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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (22551)	12/6/2004 11:51:49 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

The only true source of wealth that anyone has is their time (i.e. their life). Raw material by itself is not wealth; it only has value because someone else is willing to spend their time developing it. Viewed this way, we can see that land, agriculture, gold, etc were never the real sources of wealth. Labor, i.e. service, has always been the only true source of wealth. Today, as in all times, the value of one's time is a function of supply and demand. So long as we did not have enough food to eat or cloths to wear, time spent on their creation was a valuable commodity. These days I happily give up the labor spent in creation of a shirt in favor of labor spent in creation of a Broadway show. ST

To: kodiak_bull who wrote (22551)	12/6/2004 7:58:03 PM
From: bull_derrick	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Kodiak, I believe you misread my post. My post about the creation of wealth was about how wealth is created in a society and/or nation, not how wealth is acquired by a person. Clearly Gates acquired wealth but Microsoft produced wealth for the United States. Microsoft designs product, then manufactures it (ie puts it on a CD, puts it in a box, and sells it). I agree with the other poster that construction of skyscrapers also is a form of manufacturing. Selling insurance to each other may acquire wealth for the individual but produces no wealth for the nation or the society, just shifts wealth from one part of the society to another. This concept rings true whether one owns the manufacturing line or outsources it. It is the manufacturing process that provides the society with the value-add where output > sum of inputs. WalMart is a distribution company and its IT systems along with conveyer systems support efficient distribution. While this is a good example of how a business model can create financial wealth for a person (Sam Waltons' heirs being what they are), I would argue that Wal-Mart has not created one dime of wealth for society in that the value of their output is no greater than their inputs. Again, in closing, I agree with everything you wrote regarding personal wealth (money) but the subject was how is wealth created in a country or society and that's an entirely different matter.