In , HeyBub wrote in part:

Ah, but here's where your logic fails: There is no enterprise, health care,
education, etc., that cannot be done cheaper and better by private industry.
Take education, for example. No amount of money can improve it as long as it
remains primarily a government purview.

You don't seem to understand "wealth." The only people who believe in a
"national wealth" are those who believe wealth is a fixed commodity and
needs to be re-distributed. To a liberal, wealth is like energy: it can be
moved around but it cannot be created or destroyed.

To a conservative, wealth is like a souffle, it can rise or it can flop.

A real-life and obvious example of wealth increase or decrease is the stock
market.

Every dollar the government spends in the general marketplace is a
dollar of wealth destroyed. Every transaction entered into by a willing
buyer and a willing seller creates wealth.

The way I hear it from a conservative engineer and a conservative
manufacturing company owner, wealth is created by making nothing or things
that are worth less or worthless into things that are worth more.
As in, at least traditionally described, mining and agriculture and
manufacturing - making goods from dirt, making raw materials into valuable
goods, especially making goods production tools.

If any transaction between willing partners creates wealth as you say,
do you claim lack of exceptions? What if one of the parties is dishonest
and the other is incompetent? What if one party pays the other to destroy
something that has value?

--
- Don Klipstein )