Re: bike light optics

On 4/7/2024 12:45 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 4/7/2024 10:39 AM, AMuzi wrote:

On 4/6/2024 4:41 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

... I think the U.S. would have succeeded very well even with
a markedly different constitution or political system.
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Also, your article offers no comparisons with the other nations I mentioned. Again, it's consistently shown that many European nations have a far more contented population than the U.S., plus lower crime rates, less violence, more economic security, etc. Much of those are attributed to a different attitude toward taxation, wealth and social care.
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It's obvious that you don't prefer their tax, income, wealth and benefit rules. But let me ask again: Since you're complaining about the American set of rules, is there a country whose rules you prefer? What do you like about it and why?
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Andrew Carnegie is an excellent example, a man (legal immigrant I might add) who gave much more to this nation than he took from it.  Popular myth, such as the utterly ahistorical presentism of the current educational propaganda in our schools, reduces USA's greatest era to a dark time of 'robber barons', a claim  which spins a blanket of lies from a few errant threads.
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Anyone moderately well read in the period will know that excesses were real but more exception than rule.
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Another excellent example is John D Rockefeller, who not only saved the whales (literally, albeit inadvertently) but dropped the going rate for kerosene from over $1 to 17 cents in a few short years. You're big on costs and benefits generally, so I know you'd appreciate the much better lives of 75 million citizens against Mr Rockefeller's earned wealth.  If success is a sin, how do you judge George Westinhouse, Thomas Edison or the perpetually litigious Wrights, all of whom have decidedly distasteful aspects thrown in with their gifts to our country.
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And criticizing the Homestead Act? Really?  We have a great comparison to The Russian Empire where slavery was abolished just before our own and shared a huge expanse of sparsely settled fertile land with a similar desire to develop it. We succeeded swimmingly while Russia never has.

 It should be obvious that I'm not claiming Russia has a better political system than ours.
 The fact remains: Once Americans got past the Appalachians, they were looking at an immense continent's worth of resources, with essentially nobody to stop them from taking whatever they wanted. Practically speaking, it was owned by nobody - or at least, nobody who could effectively object.
 And as I said, within decades - i.e. once the Civil War was settled - America had not only the manpower but the technology to begin scooping up all those resources. (Much to the detriment of Native Americans, of course.) I don't think any other nation had that perfect set of advantages. For example, Australia's deserts didn't work nearly so well.
 We also had a big advantage in that unlike Europe, we suffered far less devastation from wars. So to attribute American success 1865 to 1914 to only the (amended!) constitution is ignoring a lot. In fact, those benefits I listed extended to at least 1945 and somewhat beyond. We didn't win World War II because our soldiers were braver than the enemy's. We won largely because we were able to employ far more resources than theirs.
 And our current status is not nearly as glorious as many super-patriotic Americans pretend. There are many, many ways in which the U.S. lags behind many other nations. Yes, I know many immigrants choose to come here - but those tend to be from places like Guatemala. I'll admit, we're much better than Guatemala.
 

 > 'owned by nobody'
It was owned. By the Federal government.  That was part of admission to the Union; untitled land became Federal property. Except in Texas, because Sam Houston was steadfast on that point. Down to today the only Federal land in Texas is that which was given or sold by the people of Texas. (1.8% vs next door NM which is 85% Federal land).  Federal land was given under terms of the Homestead Act (a quite foresighted scheme) and much was also sold outright.
Contemporaneously, Russia had the same development problem and also a newly emancipated population. Despite our successful example the Empire, the brief Republic and the communist regimes after never had anything like our Homestead Act and much of Siberia remains sparsely settled, even wild, today.
Brasil is interesting in that similarly rich land resources (their abolition was twenty tears after USA), with no formal plan, are finally being developed by farmer/settlers not unlike our 19th century forefathers (or yours. Mine weren't here yet). Almost entirely without legal structure, and despite nattering of rich lefties in our hemisphere,  but very successful so maybe we didn't _need_ the Homestead Act if we only had lax enforcement of restrictions. One wonders...
 >  [post Civil War] "America had not only the manpower but the technology"
True. So did Italy, Greece and The Rus* (what is now Ukraine, Poland, Bessarabia, Moldava, Byelorussia, er, Belarus). Large numbers left anyway and worked equally hard if not harder and longer here. Why? Personal liberty and property rights. And for great grandfathers of some close friends another feature, no Cossacks.
Lastly, you do make an excellent if largely unappreciated point.  I was very much aware when first seriously studying economics (not in a school) that the postwar wealth and imperial power of my youth was an unique historical anomaly.   Sad to say, this too shall pass. As Sweden (similarly spared the devastation of the 1932~1945 wars) discovered, bad policy based on temporary wealth can fund a downward spiral of socialism.  Avoiding disaster the Swedes have turned sharply away from the worst of it now (though they do suffer the crimes of rape, robbery, violence and even hand grenade bombings from poorly regulated immigration). If the Swedes can wise up I suppose there's hope for us as well.
*a discussion of US success in public stocks and bonds, active capital markets generally would be tangential here.
--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971