Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (364415)	12/27/2007 3:55:36 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575607

Your statement is loaded with fallacies, I'll point some out to you.... When one group acquires more wealth and resources of that pie at the expense of other groups, the other groups naturally suffer. Not necessarily true. If we've got 12 slices of pizza and usually you take 5 and I take 7, then later it changes to you take 4 and I take 8, you aren't suffering at all if 4 is plenty. Probably 3 is plenty! I may take 8 and give 5 of them to other people who previously took 0, therefore the change in our distribution from 5-7 to 4-8 actually might help more people. Increasing my share from 7 to 8 may help save you from obesity problems. So....the "other group" does not naturally suffer if the well off gain wealth faster than them. It really depends on what the well off do with their increased wealth. In recent years, the rate of accumulation by the richest has accelerated considerably, meaning more wealth than normal has accrued to the elite and been taken from the lower classes....hurting them significantly in the process. Again not true. Sometimes the "lower class" are the ones who enjoy the windfall accumulation (win the lottery!). The problem with your thinking is you then put them in the "elite" category that is now allegedly hurting the lower class. I don't think Warren Buffet came from any elite group, and Bill Gates might have been comfortably middle class in his youth, so they illustrate the opportunity to move up into the elite class in the USA, but you are counting all of their wealth accumulation as if they began as elites and just took from the poor. They didn't. Well the more wealth in the hands of fewer people means we become less of a democracy. Not unless the people with the newfound increases in personal wealth use it to suppress democracy. Bill Gates using his wealth to promote the health of Africans certainly doesn't harm global democracy, does it? Fewer people control what's happening in the country. With the rise of the internet and instant communication and increased easily accessible media coverage of everything (like CSPAN) you are going to have a hard time arguing fewer people control what's happening in the USA than did say 50-100 years ago. The rich getting richer isn't happening in a vaccuum. It becomes rarer and rarer for one of the non wealthy to get elected to national office. It still happens......see Bill Clinton. 50% of the previous two Presidents were non-wealthy, how does that constitute rarer and rarer? 2/3rds of the current leading Dem candidates are not "wealthy". The facts are not with you, son.... However, most people running for national offices......particularly the Senate and the presidency are millionaires. Unfortunately, in a capitalistic society, wealth equals smarts and competence.....which isn't necessarily true at all. Have you any proof that the income level of politicians relative to the rest of the USA has changed over the past 100 years? Even if you do, that doesn't necessarily mean there is something bad about the rich getting richer. ------------------------ And what do you think about the well educated getting a larger and larger slice of the economic pie than the less well educated? Is that also a problem, since the well educated are getting wealthy "at the expense of the ignorant"?