Global Cycling News

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jul 2020 20:09:49 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jul 2020 08:43:51 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

The country with probably the longest history of slavery making comments
like that? Those that they didn't sell into slavery or enslave in foreign
countries, they shipped of to Australian to die.

White Cargo
The Forgotten History of Britain?s White Slaves in America
https://nyupress.org/9780814742969/white-cargo/

Snopes gives that meme a grade of “Well, not quite true”.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ir...early-america/

As usual, reality lives between the extremes. The consensus seems to
be that Snopes is generally correct, but I prefer to read (skim) the
available literature and make up my own mind about a topic I know
little. So far, the only thing I've read worth debating is whether
indentured servitude or volunteer slavery is bad, evil, illegal, etc
with plenty of opinions at each extreme.


Right. And there are still a lot of legal ways to be “indentured�. Just
listen to Ernest Tubb’s song Sixteen Tons or talk to somebody working
multiple minimum wage jobs to barely pay for food and rent.

"Irish slaves myth"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_slaves_myth

"The Irish Famine of 1740 prompted immigration to America"
https://theargyllcolonyplus.org/the-irish-famine-of-1740-prompted-immigration-to-america/
...it is said that 38% of the Irish population died during
the crisis.

Over the centuries, Ireland has had several major famines. This one
was from 1740 to 1741:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Famine_(1740%E2%80%9341)
...is estimated to have killed between 13% and 20% of the
1740 population of 2.4 million people...
The book covers the 17th and 18th century, which includes this famine.
The ritual is usually the same when there's a famine. Families do
what needs to be done to stay alive, while the government does
nothing. The Irish were stuck with either selling themselves into
indentured service or starving. They chose "transportation" and
probably decided to worry about the consequences later. It seems like
a fair percentage of the Irish population couldn't or wouldn't make a
deal and as a result, died.

I suggest a simple test for the morality of the situation. If you
lived in Ireland during the 1740 famine, and were offered a free ride
to America in trade for some vaguely non-specific work situation,
would you take it when the only alternatives were starvation or
cannibalism? No need to answer, just think about it.

On 7/27/2020 12:30 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Mon, 27 Jul 2020 01:05:05 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jul 2020 20:09:49 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jul 2020 08:43:51 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

The country with probably the longest history of slavery making comments
like that? Those that they didn't sell into slavery or enslave in foreign
countries, they shipped of to Australian to die.

White Cargo
The Forgotten History of Britain?s White Slaves in America
https://nyupress.org/9780814742969/white-cargo/

Snopes gives that meme a grade of ?Well, not quite true?.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ir...early-america/

As usual, reality lives between the extremes. The consensus seems to
be that Snopes is generally correct, but I prefer to read (skim) the
available literature and make up my own mind about a topic I know
little. So far, the only thing I've read worth debating is whether
indentured servitude or volunteer slavery is bad, evil, illegal, etc
with plenty of opinions at each extreme.


Right. And there are still a lot of legal ways to be “indentured�. Just
listen to Ernest Tubb’s song Sixteen Tons or talk to somebody working
multiple minimum wage jobs to barely pay for food and rent.


Seriously now, isn't it possible in the U.S. today to get along on
minimum salary? I don't mean to have the 40" TV in the toilet and all,
but to get along? Maybe only one bicycle (I know how scary that is)
and a second hand car, pay the rent and eat?

I know that some states have an extremely low minimum but California,
for example, it is $13.00/hour - $104/8 hour day, $520/5 day week.
Cheers,
John B.

At the start of our marriage, I felt fairly poor. Our bank account was
scarily low. I didn't see how we would ever afford a house.

I read a book called _Champagne Living on a Beer Budget_ or something
like that. It seemed intended for people living in a big city apartment,
which was not us; but it had tons of tips, like "Why do you think your
four kitchen chairs have to match? Buy whatever's at Goodwill and paint
them. Why do you think your toaster needs to be chrome? Paint a rusty
one. Why do you need two cars, or even one? Ride your bike!" And "Good
old stuff is GOOD!"

