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To: Mark Adams who wrote (11428)	11/27/2001 2:13:59 PM
From: Cogito Ergo Sum	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74559

Hi Mark, One subtle suggestion buried in the text is that if the holding of capital were more widely dispersed, that consumers would be less reliant on wage income. I imagine most folks on this thread at least are in that club already. I'm looking out 5 years to a point where I won't need to work, but of course that's not budgeting for all the toys I'll want for my free time :o) Still, I'm not looking at not working, just not having to work to maintain a modest and dignified lifestyle with kids college tuition etc provided for. enabling people without any wealth of their own to borrow the funds to buy shares of capital ownership the problem I have with that is not the borrowing but simply how will it work without continued real growth and ever expanding markets. I don't know if they are limitless. Say I work for a company and have some profit sharing plan which gives me stock in the company I imagine that will be part of my compensation so my disposable income is lower ? If the stock produces no dividend and we end up in a no growth environment will I be further ahead ? It is not much different than yes, home ownership (of which I'm a fan), which at least is a forced savings plan but not necessarily a vehicle for enhanced income. In that case it sounds more like better money management to me. That is, they should accumulate wealth by not consuming, by not spending all that they earn. Of course if your money's not working for you that's certainly not optimal. regards Kastel a cute and cuddly Canadian

To: Mark Adams who wrote (11428)	11/27/2001 3:58:26 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

<The means exist to escape from this stale past and define a different social reality for the future: by democratizing capitalism, by ensuring that over time the ownership of capital will itself become broadly shared, dispersed among workers, citizens at large and communities, more or less universally.> That's called communism and we all know what happens there. The idea that capital is some entity like gold which can simply be shared around is false. If you give everyone some of that capital, they will divide up into the lucky, unlucky, smart and stupid and some will have capital and expand it. Others will destroy their capital by bad decisions. By confiscating it from those who have it [the only way to carry out the plan] and giving it to those who don't, the destruction of capital on a grand scale is assured. That means the creation of poverty on a grand scale is assured. That's because those who have the capital have applied their intelligence and luck and ended up with the capital. Those who had dumb ideas, such as investing in Globalstar or Global Crossing, have done their dough and destroyed a huge amount of capital. Capital is like evolution of DNA; the lucky and smart survive. Those who are fit for the purpose go on to success. Those who are not fit for the purpose are filtered out of the gene pool. Faulty DNA can't be made suitable by stealing from those with the good DNA. Similarly, faulty capitalists can't be made good by giving them other people's capital. I heard that envy is one of the seven deadly sins. Mqurice