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To: Ilaine who wrote (6129)	7/20/2001 11:28:18 AM
From: Don Lloyd	Respond to of 74559

CB - ...Think of it this way - sometimes people who can't read very well when they get the letter from Publisher's Clearinghouse telling them that they won the sweepstakes!!!!!! with the fine print saying IF they hold the winning number - sometimes those folks think they really won. Well, just because you imagine that you're rich, doesn't make you rich.... This is a good analogy, but it is also an incremental increase in inflation as anything that causes you to think that you're rich will result in your bidding more low valued cash for any given good or service at the margin. Regards, Don

To: Ilaine who wrote (6129)	7/20/2001 12:07:02 PM
From: Cogito Ergo Sum	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi Cobalt, *If you weren't there to imagine you were rich, were you actually rich?* That's just it. Seems the whole concept of wealth is quite ethereal. I'm thinking in terms of assets any of which can appreciate or depreciate or be exchanged. I pump a barrel of oil out of the ground like Jed Clampett. (Out one day, shootin' at some food and up from the ground came a bubblin' crude....:o) I sell it to you for 30$. Now you have transferred 30$ to me and I have created new 'wealth' now represented by 30$ of US currency. You still have the same wealth provided someone else is willing to pay 30$ for that barrel of oil. If you use that OIL to heat your home have you lost wealth ? No. You have realized that wealth into energy. The asset is gone but nothing was destroyed. If you switch to solar heating because your furnace breaks down and then the price of OIL plummets to 10$ then you have a poorer balance sheet. It certainly appears that now you have 'lost' some wealth which has not been converted to anything else. Some wealth appears to have gone missing. Of course to simplify I think I'll just assume that total wealth Just IS. Perhaps it follows simple rules like air. Add heat to air and it expands. Cool air and it contracts. Add irrational exuberance and wealth expands. Add a touch of reality and it contracts. Therefore total wealth is a closed system ? at least my head is not splitting now. Maybe it just keeps expanding but occasionally some of it gets sucked into a singularity ? I'll look up Grace Zaccardi, thanks. regards Kastel PS: Off to the amusement park with the kids now. Got to ride the 'Wild Boar' at Canada's Wonderland. PS: Jay. I've never left my first childhood either (my reminds me often). I'll know when the second phase when required adult pursuits cease to interfere. Now that's retirement :o) EDIT: The air is in a balloon.