We kind of followed that advice for a while. (Except we did buy the
tandem.) In a few years, we had our down payment for a house. A few
years later, we were paying cash to buy cars. We didn't have fancy
furniture, the world's best stereo, the fanciest bikes. But we didn't
have debt, except for the house - and we paid that off early.

I now know a young couple in our neighborhood who spend thousands of
dollars at the drop of a hat, while complaining about not having money.
Heck, their boat probably cost as much as our finest car.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Mon, 27 Jul 2020 01:05:05 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Right. And there are still a lot of legal ways to be “indentured”. Just
listen to Ernest Tubb’s song Sixteen Tons or talk to somebody working
multiple minimum wage jobs to barely pay for food and rent.

Part time or full time? For about a year, I worked at two jobs while
attending college, both part time. Neither would give me enough hours
to work at only one job, while going to skool, and simultaneously
carrying enough class units to maintain my student deferment. These
days, banks hire two part time employees to do one job so that they
don't have to pay benefits.

As for minimum wage, it's probably too minimum. The current buzzword
is "living wage":
"Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state"
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/minimum-wage-workers-cannot-afford-rent-in-any-us-state.html
(July 15, 2020).

As I mentioned up-thread:
At some point, we will need to draw the line between
slavery for mutual economic or social benefits, and
the general loss of civil right such as being treated
as property.
Different people, groups, countries, courts, etc draw this line at
different points. It also changes with time, events, economies, and
political systems. I could easily argue that all communist countries
practice universal slavery. I could also argue that capitalism does
the same thing by paying workers less than they are worth in order for
the employer to make a profit. Same with the US banking system, which
quietly hints that it's primary purpose is to keep its customers in
debt, so that the customers can establish a favorable credit score in
order to live beyond their means.

As for "Sixteen Tons", Wikipedia says it was written in 1946 by Merle
Travis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Tons
https://genius.com/Tennessee-ernie-ford-sixteen-tons-lyrics
The punch line is "I owe my soul to the company store". That was in
reference to the mine and railroad owners paying their employees in
scrip vouchers, which forced them to buy everything at the company
owned store at inflated prices. That was a major complaint by labor
union organizers and socialists.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Mon, 27 Jul 2020 01:05:05 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Right. And there are still a lot of legal ways to be “indentured”. Just
listen to Ernest TubbÂ’s song Sixteen Tons or talk to somebody working
multiple minimum wage jobs to barely pay for food and rent.

Part time or full time? For about a year, I worked at two jobs while
attending college, both part time. Neither would give me enough hours
to work at only one job, while going to skool, and simultaneously
carrying enough class units to maintain my student deferment. These
days, banks hire two part time employees to do one job so that they
don't have to pay benefits.

As for minimum wage, it's probably too minimum. The current buzzword
is "living wage":
"Minimum wage workers cannot afford rent in any U.S. state"
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/minimum-wage-workers-cannot-afford-rent-in-any-us-state.html
(July 15, 2020).

As I mentioned up-thread:
At some point, we will need to draw the line between
slavery for mutual economic or social benefits, and
the general loss of civil right such as being treated
as property.

Agreed. And it’s fuzzy at the best of times.

Different people, groups, countries, courts, etc draw this line at
different points. It also changes with time, events, economies, and
political systems. I could easily argue that all communist countries
practice universal slavery. I could also argue that capitalism does
the same thing by paying workers less than they are worth in order for
the employer to make a profit. Same with the US banking system, which
quietly hints that it's primary purpose is to keep its customers in
debt, so that the customers can establish a favorable credit score in
order to live beyond their means.

As for "Sixteen Tons", Wikipedia says it was written in 1946 by Merle
Travis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Tons
https://genius.com/Tennessee-ernie-ford-sixteen-tons-lyrics

Damn. Now what song did Ernest Tubb sing? Maybe “Walking the Floor Over
You�. Unfortunately, no relevance to cycling or white slavery in that
tune...

