[tylerdurden]

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As poster PVN is fond of saying, "You have to be rich to be a success?"

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Of course, that was a completely different context.

I would argue that one should have to show *some* improvement as a minimum requirement for being a success. Here, we're talking about massive government intervention that *reduces* all measureable aggregate indicators.

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By the measurements of purely GNP, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finnland, or Iceland might not be your "runaway success stories" but methinks there are other measurements too. Or they should be.

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Such as? 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.

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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.