On 8/2/2013 12:43 AM, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 2-8-2013 9:37, scott wrote:
>
>> I said I didn't know for sure whether it would be better or worse, but
>> suspected it would be better overall. The point I made that seemed to
>> cause so much resistance was that giving out free clothes (to people who
>> could afford them anyway) is not as bad as you think, because the people
>> will still spend the money, just not on clothes.
>>
>
> I know that I am grossly generalizing as there is more to the problem
> than this, but sadly enough, if what you say were true, Africa would
> have been out of the problems half a century ago...
>
> Thomas
The way it has generally worked in Africa is - someone comes in to 
provide "basic" help, with the idea that, actually fed, and clothed, the 
people would be able to actually produce some sort of industry. Only, 
various local warlords then steal what ever those people now have, and 
resell it, someplace else, to make themselves rich, and the people 
everyone was trying to help are, if anything, worse off than they where 
before, because now the asses in control have more resources, to help 
them oppress/steal from those people.

Frankly, the problem is that there are always warlords, even if they 
call themselves something else. The US economy was, at one time, about 
food, and other simpler things, like gold, being shipped out to other 
places, only, the people on the receiving end had all the control over 
who, and by how much, the producers where payed. This led to certain.. 
hard feelings. lol

Then we had industry. And, everything got better, unless you where part 
of the child labor, or someone working for the warlord, while living in 
his castle, eating his food, and buying his clothes. I.e., the whole, 
"sold soul to the company store", thing. Someone was still being 
screwed, and treated as replaceable furniture.

Now, industry, and its exploitations, have mostly moved to "cheaper" 
places. Which is a bloody irony, given that the replacement is a 
"service industry", where half the people working in the services can't 
afford to buy them, and, again.. the warlords have ways to make sure 
they scrape in as much as they can, and give the workers as little as 
they can get by with, all while, presumably, waiting for the next big 
shift in the market, so they can somehow shift all the services to 
someplace cheaper, and replace the resulting lost jobs with... something 
else.

Yet, at each stage, we have, never the less, still ended up with a net 
gain, even as we have seen massive losses in certain classes of jobs. I 
doubt this can continue, but.. at the moment, the instability is 
predicated on the fact that other nations are willing to let us exploit 
their workers, to produce goods and services, which they can no more 
afford than we can. At some point.. this isn't going to keep working, 
and either they run out of places to sell the stuff, because no one can 
buy it, or the costs of making it here, as apposed to there, shift 
enough that the current excuse for doing all the manufacturing some 
place else disappears.

But, then.. there is always the interesting "DIY/3d Printing/Small scale 
manufacturing" trend starting.. And, in that fun case, if everyone is a 
warlord (i.e. they can all make and sell things, easily), then... the 
warlords may finally find themselves in deep trouble.

But, overall, the next result has been a gain. Its just.. there is 
always the subset of people, gaming the system, at everyone else's 
expense, and.. they always have the money to buy the law, on some level.

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