12-03-2010, 01:28 PM
Sadly, it isn't just corruption which eats away the buying power of such contributions (and our taxes). Modern governments have so many checks and balances--often implemented to check corruption--that an army of bureaucrats, accountants, consultants and inspectors (who must all be paid) get involved before anything is actually done.
Let me give an over-simple comparison. A hundred years ago, if you wanted chicken for dinner, you went out to the hen house, took the layer who was producing the least (you knew who she was because you knew your flock), popped off her head and prepared her for dinner. Today, you go to a market and buy a cold, sectioned carcass wrapped in plastic (produced, perhaps, several jurisdictions away). You hope and assume the process was conscientiously done, overseen by inspectors and facilitated by distributors and middle men. As a result the chicken meat for your dinner costs perhaps a hundred times (not just ten) as much as it does today.
hock: And we're all busy people. We don't have time to prepare dinner, let alone slaughter chickens. Therefore, chances are we buy the chicken already prepared from a rotisserie or even the Kentucky colonel.
I agree that a kind of triage must be done over what to save. And one way that triage--and the preservation--is decided is with our entry fee dollars and licensing fees when we visit these sites. In each of our countries historic sites are rotting away because there just isn't enough resources to preserve them all. Italy has the bad luck to blessed with so many sites.
Having lived in Italy for three years and visited there a dozen other times, I'm humbled by how well they manage to preserve (yes, and exploit) what they have. How inconsiderate of the ancients to stage Rome, the headquarters of the Catholic church, the Renaissance--not to mention more than their share of all the wars in the last two thousand years--inside the boundaries of a nation-state they didn't even know would exist. :wink:
Let me give an over-simple comparison. A hundred years ago, if you wanted chicken for dinner, you went out to the hen house, took the layer who was producing the least (you knew who she was because you knew your flock), popped off her head and prepared her for dinner. Today, you go to a market and buy a cold, sectioned carcass wrapped in plastic (produced, perhaps, several jurisdictions away). You hope and assume the process was conscientiously done, overseen by inspectors and facilitated by distributors and middle men. As a result the chicken meat for your dinner costs perhaps a hundred times (not just ten) as much as it does today.
hock: And we're all busy people. We don't have time to prepare dinner, let alone slaughter chickens. Therefore, chances are we buy the chicken already prepared from a rotisserie or even the Kentucky colonel.I agree that a kind of triage must be done over what to save. And one way that triage--and the preservation--is decided is with our entry fee dollars and licensing fees when we visit these sites. In each of our countries historic sites are rotting away because there just isn't enough resources to preserve them all. Italy has the bad luck to blessed with so many sites.
Having lived in Italy for three years and visited there a dozen other times, I'm humbled by how well they manage to preserve (yes, and exploit) what they have. How inconsiderate of the ancients to stage Rome, the headquarters of the Catholic church, the Renaissance--not to mention more than their share of all the wars in the last two thousand years--inside the boundaries of a nation-state they didn't even know would exist. :wink:
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil
Ron Andrea
Ron Andrea
