Jerry Kraus wrote:
>> There are two kinds of people in the world, producers and parasites.
>>
>
>
>> Producers are people who contribute more to society than they take.
>> They work smart, save, invest, vote and become wealthy. They oppose
>> income taxes and either support the apportionment of taxes among the
>> states, as the Constitution origionally required, or some kind of
>> consumption tax, like the Fair Tax, because it preserves liberty and
>> opportunity.
>>
>> Parasites are people who take more from society than they contribute.
>> They hardly work, don't save, don't invest, and never vote. They
>> believe the free market is unfair because it distributes wealth based
>> on merit rather than giving everyone an equal share regardless. That's
>> why they support government welfare and entitlement programs and
>> direct taxes on income.
>
> Well, maybe. But, how do you figure that Warren Buffet and Bill Gates
> contributed more than they took from society? After all, they took
> one hundred billion dollars.
But they added more than that. They could not have laid hands on
less than that and come away with the $100B. People gave it to 'em
freely. Yeah, they got sharp elbows. Feh.
I'm not a huge Buffet fan, but people have done extraordinarily well
by him. And he's saved companies like Dairy Queen from rotting
in probate.
Both Gates and Buffet made other people *more* money than
they themselves made.
> Other than simply making the circular
> argument that they must have earned this much because they have this
> much, how can you argue that they are a million times more productive
> than the average person?
They play for a million times higher stakes. It's like comparing T-ball
to the Majors - ain't no way I could have ever hit Roger Clemens, but
some people can. They just happened to have a weird skill at a time when
it was extremely valuable.
> Many argue that Gates is simply a
> manipulator and a monopolist, and that his effect on the economy has
> been purely destructive.
Nah. That simply doesn't hold water. General Sarnoff didn't invent
TV, but he did shepherd its introduction into mass culture, so it
could better be exploited. Edison was ... not that technically
literate, but his employees managed a few things, and Edison's
high profile made them commonplace.
> What about litigation lawyers who
> effectively double the cost of medical insurance in the U.S.
They've also made people safer. Litigation signals that
something is now a Bad Idea. I think it's more efficient
than legislation, but who knows?
> How
> productive is this? As far as that goes, illegal drug dealers make
> plenty of money in many cases. How productive is this?
Illegal drugs trade operates on an artificial risk premium from
the fact that the drugs are illegal. And according to Freakonomics
(and Frank Zappa), you can make more money as a butcher.
> Or bar owners
> and liquor dealers, for that matter. Or pornographers.
>
People want, they provide. *Shrug*? You don't usually get to tell
people that what they want is Bad. Me neither. None of my business.
Prohibition was intended well, but it undermined legitimate government.
The demand for booze became more powerful than the government.
> Your error is in assuming that short term greed is the only criterion
> of social utility.
Social utility beyond a relatively simple reading if price theory
as an estimator of *personal* utility is ... problematic. If the
society's estimate of utility is out of whack with the sum of
individual people's utility, then what causes the difference?
If it's negative externalities, then we have ways to address that -
although, as with Prohibition, some ways may cost more than they are worth.
> Meeting an immediate demand, or creating one.
> There are other ways of helping society. Altruism, long-term
> creativity for example. These often are not money-makers. But, they
> are very useful, quite often, as well.
>
They certainly can be. It's not all about money - we just use money
when we don't know what else to trade, or don't want to think about
it.
--
Les Cargill
