Greed

Accumulation of wealth and debt are inextricably intertwined. Anyone who claims otherwise just hasn't been dunned for their debts yet. In some cases they're living on borrowed money; others, borrowed time; others, borrowed health. Nobody, but nobody, does it on their own. Those who believe they did are living on borrowed credibility.

I agree. We all play a part in our culture, and examples are set by the middle classes as well as the higher ones. Why shouldn’t people say I want some of that?

Because that’s what puts others in poverty. There is a limited amount of wealth.

The irony is the truly valuable things are cheap and easy to come by (at the moment)

As long as the struggle for money (power) goes on we will not see and end to “problems in our economics” It is greed that is the problem, and the mind set,. “what am I getting” not what can I contribute.

Ultimately I feel we are taught, as Bernie demonstrates (no offence Bernie) that it is natural to kill of be killed. But in reality we are creating this culture and we can /are controlling it. We are fighting with our own selves as human race, and then we say something’s wrong when we see consequences of our own actions. You just need to put 2 and 2 together.

I sometimes feel there are just too many people thinking this is the way to really change it. It’s a shame, If only we could understand that we are what we believe we are.

Sorry if my spelling is poor.

"Because that’s what puts others in poverty. There is a limited amount of wealth."

Nope. And that's the philosophy of despair that has doomed more people to poverty than were ever exploited by capitalism.

Sorry Lex you will have to explain that. So there is an unlimited amount of wealth and we can all be rich?

Have you ever been to a 3rd world country? I have, and have seen the direct effect of capitalism. It stinks. And it is people’s greed, nothing more.

You see my statement as despair when it’s really about hope.

Accumulation of wealth and debt are inextricably intertwined

Lex... I guess I was more thinking of the accumulation of debt for things like plasma tvs and 4wds. I agree that there should be nothing wrong with the concept of going into debt to reap the rewards from good investment. And I guess that it could be argued that plasma tvs and 4wds do add wealth (personal wealth), although the returns may or may not be worth the debt.

This issue of limited wealth is something I have been trying to get my non-economic head around for a while now. If someone could explain how wealth is increased, it would help me in my thinking about these sort of topics.

You see my statement as despair when it’s really about hope.

Ishmael... this is sort of how I am feeling about this current crisis. I am hoping that we might see some change for the better (whatever it is) come out of this situation.

Because that’s what puts others in poverty. There is a limited amount of wealth.

So, if one of those poor people comes up with a new idea, and generates demand for that new idea, and makes money while hiring people grow a business based around that new idea... in what way is someone else "put into poverty" by that person's new economic activity? Or are you of the school that thinks we shouldn't have mass transit because it made the wainwrights and buggy-whip makers have to change what they do for a living... and since they're just too dumb to learn a new trade, they are now poor? Come on.

Wealth is not limited. If it were, we all be having to divide up the available standard of living as seen in the Middle Ages, or worse. How do we now define "poor?" Any kid that goes to public school gets, today, things that kings couldn't get in the past: electric lights to learn by, vaccinations against diseases that used to kill huge swaths of the population, and so on. Where did the walth come from, to build schools - even the bad ones? Was someone put into poverty to build a school? Or to build the businesses and homes that are taxed in order to pay for such things?

In the U.S., the population is now over 300,000,000. Are they living off of the divided-up, fixed amount of wealth that was there 50 years ago, with a smaller population? 100 years ago? A week ago? Did they bring the wealth with them from somewhere else? Or is it possible that wealth - which is nothing more than the measure of economic output - actually grows as the activity between all of those people increases, and as technology and knowledge make it possible to do ever more and live ever longer?

That old class warfare bait about each dollar a wedding photographer makes being somehow indirectly taken from a now poorer person somewhere else is... absurd. The only thing more absurd is that the same ploy is being trotted out in the current presidential election. Pretending that you can't look around you and see the growth of economic opportunity and output over time (and the mechanisms behind it) is just as bad as pretending that the evidence for evolution isn't there in front of you, or that the earth is flat, since you've never talked to someone who's been upside down while visiting Australia.

The standard of living has gone up over time, and the population has grown staggeringly over time. If there was some fixed amount of wealth to go around, neither would be possible. If you're right, though, what person is being put into poverty, right this moment, as we idly enjoy the benefits of communicating over a vastly complex, incomprehensibly sophisticated network of computer systems, as we talk about photography? Even though millions of jobs have sprung up to support and grow this techology - which didn't exist in this form only a few years ago - are you really contending that the economic activity generated by it is actually making someone, somewhere else, drop out of school, or fail to rotate their crops, and thus remain in poverty?

since you've never talked to someone who's been upside down while visiting Australia.

Hey!... it is you guys who are upside down.... I've always had a chip on my shoulder how the "northern" hemisphere got put at the top of the map. Shouldn't it fall to the bottom of the map since it's heavier?...