Robert Green wrote:

HeyBub holds a lot of things that aren't true, can't be proved or
otherwise have fatal flaws in them large enough to sail the Queen
Mary through. He's remarkable in that he keeps coming up with more
and more bizarro ideas, like his concept of how wealth is created.

Okay, I'll play. How do YOU think that wealth is created? Or is it your
contention that the amount of wealth in society is relatively fixed but
maldistributed?


After decades of good times, people can't remember the Watts or DC
riots and the destruction they caused. When people have no stake in
the society around them and nothing left to lose, they behave that
way and seek to bring everyone down to their level.

I don't think they wanted to bring people down so much as they wanted a
color TV.

We're
approaching that situation as another wave of foreclosures and
homelessness is predicted. We surely could have used the trillions
we spent destroying Iraqi wealth on retraining programs for American
workers but our priorities are very, very messed up, as you've noted.

Slight correction: The Iraqi war did not cost trillions; the latest number
I've seen is in the neighborhood of $800 billion. In war costs.

What really riles me is when people say: "We are all born equal." If
that's true, why do the children of uber-wealthy parents attend
Harvard, drive Ferraris or jet-set on the Riviera? Because they had
a tremendous leg up on most other people through inherited wealth
that they did nothing to deserve except by being lucky enough to be
born into it.

That, and their parents had the foresight to set aside sufficient to provide
the best for their children. Some parents, as you know, get a motorcycle and
disappear.