Posted on 11/30/2006 8:54:28 AM PST by libertarianPA
So what? What's the point? What does she want to do about it? More socialism? Give me a case in which that has worked and produced booming economies!
Libs just don't seem to realize that if everyone in the world were to suddenly achieve the lifestyle the average American enjoys, the world's resources would quickly evaporate and there would be choking pollution.
But that doesn't matter. There are poor people in the world. As a lib non-economically educated journalist, I have to sound the siren.
And people scream about Fox News' bias.
"highlights growing inequality in the distribution of wealth"
Maybe the poor countries should make products or perform services that other people want and sell them.
Just an idea.
Stupid communists.
You could take all the monet from the rich and give it to the poor. In less that 10 years the rich would have it back.
Good point. There's a fundamental principle libs just don't seem to get:
The rich get richer because they continue to do what made them rich... ditto the poor.
I thought this was extremely basic economics: The pie doesn't get cut in more ways -- the pie grows. Buffet helps make the pie bigger. Those poor people in Bangladesh who are using Grameen Bank's microcredit to escape from poverty are making the pie bigger.
Capitalists always want the pie to grow, the increasing slice size going to those who made it grow. Socialists want to keep the pie the same size and cut all sizes equally.
"The rich get richer because they continue to do what made them rich... ditto the poor."
Nutshell.
Okay, so a wealthy man such as Warren Buffett is not to be commended for his generous gifts, because the fact that he had such wealth highlights gaps between rich and poor?
Should we all just become communists then? Not sure where they are coming from here, or what exactly the complaint is.
Estate tax protection. Buffett is such an advocate of massive estate taxes so why doesn't he just allow the government to confiscate 55% of his wealth when he kicks the bucket?
Yeah, that's for sure. Katrina was particularly hard on welfare moochers and stupid people who did not listen to orders to evacuate New Orleans, for example. They were just like people who stand on the train tracks and ignore the oncoming train because they're waiting for somebody to send a limo for them.
I think of it as social Darwinism in action. Nature can be very harsh with stupid, useless career social dependants with no sense of responsibility for their own self-preservation. That's how God culls the herd.
I believe that land reform in Mexico (1970?) ended in a similar way. The original owners of the land ended up owning much of the land that the receivers sold back to them after failing to farm it productively.
Same old communist claptrap. If the commies want to make a positive contribution to mankind, they should render themselves into biodiesel for the rest of us!
This is a "zero sum" argument and is as extinct as the dodo.
In America, the rich get richer and the poor get richer too.
Today's poor in America live as well or better than the middle class did during the '50's when I was growing up. That's why half the world is trying to crash our borders.
No flat screen TV, only one car per family, no health club membership, got to shop at Walmart not Prada . . . Oh, the humanity!
"Labor" is not a lumpen, indistinguishable mass negotiating with an equally indivisible "capital." Individuals workers bargain with individual employers, unless aided by collective-bargaining laws, which artificially forces together their otherwise dissimilar interests. The variation within "labor" is much greater than the differences between Mr. Stiglitz's imaginary categories of "labor" and "capital," which is Marx's language.
Joseph Stiglitz, one of whose most popular books is called Whither Socialism?, is a very smart man in the ways of academic economists, but a socialist through and through.
Wealth isn't "distributed" it's earned. those who have more don't get it because of some cosmic roulette wheel , they get it by earning it. Those who have less get less because they either don't work as hard or don't do things as valuable.
Buffett can do whatever he wants with his money. You are assuming it will be of more help to people than I am.
Anything he wants with his money except buy legislation to take money from me against my will. All this "raising awareness" crap is code for lobbying to get laws passed and government programs kicked off. Everybody knows some people are poor. At least Buiffett is willing to come off his own money, unlike most.
A conservative should know there are very few problems remedied by throwing money at them. Poverty is one of them.
"Wealth isn't "distributed" it's earned."
According to the left, all wealth is earned collectively by our society as a whole, at least that is how they view it. It is of course totally wrong.
The left is really writing a lot of columns about leftist class warfare ("the rich are getting richer", "there is a widening gap between the rich and the poor", "the economy is not fair", etc.). It seems to be gaining some traction with the ignorant.
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