Salmo, my point on investing is that there is only one finite pool of money which changes hands daily. In the sense of the bond market there is a trade off where a borrower benefits and the loaner also benefits in the form of interest. Similar to your example. But the interest is not new money. The borrower has lost some wealth in return for the benefit of a loan. Winners and losers is just an analogy for the distribution of wealth. But the only way there cannot be winners and losers is to produce more money which simply causes inflation, devaluation of the dollar and nobody wins or loses...in theory anyway.

So how would you redistribute wealth under your vision?

TK so our poor are better off than in other countries. Is that a bad thing? I see so often the "get rid of welfare" mantra. But when you realize that there will always be lower class and upper class the dilemma becomes much more complex. We've all seen pictures of squalid, pollution oozing, disease ridden slums in third world countries where families eek out an existence by rummaging through garbage at the dump. Is that where we should be? Remember that a large percentage of the poor in this country are elderly who haven't much hope of climbing out of their predictament except in death. Also, yes there are examples of people who simply milk the system but there are plenty of examples of women with children who's sole bread winner is deceased. How does she climb out of her predictament without neglecting the children, earn a living wage with no education or experience and not live off the tax payer dole in her attempts to do something? To me, the tax payer providing something to cover the unpredictable, keeps people from desperation. Desperation leads to high crime and the conditions above which effects us all in the long run.

Gp...to quote a recently passed away former president...."There you go again". Who said anything about re-distributing the wealth? oh that's right you did and only you.

Stlhd,

The point of the disucssion was poverty being a choice in this country rather than being inflicted upon people by others. Your example of the widow is rare. For everyone of your examples demographics show you a half million that are caused by substance abuse. Nothing wrong with a hand up for those willing to try. If we opened the borders the majority of our poor would either get with it or die as there are a million people waiting to live 10 to a one bedroom apt in the worst slum in america to have a shot at what they turn down. Opportunity. "

Desperation leads to high crime and the conditions above which effects us all in the long run."
Horse hocky to that crappola. This would assume that these are people that have always done the right thing at every turn and only out of lack of options turn to crime. Wrong! these are people that have always taken the easy way out and crime is just another bad decision in a long list.

One need only look to the Middle East or Africa to verify that statement.

TK, And I countered your point that it is often not a choice but inherant in a capitalist society. I take it you believe that everyone, in an ideal world, should be middle class or above if they would only try. Isn't that socialism? Isn't that redistribution of the wealth? Whom does the lower class take from to enter the middle class? Has to come from either the middle class or the upper class in order to prop up the entire lower class.
Sure there are all sorts of individual circumstances of people who try and those who don't and of people who succesfully climbed out of poverty but you made a blanket statement which I refute.

Stlhd,

Yes but we would be importing the lower class if the bottom 10% now pulled them selves up and so on and so on. You are speaking as if the country and its economy existed in a vacumn.

No it exists in a pie. Everyone has a sliver. Some have larger pieces and some have smaller. How do you want to divide it? If the bottom 10% pulled themselves up and so on and so on you arrive at the top 1% who can't pull themselves higher because the pie is only so big. Meaning, in this case, the top 1%'ers slice of the pie gets smaller to prop up all the other levels. So, for the impoverished to climb as a whole someone somewhere up the chain has to decline. Of course trickle down economics is the exact opposite where the bottom of the chain loses out. It's inherant in capitalism.

Stlhd,

You are basing you assumptions off of a fixed population and economy. Neither is true. The top 1% of a billion people is more than 1% of 350 million people.

[QUOTE] [Winners and losers is just an analogy for the distribution of wealth. /QUOTE]

I must have taken this out of context or misinterpreted what your point about rich and poor is or the class imbalance or whatever. Kind of sounds a bit like the usual Democratic left ideology of levelling the playing field...If I am mistaken it won't be the first time and I apologize.

The idiology comes from an attempt to assuage or rationalize the guilt they feel for not being on the bottom and the resentment for not being at the top and being in the middle and bleating with the rest of them

No. I am basing my assumptions on a fixed pool of money.

How much of your net worth is cash?

Point being if everyone cashed in their hard assests today their would not be enough paper money. So your Cash pool being fixed does not work. It's a dynamic system not a fixed system.

I've decided to argue this further is futile. If you think the pool of money/wealth is all paper dollars then more power to you. I sincerely hope you don't ever fall below the ever shifitng poverty line because you sure won't receive much sympathy as it will have been all your own doing. The irony is the odds are it will also be under an administration you voted for.

Stlhd,

You said it was a fixed pool of money. Prove it or move on.

Have you ever heard of computers? You are using one right now. No institution in the world has actual physical cash on hand to cover what is in it's accounts that I am aware of. And it's so far off and meaningless to the debate it's simply unworthy of further comment. You win, all poor people deserve it because they are too lazy to pick themselves up and create brand new wealth for themselves. I bet your church donates to charities. You should set them straight about giving money to low life scum who refuse to help themselves.

Stlhd,

The bank has to have $ for $ what your balance shows. They keep it in a varity of ways but it all has to total each and every day. You need to read up on our monetary sytem and banking system. Saying there is a fixed pool of money/wealth in this country is moronic.

BTW I make sure all of the money I give at church goes over seas. Insted of Christmas and Birthday presents for myself from friends and family I ask them to donate to Childrens hospital. I write a check occaionally to a local family in dire need. We had a local guy die of brain cancer leaving 4 young kids and a wife broke and desparate after the long painful death of her childhood sweetheart. How about you before you condem others?

Ever heard of the NYSE, AMEX, etc? How about bonds? What about the mortage market where mortgages are bought and sold every day? Do you see huge semi's full of cash running around on our highways? And you call me moronic? "Hey bubba, another billion just changed hands. Run these dollars over to them will ya?"

Why do you donate to the family TK? Your blanket statement claims it's a good bet that it's their own doing and they deserve what they got and if they weren't so lazy they'd get off their A** and work their way up the ladder? Argue with you enough and you prove your own point wrong.

I donate to United Way, yeah they had problems at one time but have cleaned up their act, and to goodwill every single year. Partly for the tax deduction and partly because I should. But then I didn't claim that poor people chose to be poor either.

Get your last word in...I am done with this.