> > Tax laws are made by politicians. Politicians are the lackeys of big
> > corporations, including those that own forest land. The corporate landowner
> > perception will always be that the land is to be used to produce maximum
> > profit. As long as gold is god, economics will rule the land.
>
>There have been eras when economics did not rule the land as it does today.
> There have been times and places where religion ruled, or military power,
>or honor to those worthy of respect. I have noticed a huge amount of
>attention focused on the economy (It's the economy, stupid.) since the
>eighties(?). The average person now wants to now what the stock market is
>doing. People watch the interest rates climb and fall. The level of
>economic savvy and sophistication in the average person seems higher than
>just ten years ago. Money seems to be the best justification for anything.
> Perhaps this is just making visible what was unseen, but the visibility
>has also lead to it being in people's minds a lot more.
The economy has ruled our thoughts since well before the turn of the
century. When the society became more urban, the daily means of survival
became dependent on the economy. As people came to realize that money
manipulations had a direct affect on their lives, they became concerned.
There is and has always has been a lot of PR in the economy. Up until the
1870s, economic down turns were called Panics because of the panic to
secure ones money from failing banks. The biggest in 1873 was a result of
attempts to corner the market on gold combined. The massive government
spending for the civil war put a lot of money in circulation. New tools
made resource extraction much easier which put even more money in
circulation. Some people working from greed tried to get more but were
foiled. The retraction on spending caused the panic of 1873. It was so
bad that from then on the economists had to find a better sounding name to
they decided on depression.
Then along came another war, more money in circulation, more spending, more
speculation, more greed. We entered the depression of the twenties and
once again it was time for a new name.
So far we have learned how to manipulate the economy to avoid an economic
downturn so bad that we need a new name.
Don Bowen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Valley Center, CA Senior Software Engineer
Contract software engineering
http://members.cts.com/crash/d/donb
http://www.oldengine.org/members/ihc14
http://www.oldengine.org/members/ferguson/
