Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: smolejv@gmx.net who wrote (22758)	8/17/2002 1:28:21 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi DJ - There are a couple of parallel universes here. I don't pretend to know much at all about Africa. So I'll come back to what I do know. In the 1920's, modern agriculture became not only possible, but relatively inexpensive, using machines and artificial fertilizer. In the US, 75% of the economy was involved in agriculture. Now less than 1% is, and we raise more food than ever. Food is actually cheaper now than it was then. But the dispossessed had a hard time becoming integrated into the non-farm economy, and lived in poverty because they lacked skills required for urban jobs. However, in the US, people are not "thrown of their land." They have titles to their land which are registered in county land offices. They may lose their land because they have mortgages which they can't pay, or taxes they can't pay, but we have special banks which make low cost loans to farmers and even farm subsidies. Still, many small farmers have had to give up because they can't compete with big corporations. That's sad, but it's the way it is. Just is. Perhaps the most revolutionary act imaginable is to establish an honest government.

To: smolejv@gmx.net who wrote (22758)	8/18/2002 11:37:36 PM
From: pezz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

<< on what we the rich still keep on doing>> Sorry but you must be mistaken, I've never done that. My concern is population growth. Exploitation of the poor by the rich is another subject altogether.... FWIW I'm gonna bore ya with a little story soes ya get the idea where I'm coming from on this subject. Long time ago when I wuz a hippy I saved for an expensive new sound system. ( no self respectin hippy would be without one no matter how poor we wuz). At about that time there was one of these drought starvation scenes in Africa that came along every so often. You've seen'em, children skin an bones eatin flies,horrible stuff like that.Well after much soul searchin I gave my stero money to CARE as it seemed that those kids needed it more than I needed a stereo. Some years later I saw a special on Africa and population on CNN. What I remember most was an aerial view ( maybe satellite) of Africa. Straight line ,on one side total desert, on the other lush greenery.....The line it turns out was a fence dividing people from a national park.I realized then that these famines were the result of too many people living on land that cannot support them. My stereo money went only to perpetuate the misery....Now all my giving goes to population control ,and environmental charities.