more sociological than legal. One wrote:
"The present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but the stepping stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests [color=gold] will become a war of the poor against the rich; a war constantly growing in intensity and bitterness."
A History of the United States, Since 1865
T. Harry Williams, Louisiana State University
Richard N. Current, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Frank Freidel, Harvard University
page 209
This is what happened to farm prices
Cotton per pound
1919 35.5 cents
1929 16.7 cents
1932 6.5
Corn per bushel
1919 $1.51
1929 $0.79
1932 $0.31
Wheat per bushel
1919 $2.16
1929 $1.03
1932 $0.38
A History of the United States, Since 1865
T. Harry Williams, Louisiana State University
Richard N. Current, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Frank Freidel, Harvard University
page 498
Originally posted by Aeons
You are living in a gigantic experiment. It is an experiment in complex systems, in which you are essentially living out a full scale What-If like when Starbucks picked a market in which it attempted to saturate an area with stores to see how many it could sustain in an area.
How much can we get away with before we break this system? You are a victim of your own success. The other experiments collapsed earlier, and therefore have more time to pull together their pieces.
Originally posted by Kaiuk They earned their money they get to spend it.
Originally posted by eldard
reply to post by ANOK
You do realize that the people starved in Africa because of drought and crop failures, etc. and not lack of land?
And if you're talking about Africa, then why'd you mention McBurger considering they don't sell meat to US and Europe because of subsidies in those places?edit on 9/3/2011 by eldard because: (no reason given)
70% of lotto winners will squander their winnings.
It seemed as though Michael Begin was deliberately trying to rain on Lincoln’s parade when he and his partner, Darl LePage, sent out a Wednesday warning that Nebraska’s Powerball winners’ joy may be short-lived.
“The reality is that 70 percent of all lottery winners will squander away their winnings in a few years,” the Connecticut financial advisers said in a news release. “In the process, they will see family and friendships destroyed and the financial security they hoped for disappear.”
askville.amazon.com...
Originally posted by Kaiuk
reply to post by davidgrouchy
My point was, hoarding money effectively takes it out of circulation.