Re: bike light optics

On 4/7/2024 3:03 PM, AMuzi wrote:

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

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It should be obvious that I'm not claiming Russia has a better political system than ours.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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  > 'owned by nobody'
 It was owned. By the Federal government. 

OK, true. The point is, land was easy or free for individuals or corporations to acquire. I'm in Ohio, where like the Appalachians, the first settlers didn't bother with legalities. The Indians had been largely wiped out, so they came and squatted. Later, as you said, vast tracts of federal land were essentially given away. Ditto mineral rights, railroad rights-of-way, etc.
Those were opportunities not available to peasants in Italy, Poland, England or other countries, very specifically because those living there before them had not (almost) all been killed off.

Contemporaneously, Russia had the same development problem ...

We both agree the Russian system is and was a mess.

Brasil is interesting in that similarly rich land resources (their abolition was twenty tears after USA), with no formal plan, are finally being developed ...

Which "development" is problematic in other off-topic ways. But I don't think the 200 year delay is because they didn't have our constitution.

 >  [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).

I don't think Italy, Greece or Poland had vast acreage of easily tillable land, forests ready for easy harvest, great mineral resources, all without any claims of prior ownership. That was a huge benefit to America, one of my major points.
I'm saying that globally significant chunk of resources was at least as important to America's prosperity growth as was its constitution. The U.S. would have probably surged to world dominance if George Washington had become king.
And I'll note that after our constitution was enacted, several other nations tried something very similar - often, with improvements. They did not see the huge surge seen in the U.S. because they didn't see an entire continent waiting to be taken over.

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.

Hmm. What I'm finding on Sweden vs. the U.S. doesn't make the U.S. seem particularly wonderful by comparison!
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/17/best-countries-quality-of-life-us-news-world-report.html
https://thomasjelpel.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/sweden-versus-america/
https://www.worlddata.info/country-comparison.php?country1=SWE&country2=USA
But that is the closest you've come to proposing a different country to emulate! Got another?   ;-)
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- Frank Krygowski