Posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:47:10
In reply to Re: Paul Jay » sigismund, posted by alexandra_k on July 14, 2018, at 0:30:59
I read the Wiki article on the Irish Potato Famine because I had heard the population of Ireland was lower today than it was pre-famine and I thought that that just didn't sound plausible to me, at all... But it's actually true. Wow. I mean true by millions of people.
Mostly not death by famine - but immigration.
About the landowners in England... And then you don't want to have to travel to Ireland to collect rent from the farmers leasing the land so you employ middle-men who are located in Ireland. Reasonable enough...
But then the middle-men get greedy. They divide the plots of land up smaller and smaller and smaller and the prices are artificially increased. Instead of farmers having enough land to produce a diversity of crops for their family and for sale the increased intensification results in 1 acre of potato which (with the milk of a cow) can apparently provide a nutritionally adequate diet for a single family (as in people aren't appearing to drop dead or get sick from some kind of nutritional deficiency). If you have a little extra potato you might have enough to feed a piglet so it grows up to be a pig. Then you can take your pig to market... Or you can have baked potato with bacon mmmm...
But then there was enough food for the people in Ireland that was still being produced in Ireland when the potato famine hit. But it was all marked for export and they continued to export it instead of sending it to the poor houses.
At some point the situation for the middle men was about getting as much money as they could (it's only temporary) and using that to buy passage to America or wherever for a 'better life'. And they fled... By millions. Most of the people fled Ireland.
A sustainable life.
Or something.
People just decided to abandon Ireland.
It's all very sad. Maybe we should change our name to New Ireland. Or maybe I should look into what happened to the old Zealand.
Our population just keeps on increasing due to immigration. It doesnt' seem to matter how badly we treat our people they just keep on flocking to us.
That's the trouble, really. The middle men / managers. Scraping together all they can for their exit strategy. Like the people did who made it here, I guess.
Why are people so awful?? Most of them. Seems to me. Why do people buy into these strategies / play these games??
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1099420
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20140225/msgs/1099563.html