The punch line is "I owe my soul to the company store". That was in
reference to the mine and railroad owners paying their employees in
scrip vouchers, which forced them to buy everything at the company
owned store at inflated prices. That was a major complaint by labor
union organizers and socialists.

On Monday, July 27, 2020 at 4:49:21 AM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/27/2020 12:30 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Mon, 27 Jul 2020 01:05:05 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jul 2020 20:09:49 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jul 2020 08:43:51 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

The country with probably the longest history of slavery making comments
like that? Those that they didn't sell into slavery or enslave in foreign
countries, they shipped of to Australian to die.

White Cargo
The Forgotten History of Britain?s White Slaves in America
https://nyupress.org/9780814742969/white-cargo/

Snopes gives that meme a grade of ?Well, not quite true?.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ir...early-america/

As usual, reality lives between the extremes. The consensus seems to
be that Snopes is generally correct, but I prefer to read (skim) the
available literature and make up my own mind about a topic I know
little. So far, the only thing I've read worth debating is whether
indentured servitude or volunteer slavery is bad, evil, illegal, etc
with plenty of opinions at each extreme.


Right. And there are still a lot of legal ways to be “indentured�. Just
listen to Ernest Tubb’s song Sixteen Tons or talk to somebody working
multiple minimum wage jobs to barely pay for food and rent.


Seriously now, isn't it possible in the U.S. today to get along on
minimum salary? I don't mean to have the 40" TV in the toilet and all,
but to get along? Maybe only one bicycle (I know how scary that is)
and a second hand car, pay the rent and eat?

I know that some states have an extremely low minimum but California,
for example, it is $13.00/hour - $104/8 hour day, $520/5 day week.
Cheers,
John B.

At the start of our marriage, I felt fairly poor. Our bank account was
scarily low. I didn't see how we would ever afford a house.

I read a book called _Champagne Living on a Beer Budget_ or something
like that. It seemed intended for people living in a big city apartment,
which was not us; but it had tons of tips, like "Why do you think your
four kitchen chairs have to match? Buy whatever's at Goodwill and paint
them. Why do you think your toaster needs to be chrome? Paint a rusty
one. Why do you need two cars, or even one? Ride your bike!" And "Good
old stuff is GOOD!"

We kind of followed that advice for a while. (Except we did buy the
tandem.) In a few years, we had our down payment for a house. A few
years later, we were paying cash to buy cars. We didn't have fancy
furniture, the world's best stereo, the fanciest bikes. But we didn't
have debt, except for the house - and we paid that off early.

I now know a young couple in our neighborhood who spend thousands of
dollars at the drop of a hat, while complaining about not having money.
Heck, their boat probably cost as much as our finest car.


--
- Frank Krygowski

It is all about choices. I'm from a generation brought up with 'save up first, then buy'. Followed that rule my whole life except for my house which I also paid off early. It took me a while to understand the credit card concept because it didn't fit into my mindset, still doesn't.

Lou

On Sunday, July 26, 2020 at 11:57:41 PM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/26/2020 4:42 PM, wrote:

Snopes and Answers are entirely politicized and misleading. Don't believe one single thing they "rule" on.

OK, give us your alternative.

How about a good general education, Franki-boy? The problem with Snopes, for instance, is that as a matter of policy, they judge the truth not according to any objective standard but according to who, politically, speaks it. They're disgracefully keen on gotchas, which in practice makes them them the enemy of truth, sophists when the simplicity of truth is required.

Andre Jute
The historian Paul Johnson observed that the Roman Empire was broken by an offence against the jus gentian: slavery.

