Saltpetre,
take-two of response to your post of Sunday, 22 May 2011 7:01:16 PM.

You say, "if Cheryl is suggesting we could take quite a few more immigrants from some underprivileged 3rd world countries, then I guess we could. The only real problem I have with that is if Oz in doing so would be exacerbating current world overpopulation". Altogether far-seeing and commendable I'm sure.

But I doubt this is what Cheryl had in mind, and you have to admit it does sound pollyannaish?

But then you bring us crashing to Earth with, "Of course, any such immigrants would have to meet some appropriate standards, of education, skills, good conduct, and maybe have work sponsorship, but numbers would also have to be within limits manageable by our economy".
I don't think that's quite the essence of charity as Jesus saw it, is it? Your next sentence clarifies the whole as pure expediency: "Given such conditions, if our taking some additional immigrants could be beneficial to our workforce, and at the same time help to improve conditions in their home countries, then this could be a win-win all round".
In your defence, you were trying to confabulate a generous interpretation of Cheryl's polemic.
But it really doesn't wash--much as I'm sure Cheryl would be eager to turn her house into a hostel.

Indeed, I could accuse "you" of "disingenuously disregarding world forces which demand serious attention" when you say "we seem to have a "immigration lottery" going on at the moment, a targeted approach would have to be an improvement".
Don't we already have a highly discriminatory and self-serving approach to immigration? Isn't this a bit of a cold shoulder to show to refugees? And isn't this a little inconsistent with your later comments, when you lambast poor Poirot and moi for "tenacious fortification of the western decadent utopia"? While there's a certain turgid effect to your prose (I love it when you talk dirty!), I'm bound to say that Poirot and I bent on bringing down the western dystopia, rather than fortifying it. Honest, ask anyone!

Squeers,

How right you are!

How did it get past Salty that you and I are OLO's most notorious anti- Western/Capitalist lefties?...and that in our replies we were targeting his absurdly rose-coloured approach, rather than his humanitarian aspirations.....the funny thing is that, although I went with the ostrich line to finish my last post, I had planned to finish it just the way you did with an admission of my credentials and an "ask anyone!"

"Still under the false impression that shooting people who disagree with you is morally superior? Or perhaps you’re not in favour of enforcing any policy on population after all? You went quiet on me there."

Went quiet? You hadn't responded before my comment - do you use more than one moniker?

Anyone know what this comment is about? I did not mention shooting people as a remedy for population sustainability. Do you just make it up as you go along.

As I said Peter if you have trouble understanding rational argument and that there are many non-invasive ways to sustain populations without using force (like not providing incentives for babies) then that is clearly your failing.

If I only saw shooting people as a remedy I would also be in the non-sustainable camp, but thankfully most people think more deeply about these issues. You may think resources are plentiful without need to worry about water or forestry mangement, that is your right, many people don't agree. That is what free speech and democracy is all about.

As I suggested to you earlier if my comments offend you please feel free to ignore them, you clearly don't read or understand many of the comments made, preferring to invent a meaning to suit your own self serving arguments.

Peter Hume, what a Wing ah Ling of a post you wrote in response to me!

Firstly you wrote:

<< … we need freedom from your clueless prurient meddling. I trust that settles this discussion to your satisfaction? >>

But having apparently brought an end to our discussion, you went on with several questions in an attempt to engage me in further discussion… on just the same subject!

Very odd!

You are hanging out for me to give you a critique of your economic calculator article. Well… how about not going out of your way to be deliberately rude to someone that you want to do something for you?!?!

I was looking forward to doing that, but I’m not interested in discussing anything with someone who can’t keep it civil.

Surprise! The IPA wants...
1) More privatisations...despite them being proven to be more expensive. (How do you get competition in toll roads? Where is the transparency when "commercial in confidence" rules the contracts?)
Once again they want private profits and the public to wear risks and costs.
2) The ability to trash local's rights. It seems billion dollar companies need "incentives" yet people need a big stick and no legal recourse.
3) Completely ignore ecology and economics to sustain the bandit lifestyles of a small group of cronies in a small age group. These folks want to go to their graves the most selfish and destructive generation ever.
What a dismal, unethical philosophy.

No-one has shown how government will be able to conserve resources any better considering the relevant present and future values, as against my having shown reasons why governments must necessarily be more wasteful. Thus interventions will be less sustainable not more; and therefore anti-human even in your own terms; as well as anti-freedom.

None of you (Hazza excepted) has suggested any actual policy to deal with the alleged population challenge.

Grim
1. What policy do you propose to provide every person now and indefinitely into the future an equal chance to exist and enjoy the things you think they should have?
2. How does this solve the problem that we can’t have infinite growth on a finite base?
3. Isn’t it self-contradictory to include goods made possible by industrial capitalism when you think it’s exploitative and unsustainable?
4. If we shouldn’t use a non-renewable resource now because it might reduce a future person’s use of it, then why would not any future person be under the same constraint, with the result that no-one could use any non-renewable resource ever?

“What if he has no children, and the 'future sale' won't occur until after he's dead?”
He still has a current interest in those post-mortem sales, being the current capital value of the asset.

The fact that all living things seek satisfaction of their wants does *not* mean that the aspiring central planners of the world are capable of knowing everyone’s subjective values; nor has Mises ever argued so. People don’t all seek “more” of the one same thing, or of different things uniformly, or of given things necessarily at all. Therefore your argument is wrong.

How could the equality you envisage be possible without equal property? And how could that be enforced? And even if it could, it would mean many *more* people starving, not fewer.

The wealth of businesses comes from people voluntarily handing over money. Through this process the masses, as consumers, exercise unconditional control over the direction of production, and decide who makes losses, and who profits.