🚀 go-pugleaf

M Holmes wrote:
> In ed.general Jon is Away! <jon@restlesslemon.co.uk> wrote:
> > I believe that the ability to support your people should take priority
> > over the production of luxury goods for other nations. Especially when
> > the "Free Market" rules ensure that you cannot raise enough money from
> > those goods to support your people.
>
> So do you think *we* should go back to subsistence farming to support
> *our* people? After all, we're producing luxury goods for trade on
> international markets too.

Now, re-read my post and show me where I said that all production
should be subsistence. In fact... rather than just spouting your
current brand of Ignorance On Tap, try reading any of it.

By way of explanation (In case you genuinely didn't understand). When
your capacity to produce goods is completely absorbed by your
production of luxury goods for export, and the revenue from those goods
is not enough to cover the costs of keeping your people alive (By
buying food from other nations), it's time to change priorities. When
you are under pressure to maintain payments on loans an attempt to keep
the economic head above water will result in continued production of
the unprofitable luxury goods. We (The lenders) will not let them cease
repayments, and thus we hold them in an equilibrium from which they are
unable to escape. When couched in economic terms and ignorance of
history, this is called capitalism. When the weasel words are removed
it's pure and simply slavery.

> Don't you think life should take priority in Britain too?

But we aren't subject to the same Free Market rules as the developing
world and can thus make more money from our exports while buying
imports at (enforced) reduced prices from the developing world.

> So nobody was in poverty there back then?

I don't know. I doubt that life was easy, but we made it much harder.

> China is doing this. Who's supporting them?

Not quite a fast track. They are currently jumping through all the same
hoops as every other developed country. The idea of bringing someone
properly up to speed is to show them the pitfalls without throwing them
down them.

Jon