Any country that is in the process of development that is behind us is likely to show signs of faster growth. The "Asian Tigers" of the nineties showed extremely fast growth but it tapered off as they caught up.
Growth isn't that difficult when you know where you're heading. It's trickier to maintain the same growth once the nation is caught up.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

well growth, in and of itself, isn't a permanent goal. we shouldn't continuously be growing. and that goes for our population rates as well. however, from a logical standpoint, we should always be free to pursue any peaceful, honest, voluntary activity we wish to pursue without having money stolen from us.

__________________
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

I'm really not liking your raytri impersonation.

Seriously though, the majority of people could vote, and the U.S. did qualify as a democratic republic at this time. Slavery should have been abolished and everyone should have had voting rights - but no one should have the right to vote away the unalienable rights of any other human being.

__________________
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

Well how exactly is it that we can pay for the police, roads, defense, and whatnot without having money "stolen" from us in some way. Even the tariff concept involves stealing from someone and it really undermines comparative advantage and free trade.
Seems that a voluntary tax system would require some way to make sure the free-riders don't use government services... and it would likely ensure that poor people get no use of government services. That would be really tricky with national defense.
There doesn't seem to be a way to have any of the necessary functions of the state without someone being stolen from.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

For most of my life I believed the whole world should be one big free trade zone, which means no tariffs on imported goods. The past few presidents have been successful at pretty much eliminating tariffs on imported goods - thus eliminating what was once the US's primary source of income.

However, looking at the situation with 20/20 hindsight, I beginning to see that the elimination of the tariff has caused some major problems. Besides the loss of income to the government, we also have lost virtually all of our manufacturing jobs to foreign countries. Our balance of payments (ie, dollars flowing out of the country) has increased to a huge number. In fact, we are almost begging China to please raise the value of their currency - so the American consumer will hopefully will not buy so much foreign made stuff.

Why not increase the import tax and lower the income tax? That way China, et al, can ship us all their cheap goods but our government makes a little money on the deal as well. Plus, by raising the price of imported goods, perhaps a few more US manufacturing industries could afford to re-open their door again.

With our knowledge of technology, perhaps these American manufacturing companies could actually become competitive in the world market.

__________________
Hobo
Charter member of 'Republicans Who Hate Bush" Club

Drug money is laundered but in most countries (outside the 3rd world) there is regulation to try and keep this to a minimum in Dubai my boy there is no regulation and thusly the amounts are much more then say the Bank of Miami...



From Egypt to Afghanistan, when terrorists and gangsters need a place to meet, to relax, maybe to invest, they head to Dubai, a bustling city-state on the Persian Gulf.
SNIP
But Dubai also serves as the region's criminal crossroads, a hub for smuggling, money laundering, and underground banking. There are Russian and Indian mobsters, Iranian arms traffickers, and Arab jihadists. Funds for the 9/11 hijackers and African embassy bombers were transferred through the city. It was the heart of Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan's black market in nuclear technology and other proliferation cases. Half of all applications to buy U.S. military equipment from Dubai are from bogus front companies, officials say. "Iran," adds one U.S. official, "is building a bomb through Dubai." Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents thwarted the shipment of 3,000 U.S. military night-vision goggles by an Iranian pair based in Dubai. Moving goods undetected is not hard. Dhows--rickety wooden boats that have plowed the Arabian Sea for centuries--move along the city center, uninspected, down the aptly named Smuggler's Creek.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/ar...5terror.b1.htm

So what does this tell us my little spinning top? That Dubai is a MAJOR player in the laundering and smuggling operations of organized crime and terrorists across the world. Why do they do it? Becuase it pay s them Billions to do so....


Again with the spin eh? Sorry son but sexual slavery is a HUGE business and a HGUE illicit money maker world wide...

Desert Nights - 2

[February 23, 2005]

See also: Desert Nights - 1

Armenians in the Dubai sex trade
They kept seven of us in a third-floor apartment in a tall building in Moscow," 19-year-old Suzy from Yerevan said. "We were met at the airport by a tall guy named Armen. When he took us to that apartment, another guy came. They called him Sevo. He was from Gavar. They took our passports, and six days later, they took us to Dubai with false Russian passports. Our dates of birth had been changed. Marietta came to the airport with a man. Later we found out his name - Armen Ghazaryan. They took us to an apartment, took away our passports, and we started working
http://www.hetq.am/eng/society/0502-dub-1.html

Dubai the coutnry and its wealthier citizens are known the world over for their place in the international sex trade and sexual slavery of women. INterpol lists them as a major player in fact.


And MORE spin! Go figure! THe CIA like them or not and the CIA world Fact book are recognized as a legitmate source for information individual countries. You may not like them but for all your SPIN the fact is you have not countered what they said only gone off on a tangent.

[/quote]
LInk for that or is this another "spin bringer" flight of fancy?




Spin bringer tosses off again!

