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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (264804)	6/17/2002 8:35:58 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Actually "Concentrations of wealth" DON'T "reflect liberty"... that's too simple a formulation. (There was plenty of wealth at the top in Isabella's Spain, or Imperial Rome, to take just two examples.) If ALL the wealth in the country, but one dollar, was in one conglomerate's hands... I doubt many people would argue that "concentration of wealth reflects liberty". I think what you must have meant to say is that "Liberty promotes the formation of capital and the accumulation of Wealth". - Which I totally agree with! An an ancillary note, many of the greatest economic minds (and also some of America's wealthiest people such as W. Buffet) maintain that America owes it's World-leading economy to two factors: 1) rising average wealth levels, and 2) a greater concentration of wealth in the hands of the middle class in America than in other countries which have high wealth concentrations at the very top... and little in the middle or bottom rungs on the ladder. That is why increasing concentration of wealth in the top .01 % of the American demographic - instead of in the hands of the productive, working, middle class - is a matter of concern to them. By the way, recent census figures show a greater percentage of American wealth concentrated in the very top, billionaire-class sector, than at any time in America since the 1930s. NOTE: nobody is saying more wealth is BAD! (We'd all like more of it... and rising wealth levels all around. It's just not very economically efficient to have too much concentrated in the Plutocracy... as Teddy Rooseveldt said.)