[Cyrus]

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That was a completely different context.

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Ah there it is, found it! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] What a distortion of your words, I apologize for using your quote without permission and out of context. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Seriously, an apophthegm, a maxim, is almost always taken "out of (its original) context". I simply considered the phrase you wrote worthy of that status, and that's how I used it, i.e. "You don't have to be rich to be a success!"

Quotations "by great men" are used that way, i.e. in varying contexts.

I'm not implying anything about your size, btw. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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Here, we're talking about massive government intervention that *reduces* all measureable aggregate indicators.

[/ QUOTE ] If by "here", you are still referring to Scandinavian economies, you are seriously wrong.

"All measurable aggregate indicators"?! Hah. Not even in your dreams.

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Maybe you'd like a Gross National Plundering index that measures how much is stolen from the producers and squandered. That seems like something most European nations would score high in.

[/ QUOTE ] People in Europe have been consistently responding quite positively about their standard of living, in general, when everything is taken into account, i.e. working conditions, environmental conditions, social policies, etc etc etc. Yes, the people of Europe are whining and moaning about the "Brussels bureaucracy" and would dearly love to have their taxes lowered, as everybody would, but they are unwilling to part with what those taxes are providing them for -- no matter how "inefficiently"...

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As a friend of mine was fond of saying, "When we pump out the last barrel of oil and cut down the last tree, we will discover that we cannot eat money."

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You can't eat oil or trees, either.

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Even if your rebuttal consists of a simplistic literal interpretation, it's not making it : One can eat off a tree.

...You can keep the oil. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]