 f fork list mr writes f free trade and free markets have proven their ability to lift f whole societies out of poverty i m not a f socio political history buff does anybody have some clear f examples china ooops no wait scratch that there is one counter example that i can think of but it may not be precisely free trade markets when ben franklin first visited england he was asked why the colonies were so prosperous ben explained that they used colonial script a kind of barter dollar and increasing the supply of script ensured complete employment the british bankers were furious and immediately lobbied parliament to clamp down on the practice within a few years the colonies were rife with unemployment and poverty just like the rest of the empire according to questionable literature handed out by a fringe political party here in canada the founding fathers had no real complaint about tea taxes it was the banning of colonial script they were protesting if this is true then it comes right back to the forces that killed ned ludd s followers as to why popular opinion believes they were protesting a tea tax the same pamphlet claimed that canada was also a prosperous nation until by an act of parliament in the late NUMBER s or early NUMBER s the right to print money was removed from the juristiction of parliament and handed over to the bank of canada i ve wondered about all this certainly the timeline of the collapse of the canadian economy fits the profile but there are oodles of other causes for example spending money like we had NUMBERm people when we only had NUMBERm anyone have any further information on this gary lawrence murphy garym URL teledynamics communications blog URL biz URL computers are useless they can only give you answers picasso 