-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tuesday 06 March 2007 15:30, Paul Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was heard to say: > Laissez-faire economics is an impossible pipe dream and Germany > proved it. Taken to it's natural end, you get Germany's pre-WWII > out-of-control rapid inflation where soon it takes millions of > dollars just to make a basic grocery run.
Rather than attempt to demonstrate that Germany, by itself, has been about as historically Laissez-faire as Stalin, or to point out that the Kaiser had already established intrusive government regulation and the welfare state long before WW1, I will instead point you to the one huge error in your argument that makes arguing the rest of it pointless: Inflation is caused by governments printing money. The reason for the Great Inflation was the German government's attempt to print enough paper money to pay off the crushing reparations that were imposed after WW1. Do you really want to try and assert that a government printing worthless paper money is somehow "laissez-faire"? If so, you are in dire need of a dictionary. Or better yet, a book on the subject: Economic Freedom and Interventionism, Chapter 18: Inflation And You http://www.mises.org/efandi/ch18.asp "It has been asserted that Nazism is the fruit of the vast German inflation of 1923. That is not quite correct. It would be more correct to say that the great inflation and the Nazi scourge both derived from the mentalities and the doctrines that long dominated German public opinion. The State, which the German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle had already proclaimed as god, was supposed to be able to achieve anything. The omnipotent State was credited with the magic power of unlimited spending without any burden on the citizenry. Money, said the German "monetary cranks," is a creature of the State; there is no harm in issuing infinite quantities of paper currency." If this really is what you think laissez-faire capitalism entails, no wonder you argue against it. I would too. Now, if invoking Godwin's Law means this thread is over, I am very happy to be the one to do it. The economic ignorance that has been demonstrated over the last week has been a nightmare of governmet run public school all over again. And no one is listening to anyone else when they are corrected, so why bother? Curt- - -- September 11th, 2001 The proudest day for gun control and central planning advocates in American history -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iQEVAwUBRe3X/S9Y35yItIgBAQIYuQf/XgBi/S/E+D3lUU06OYtQV99GNgMhVtdv C4FKAc5wVUCtCTXrYcQHpJxh347ejzYBCKvMxnmm5j3+Wggk/HCMrweGXznGbnqX TLDgKh4OvspHY1tgbdhZbDUy0MeOknelEPMlb6q66gyyNT1DlW0GUONUF9GghkBi H3TCOG8JydoCNX9Oka0N73fdd3XLfEh8Aenku3UlAQje8ncteYxKkIhA6SkiuzMC z0zCDnCrSREJHhotBj9C80rbKrtu+D1RLpbdNQsLI2xCz2A8DkZAO3rANdoNoY0J NN+pGM3cqPwhQeTX1a4359uFSLuBYxW7z6phEXxrM5jQFE7U4y3gbg== =0+mT -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
