Posted on 07/22/2003 9:42:07 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Edited on 04/12/2004 5:53:00 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Nonsense.
Consider professional sports. That has pushed new developments in technology in materials, medical treatment, general preventative medical care, home electronics, and exercise equipment development, high bandwidth communications, ALL of which have application outside the primary transaction of going to see a game (to which gambling advocates compare it). Team sports encourage competitiveness and character development in kids. They helps build stronger longer lives. The negative externalities compared to gambling are miniscule.
Poppycock. Carry_Okie is right.
Trade doesn't increase wealth whatsoever, it merely transfers wealth.
Wealth is created only by engaging in value-added activities. By the same token, Service sector activities do not create wealth, they merely transfer, redistribute and eventually dissipate wealth as consumption. Thus, as value-added activities move offshore and the U.S. labor force shifts to the Service Sector, wealth is dissipated, not created. And the U.S. standard of living declines as a result.WEALTH: The net ownership of material possessions and productive resources. In other words, the difference between physical and financial assets that you own and the liabilities that you owe. Wealth includes all of the tangible consumer stuff that you possess, like cars, houses, clothes, jewelry, etc.; any financial assets, like stocks, bonds, bank accounts, that you lay claim to; and your ownership of resources, including labor, capital, and natural resources. Of course, you must deduct any debts you owe.
VALUE ADDED: The increase in the value of a good at each stage of the production process. The value that's being increased is specifically the ability of a good to satisfy wants and needs either directly as a consumption good or indirectly as a capital good. A good that provides greater satisfaction has greater value. In essence, the whole purpose of production is to transform raw materials and natural resources that have relatively little value into goods and services that have greater value.
SERVICE: An activity that provides direct satisfaction of wants and needs without the production of a tangible product or good. Examples include information, entertainment, and education. This term good should be contrasted with the term good, which involves the satisfaction of wants and needs with tangible items. You're likely to see the plural combination of these two into a single phrase, "goods and services," to indicate the wide assortment of economic production from the economy's scarce resources.
Fortunately, there are those of us who remember the doubletalk about "decreasing the rate of increase" producing a "savings".
The blasted RINOs didn't "hold" the 'Rats to anything.
Rather than actually CUT government waste, they crammed a tax increase up our butts.
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