On Sunday, July 26, 2020 at 10:28:25 PM UTC+1, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

I suggest a simple test for the morality of the situation. If you
lived in Ireland during the 1740 famine, and were offered a free ride
to America in trade for some vaguely non-specific work situation,
would you take it when the only alternatives were starvation or
cannibalism? No need to answer, just think about it.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

It's not quite that simple, Jeff. For instance you make the assumption that all these starving families could be reached to make the offer of indenture equitably to all of them. It just doesn't answer to the realities. But it is an easy and common error, widely also made by professionals:

Years ago there was a conference of economic historians here and I was tasked with part of their hosting because I knew so many of them. I took them down into the Gap of Dunloe, south of Killarney, took them halfway up a hillside so that on the opposite hillside they could see some squares of land marked out by fallen stones. Then I took them across the valley and into the stones. "Pace out the squares, if you please. No, not you, not the agricultural economists. You already know what I'm going to say." Behind me a lady who was a leading light of co-op history said, "Oh, ****." She knew all right. Each square, thirty by thirty paces, had to support an entire family. One of my favourite teachers was by then an Israeli pol, a deputy minister. "An average family with thirteen surviving children?" he said to me. "It's an impossibility." He wrote to me to offer me a consulting job a few years later and added in his own hand a postscript at the bottom of the official letter: "A single Gap of Dunloe example will shock the complacent out of their torpor." The problem is that Killarney itself was a couple of hundred miles of atrocious roads from Dublin, and probably a difficult two-day ride from Cork, which has a sheltered harbour, plus another day of hard travel to reach the Gap (which today is a few minutes in a comfortable car on a blacktop road away, a tourist attraction,). The Gap itself, which I've walked through in May, sometimes in mud up to my hips, is impassable in a bad winter. Most of the victims of the famine were that hard to reach, and starving people, who even in good years were outside the cash economy, didn't have money for newspapers, even though the Irish peasants were likely more literate than those in other nations. I think it is fair to conclude that most of those who indentured signed the papers in the bigger coastal towns, all of which have harbours which at that time would have taken the size of ship that crossed the Atlantic. There's a graveyard of famine victims we often stop at on our rides. We'd ride up beside the River Bandon from its estuary (the watersports marina on the estuary being the halfway point of our ride) a few miles to a hulk of a North Sea or Baltic trader about 75ft long, and there turn inland. We know, from the placement of mills and distilleries and tales of how the monstrous church bells of a village well inland were rafted upriver, that the river once was routinely navigated by substantial ships. Yet this famine graveyard is only a couple of hundred yards up the road after we turn away from the river. In fact, we're riding across a bow of the river, and will return to it at the starting point of our circular ride; there is nowhere in ireland where you can get further than a day on foot from a navigable river.

So here's another mystery for you: Consider that Ireland is an island, that there are fishing harbours without number every few miles around the coast, -- then ask why didn't they substitute fish in their diet for the now-absent potatoes?

I don't want you to think I don't take your point -- that a starving peasant doesn't have the energy to consider the moral distinction between actual slavery and indented servitude. The case I'm making is different: that in most cases he wasn't offered the opportunity or even the knowledge that just up the road the opportunity existed.

Andre Jute
People don't always do what is logical

On Monday, July 27, 2020 at 9:14:14 AM UTC+1, Lou Holtman wrote:

It is all about choices. I'm from a generation brought up with 'save up first, then buy'. Followed that rule my whole life except for my house which I also paid off early. It took me a while to understand the credit card concept because it didn't fit into my mindset, still doesn't.

Lou

I use a credit card as a free accountant. They don't cost me a penny because I don't pay them interest. It's simple. Keep a credit balance, then there's nothing for them to charge you interest on -- and they still send you printout every month with all your expenses itemised. -- AJ

On Mon, 27 Jul 2020 03:26:21 -0700, Andre Jute wrote:

On Sunday, July 26, 2020 at 10:28:25 PM UTC+1, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

I suggest a simple test for the morality of the situation. If you
lived in Ireland during the 1740 famine, and were offered a free ride
to America in trade for some vaguely non-specific work situation, would
you take it when the only alternatives were starvation or cannibalism?
No need to answer, just think about it.