Went through must of this on the last two pages of the following thread:

http://www.politicalforum.com/viewto...rt=112&t=15931


There doesn't seem to be a way to you, because people aren't committed to doing it - and I'm not talking about a majority. You don't need a majority committment. You just need some type of committment. But people are presently being deceived by many factions into believing the status quo is just great.

__________________
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

Got a link to prove it's a majority? Common sense will tell you people won't travel to a country based on people telling them "Hey, come on in and enjoy the slavery here! It's wonderful!" If it was happening in the majority of cases, workers would cease to come to Dubai, as working for zero money would be a worse situation than what exists in their home countries.


And yet you can't produce any credible figures to prove this.

It doesn't necessarily tell us anything. Who wrote the article? Do they have an agenda? Looks like an accusatory article by the U.S. Is the U.S.'s perspective clear on the matter? Hardly, since the U.S. also sold weapons to Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and numerous other dictators. And the CIA has been dealing a lot of drugs over the years, and the evidence of that is irrefutable, didn't you know?:

"I have put thousands of Americans away for tens of thousands of years for less evidence for conspiracy with less evidence than is available against Ollie North and CIA people. . . . I personally was involved in a deep-cover case that went to the top of the drug world in three countries. The CIA killed it."
- Former DEA Agent Michael Levine, CNBC-TV, October 8, 1996


"I really take great exception to the fact that 1,000 kilos came in, funded by US taxpayer money." - DEA official Anabelle Grimm, during a 1993 interview on a CBS-TV "60 Minutes" segment entitled "The CIA's Cocaine." The 1991 CIA drug-smuggling event Ms. Grimm described was later found to be much larger. A Florida grand jury and the Wall Street Journal reported it to involve as much as 22 tons.

"The Subcommittee found that the Contra drug links included:

* Involvement in narcotics trafficking by individuals associated with the Contra movement.

* Participation of narcotics traffickers in Contra supply operations through business relationships with Contra organizations.

* Provision of assistance to the Contras by narcotics traffickers, including cash, weapons, planes, pilots, air supply services and other materials, on a voluntary basis by the traffickers.

* Payments to drug traffickers by the US State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies."

Senate Committee Report on Drugs,
Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy
chaired by Senator John F. Kerry

^^ looky, looky, there's your boy John Kerry telling you they found US State Dept. funds paid to drug traffickers. Well isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?

More evidence here:

CIA report that admits drug trafficking

LOL. And you call me a spinner, you lying fraud. Sexual slavery may be a huge business BUT IS IT CALCULATED INTO DUBAI'S GDP ECONOMIC FIGURES??? Not hardly...



You're the one spinning. No, it's not legitimate for the reasons stated. Most people never raise the issue of a conflict of interest, but they do indeed have it.

Then your paper is wrong. There's no way there could be 300,000 housemaids working when the total population is 700,000 to 1,000,000. PRODUCE AND PRESENT YOUR EVIDENCE.

I'm not a neocon you lying fraud.


Show us a link that it's a large percentage.

__________________
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer

1. So then you made it up....suprise suprise suprise...the man who claims truthful status in his handle is a liar. Let me guess ....used car salesman?


2. Figures on money laundering my boy are ALWAYS estimates the simple fact that it is a major hub shows just how big a deal it is.

One of the most active offshore zones is Dubai, of the United Arab Emirates.
http://www.jamestown.org/publication...ticle_id=23403

And thats just for money laundered for terrorist groups....close proximity to Afghanistan (70% of the world opium son...7o freaking percent) allows for even more money to be laundered. THis is big business for Dubai. Of course, now that this is becoming known (well to most of us not sure where you were that day) to the rest of the world Dubai has passed some window dressing legislation. TO date 2 people have been arrested for money laundering and those were small potato laundry workers.

3. MOre SPIN and CIA bashing from the spinbringer...what a surprise. Got facts? Not Spinbringer but he sure has BS!

4. As to monmey calculated into Dubais totals yes my boy that and all laundered money transactions are part of those totals...that is the nature of the money laundering business. YOu take illicit funds and for a hefty fee make it those funds appear legal.

5. TOTAL POPULATION:
2,445,989
note: includes 1,576,472 non-nationals (July 2002 est.)
http://www.faqs.org/docs/factbook/print/tc.html

Hmm it seems once again your making up numbers....truth bringer? Hardly more like "facts out of thin air" bringer.

There has to be a commitment big enough to sustain the burden.
But there are two major problems with the commitment being aken up by less than a majority:
1.) The free-rider problem. The scourge of laissez faire policies... Most people will use without paying. Those who pay will come to resent that... especially when most of the free-riders are able-bodied.
2.) The dependency problem. If a small group has total "commitment" of public goods, they also gain total control. The people who would be free-riders might find themselves becoming dependent... You end up with a de facto government... and no one elects them.

__________________
"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside