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To: Willie Green
Services don't create wealth. They merely transfer, redistribute and eventually dissipate wealth.

Then why did your earlier post claim that wealth was the result of added value and that services added value? Your post is completely self-contradictory.

And your assertion about services - that they merely "transfer, redistribute and eventually dissipate wealth" is so foolish I know that you're not even thinking anything through, just regurgitating Marxist dogma.

Let's try a real world example - my father-in-law runs a restaurant. He essentially provides a service that people could do without. People could prepare food in their own homes and not go out to dinner - they're paying him and his employees for services like cooking, refilling water glasses and folding napkins.

The money he made from a few years' restauranteuring enabled him to buy some nearby land. The fact that he and other service entrepreneurs in his seaside community provided such pleasant services in such a pleasant setting inspired more and more people to visit his community and this increased stream of visitors create more jobs. He was able to sell that land later for a better price because the economic growth of the community had made land there more valuable.

He sold that land to a Rite-Aid pharmacy, which was a real convenience to the surrounding community since people didn't need to drive 10 miles anymore to the nearest pharmacy. They saved time and gas money, and Rite-Aid made a decent profit providing pharmaceutical services to local residents.

My father-in-law is wealthier, his community is more prosperous and better-served, there is a new business (Rite-Aid) that employs 20+ locals.

His service, rather than merely redistributing preexisting wealth, allocated capital to new enterprises that created new employment and profit opportunities.

Essentially what you're doing, in classic Communist style, is accusing service providers like my father-in-law of being parasites because they provide services that people want and are willing to pay for. He twists the arm of no one who enters his restaurant. Each customer has made the decision that they would rather pay $13.95 to have someone else prepare and serve beef bourgignon to them than spend their time preparing it at home. This services provides more value to them than preparing it at home would have.

Teachers are also paid to provide a service - and I don't think teaching is a service that "dissipates wealth" - if anything, good teaching prepares others to go out and create wealth.

There is no distinction between production and service and there is no distinction between goods and services. It's specious.

There may be a distinction between raw goods - which require no human action to make them serviceable - and finished goods, or goods which require human labor to make them serviceable.

But all services are, whether it's a factory work providing the service of assembly or a teacher providing the service of instruction, value-producing goods.

If they weren't, then no one would pay for them.

32 posted on 12/11/2002 8:40:25 AM PST by wideawake
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To: wideawake
The definitions I posted all contain links to the academic website where they were obtained. They reflect fundamental principles of economics upon which all rational and valid analysis is made.

I could care less about your convoluted, politically motivated demagoguery on the topic. Similar to Louis Farakhan's rants in numerology and Million Man math, it is pure hogwash.

33 posted on 12/11/2002 9:01:56 AM PST by Willie Green
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