--
Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

It's not quite that simple, Jeff. For instance you make the assumption
that all these starving families could be reached to make the offer of
indenture equitably to all of them. It just doesn't answer to the
realities. But it is an easy and common error, widely also made by
professionals:

Snipping AJs story and to cut to the point, many Irish people were
seasonal labourers in England for centuries before the years of the
famine. The indication from geaneology is that people would follow
relatives overseas, so given an offer, young people particularly, would
accept the offer if they had relatives. The alternative was to pay your
passage, which was very hard for any tenant farmer to acculmulate the
funds.

There doesn't seem to be any system, as in England, where the landowners/
weathly would stump up the passage, to basically save on the poor tax
they had to pay.

On 7/27/2020 5:37 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Mon, 27 Jul 2020 01:14:11 -0700 (PDT), Lou Holtman
wrote:

On Monday, July 27, 2020 at 4:49:21 AM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 7/27/2020 12:30 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Mon, 27 Jul 2020 01:05:05 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jul 2020 20:09:49 +0000 (UTC), Ralph Barone
wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 26 Jul 2020 08:43:51 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

The country with probably the longest history of slavery making comments
like that? Those that they didn't sell into slavery or enslave in foreign
countries, they shipped of to Australian to die.

White Cargo
The Forgotten History of Britain?s White Slaves in America
https://nyupress.org/9780814742969/white-cargo/

Snopes gives that meme a grade of ?Well, not quite true?.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ir...early-america/

As usual, reality lives between the extremes. The consensus seems to
be that Snopes is generally correct, but I prefer to read (skim) the
available literature and make up my own mind about a topic I know
little. So far, the only thing I've read worth debating is whether
indentured servitude or volunteer slavery is bad, evil, illegal, etc
with plenty of opinions at each extreme.


Right. And there are still a lot of legal ways to be “indentured”. Just
listen to Ernest Tubb’s song Sixteen Tons or talk to somebody working
multiple minimum wage jobs to barely pay for food and rent.


Seriously now, isn't it possible in the U.S. today to get along on
minimum salary? I don't mean to have the 40" TV in the toilet and all,
but to get along? Maybe only one bicycle (I know how scary that is)
and a second hand car, pay the rent and eat?

I know that some states have an extremely low minimum but California,
for example, it is $13.00/hour - $104/8 hour day, $520/5 day week.
Cheers,
John B.

At the start of our marriage, I felt fairly poor. Our bank account was
scarily low. I didn't see how we would ever afford a house.

I read a book called _Champagne Living on a Beer Budget_ or something
like that. It seemed intended for people living in a big city apartment,
which was not us; but it had tons of tips, like "Why do you think your
four kitchen chairs have to match? Buy whatever's at Goodwill and paint
them. Why do you think your toaster needs to be chrome? Paint a rusty
one. Why do you need two cars, or even one? Ride your bike!" And "Good
old stuff is GOOD!"

We kind of followed that advice for a while. (Except we did buy the
tandem.) In a few years, we had our down payment for a house. A few
years later, we were paying cash to buy cars. We didn't have fancy
furniture, the world's best stereo, the fanciest bikes. But we didn't
have debt, except for the house - and we paid that off early.

I now know a young couple in our neighborhood who spend thousands of
dollars at the drop of a hat, while complaining about not having money.
Heck, their boat probably cost as much as our finest car.


--
- Frank Krygowski

It is all about choices. I'm from a generation brought up with 'save up first, then buy'. Followed that rule my whole life except for my house which I also paid off early. It took me a while to understand the credit card concept because it didn't fit into my mindset, still doesn't.

Lou

When I lived in Riverside Calif. I had to get a credit card as most
fuel stations were "Exact change or credit card only". So I got one.
On Payday I'd take my check into the bank, deposit it and go right
across the office to the credit card guys and pay my last month's
charges.

One payday the credit card guy says, "You know you don't have to pay
this all in one month" and I told him that according to the contract
if I paid within one month of getting my bill there was no interest
charge.

The guy replied, "Yup, a few of you have figured that out".

Cheers,
John B.


Have you ever considered running the Treasury? You're a
natural.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971